"You Could Look It Up!"
- Casey Stengel 
The links on this page are intended to help you get started on research projects but it's just a beginning!
See the Student Guide tab on this Information Literacy Guide for a listing of the various ways to get assistance with your research.
Most importantly, don't be timid: contact us or speak to us for help.
The first step in any writing assignment is to figure out what you will write about. This step sounds easy, but requires a lot of thought and brainstorming. Determining your topic or thesis will be the key to all the other steps in the process.
Check out Baruch's College Writing Center for guidance with all aspects of writing. In addition to one-on-one consultations - available both by appointment and on a walk-in, first come-first served basis - the Center also provides a rich array of online materials to aid in writing assignments. Help is available on all aspects and stages of writing. A highlight of the Writing Center's Website is a page devoted to video interviews of Baruch professors on the unique elements of writing for specific disciplines (journalism, communications, English, the Arts, Anthropology, etc.). The Website also features terrific Writing Guides designed to help with the development of a thesis, researching a topical paper, and taking notes.
The next step is identifying the appropriate sources and tools in order to obtain the most authoritative information. This step involves the ability to select information sources. Once information sources are identified, specific techniques can be employed to search those sources with accuracy and precision for the most relevant information.
With so much information out there, trying to determine what's useful, accurate and academically appropriate is not a simple task. The links below can help define criteria for evaluating sources.
Once information sources are identified, specific techniques can be employed to search those sources with accuracy and precision for the most relevant information. The links below can help in constructing a search that yields precise and tailored results.
Using resources without acknowledging the authors of those resources is theft! Make sure that you attribute ideas to the creator of those ideas. Referring to published works in defense of your thesis argument also lends authority and credibility to it and makes it stronger, more compelling and more academically appropriate. Finally, citing the sources you've used allows everyone (including you) to re-trace your steps and to refer back to the original source. Cite your sources! The links below should help you.
