by Elizabeth Gilbert

Created on: February 15, 2009

Time Saving Research Techniques

To do an adequate job of researching a topic you must first have a clearly stated thesis statement. Next you need to decide how you will record the resources and material you find on the topic. You must also be able to recognize a primary and secondary resource.

As you find pertinent information you need to be sure to collect all of the necessary information. Depending on the report style (MLA APA etc) the needed information will vary and so will the formatting of that information. Be sure you have the report style resources readily available.

If you have access to a computer you should print out your resource material. This will give you both the name of the site and the date you first accessed it. You should also copy and paste the URL (http://___.com) into a word processing page. This will eventually become your citations page. If you continue to add each resource to this page as you find it you will have most of the work of the citations page completed when you finish the report.

If you do not have access to a computer, use a stack of index cards. For each resource write down the URL (http://___.com) and the date you accessed the resource. Again you need to check your report style resource to see what information is required for different types of resources. Books, periodicals, electronic sources, etc all have different requirements. When you have access to a computer you should create your citations page and input the information from the index cards.

It is also important to clarify what sources are primary (from the person that actually originated the survey, statistics, or spoke) and which ones are secondary (reported by someone other than the originator of the findings). Generally for a college paper of any length you would have 5-10 primary sources and 10-20 secondary sources. From those, you would choose which ones to actually use in the paper. It's always easier to have more resource material at your fingertips than to scramble at the last minute to find more information if your paper is lacking the required number of pages.

It might also be helpful if you understand the difference between a search engine (Google, MSN, Yahoo) and a super search engine (AltaVista, dogpile) which can aid you in a quicker search. When you use a search engine program it searches the information in that particular database. So Google searches Google information and affiliates. A super search engine sponsor pays to search many search engines so it would maybe search Google, Yahoo, and MSN therefore finding sites the others would not have available.

Remember you will have less sites to plough through by doing a more specific search. Be sure to use key words that might be specific to your topic. For example if you searched for owl you would get millions of sites. If you searched screech owl it would narrow it down by quite a bit. If you designated white screech owl it narrows it tremendously and is much more manageable for finding exactly what you want without opening so many links.

Be sure to start your research as soon as you have established your thesis statement. Record each and every resource you find and where you found it in case you need to locate it again. Start your citations page early so it's not an overwhelming task at the end. Using a good super search engine and choice words will eliminate an abundance of unrelated on-line sites. Be sure to use a variety of sources both on-line and from the library.

Learn more about this author, Elizabeth Gilbert.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.