High School Classes

When you look for resources for a class paper or project, you are doing basic research.

Libraries provide many resources to help you do research including books, articles, and databases.

Google (Feb 16, 2017). What is research? [Image, screen capture]. Retrieved from https://www.google.ca/search?q=what+is+research

If you are a teacher please see our Information for Teachers page which includes how to arrange an in-person or online library research workshop.

Research can be broken down into steps. This guide will focus on five steps in detail. Each step includes a module:

1. Getting started and choosing a topic

2. Identifying resources you will need to write on the topic

3. Searching, locating, and accessing library resources

4. Evaluating the quality of what you've found

5. Start writing, and citing

Start early, doing research takes time. There are resources and library staff available to help you at any stage so ask us anytime!

The image below illustrates another way of breaking down the steps of doing research into a continual process:

84% 

of students found that getting started was the hardest part of working on an assignment.

This guide is designed to help you with that process.

Head, J. & Eisenberg, M. (2010). How college students evaluate and use information in the digital age. PEW: Project Information Literacy.