Getting Learned Through Research

            I think that I am fairly decent at researching. I had always struggled with researching information for my different essays in high school until I took a USU concurrent enrollment writing class. In that class, I was exposed to Academic Search Premier and EBSCOE. Before then, I had always been dependent on Google to find sources and information. I look back on it now and realize that the sources I use to find back then may or may not have been the best sources. The instructor in that class required that we got all of our sources from USU’s research center. Throughout the trimester I was lucky enough to become well acquainted with a scholarly search engine and be able to get past all of the different quirks it had and still be able to find really good articles that could relate to my topic.

            I think that finding good articles and studies can be the most time consuming and frustrating part of writing an essay, but I also think that I can find it enjoyable if I can find some way to get legitimately interested in the topic I am writing about. I usually break my research into steps. First, I get onto google and look up ideas for what is out there in the news and see what directions I should take on my topic. After I have found how I can narrow my topic and thesis, I move onto Academic search premier. I try to keep in mind what my argument is and what points I am going to use to support it. I specifically look for what I have in mind and then it just takes time to find the right sources.

            On my current issues paper, I haven’t found that many sources that I will use but I have been spending lots of time looking for ideas for what exactly I will do my essay on. I’ve been spending lots of time on Wikipedia because I’ve found that it always the very basic information that I need to start outlining my essay without all the added fluff. After I am done with Wikipedia, I will set up an outline and then look for specific types of sources depending on exactly what I am going to write on.

            To improve my research habits and style, I think that it would be a really good thing for me to keep better track of the stuff that I research. As I begin writing my own articles, I’ll think of an idea from an article that I read and then come to realize that I never saved the specific article that I’m thinking of so I have to try and retrieve that article or hopefully find another source that has the same information. Not keeping proper track of my sources is probably one of the most frustrating things for me.