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The Research Process

When you do it for class, you call it research. If you are doing it for yourself, you might call it just surfing. You are looking for information and either way the process is the same. You could just jump in, feet first, without any planning, and in a very short time you will be banging your head against the wall. Have you ever tried to find something on the Internet and either got thousands of hits, or maybe none at all? Frustrating, isn't it?

If you step back and take a little time to work through the research process you will get better results and much less frustration.

This tutorial is an overview and explanation of the five steps to the Research Process.*

The Research Process:
  1. Clearly define your topic or "information need"
  2. Collect/find information
  3. Evaluate the information you find
  4. Use and/or do something with the information
  5. Use the information ethically and legally
*In Academia, and in the Library world, this is also called "Information Literacy."

          



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Last Updated: Wednesday, 29-Aug-2007 16:46:55 CDT
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