Understand your assignment and its requirements! If you have any questions, ask your professor for clarification.
Start your research early. Library materials you need may already be checked out by another user. The Library may not always own a copy of materials you need for your research. Allow extra time if you need materials not owned by Gellert Library. An Interlibrary Loan request can take a few days up to a couple weeks depending on the item requested.
Keep careful and complete notes of your reference citations including author, title, place of publication, publisher, date of publication, volume, and page numbers. You will need this information for your in-text citations and bibliography.
Remember you can access most library resources from anywhere off-campus as long as you have an Internet connection. To access electronic resources off-campus, just enter your NDNU Student ID and password when prompted.
Ask for help! Reference librarians can help you identify and locate resources useful for your research. Librarians can help you in person at the reference desk, via phone (650-508-3444), e-mail (library@ndnu.edu), and through scheduled appointments. Feel free to contact a librarian based on their subject liaison.
Beginning Your Research
To begin your search for books or articles, go to the library's homepage, type in your search terms in the DISCOVERY search box, and click Search.
​Subject Guides
Be sure to explore our Subject Guides, developed to assist you in identifying subject-related databases, books, and websites.
What is Research Process?
Research process is a step-by-step approach for developing a research paper. It generally involves several activities
Some activities might be simultaneous. You might develop and refine your question after locating and evaluating your sources. Your search for relevant sources may continue after you read and analyze some sources and refer to their references/bibliographies.
Developing your Research Focus
Make sure you understand the assignment and its requirements
If the topic is not assigned by your professor, start by selecting a general topic of your interest
Do preliminary research to learn more about the general topic
Start asking focused, open ended questions (what, where, when, where, why, or how)
Develop your research question that will define your investigation, set boundaries, and provide direction
Planning Your Search Strategy
State your topic idea as a statement or question. Example: How does globalization impact local economies of developing countries?
Identify your main concepts. Make a list of synonyms and related terms for each concept. These are the key words you will later type in the Search@NDNU search box.
Example: |
Concept 1 | Concept 2 | Concept 3 |
---|---|---|
globalization |
developing countries |
impact |
global trade |
developing economies |
effect |
international trade |
local economies |
response |
Think about your search limits. Do you want to limit your search to current materials or do you need a historical view? Are you looking for scholarly or popular resources? What are the requirements of the assignment?
Select an appropriate resource to begin your research. Search@NDNU, the library's discovery service, is a great starting point to identify relevant library materials (including peer reviewed journal articles) for your research. Use the search tips below to find resources relevant to your research topic.
Search Tips
Always try more than one search!
Use AND, OR, and NOT with your search terms to expand and limit your search query
AND retrieves records that contain all of the search terms. For example, globalization OR "global trade" AND "international trade"
OR retrieves records that contain ANY of the search terms, but does not necessarily include all of them. For example, "globalization" OR "global trade" AND "international trade"
NOT Excludes records containing the second search term. For example, global NOT warming
Use “quotation marks” to search for a complete phrase: “developing countries”
Use an asterisk* for alternate word endings: econom* will pull results containing economics, economy, economies, etc.