It’s best to write on a subject that interests you. Almost any idea can be turned into a topic for a research paper. Browse through the current periodicals on the second floor. What catches your eye? Is it Backpacker? People magazine? Think about ways to take a brief article and turn it into a longer, research paper. Is there a legal or ethical aspect to the subject that you could explore? Is there any controversy surrounding the people or ideas involved? Has the history of a concept changed over time?

Example: A brief article from the April 2007 issue of Backpacker discusses whether the number of climbing passes for Mt. McKinley should be limited. Take this basic question and:

• Expand the idea to other parks, in the U.S or in other countries, such as Mt. Everest: Are permits limited there or not? What has been the result?
• Consider other types of permits, such as for snowmobiles in national parks: What are the arguments for and against those restrictions? Has anyone studied the results?
• Try to identify the values in conflict: safety vs. personal freedom; governmental regulation vs. individual rights; nature as a common good vs. economic rights of individuals and/or corporations.

To find out what a library owns, you'll use the catalog. These days, most library catalogs are computerized and referred to as "online catalogs." The online catalog does the same thing that the traditional card catalog (that wooden thing with all the drawers and cards) does: lets you find books, videos, DVDs, CDs and other materials that are located in the library.

The University of Idaho Library uses the Library of Congress system to organize its materials. Each item has a call number that begins with a letter A through Z followed by numbers. In contrast, many public and school libraries use the Dewey Decimal system, which uses only numbers. The University of Idaho Library's online catalog is easily accessed on the library's homepage at www.lib.uidaho.edu

Books can be useful to:

• Get an overview or background information on a topic
• Get ideas for focusing your own research
• Find bibliographies of more in-depth sources
• Find quick facts and statistics
• Find biographical information

Use books with the following in mind:

• Books on a broad topic may contain chapters or essays on your topic. You don't necessarily have to read the whole book.
• Check the index of a book to find your subject.
• The bibliography in a book can be a great place to find additional sources.

Ask the following questions:

1. What are the author's and/or publisher's credentials?
2. What else has the author written?
3. Is the author and/or publisher associated with a specific institution or organization? Is that entity reliable? Does it have a particular viewpoint or agenda?

When doing college-level research, you need to be aware of certain characteristics of your resources. Considerations such as who the author is, who the intended audience is, and how the resource cites its sources are among the characteristics of a book, magazine, website or other information resource that will tell you how useful it will be to you for your research.

When speaking about magazines and journals, we often make a distinction between scholarly resources (which will be most helpful for your research) and popular resources (which you usually want to avoid for serious scholarly research). Before you begin searching for articles for your research, make sure that you understand the difference between scholarly publications (e.g. Journal of Music Theory) and popular publications (e.g. Rolling Stone). To find articles at the University of Idaho Library, the first step is to use an online article database. Module 3 of the University of Idaho's Information Literacy Tutorial provides general information on what an article database is and how to effectively search one. Once you understand what a database is and how to use it, you'll want to become familiar with the databases that UI has access to. This tutorial will show you how to get to our databases online and how to find an article using Ebsco. Ebsco is an excellent database for finding information on many different subjects.
Are you confident that the information you're finding and using is reliable? Or is it just CRAAP? Visit the three links below in order to learn more about how to evaluate websites.



Make sure to copy all the relevant information about any source you might want to use in your paper: author, title, journal name, date of publication, page number, etc. For help in citing your sources (that is, telling the reader where you got your information), visit the tutorial below.

Note: The EBSCO databases allow you to choose a citation format when you print or email articles, which makes the whole process very easy.

The ease of cutting and pasting from electronic resources can lead to putting your name on a work that is not really yours. This is both illegal and unethical. That is why the University of Idaho has a plagiarism policy.