1. Choosing a Topic
When you have to choose your own topic for a paper, you can get ideas by visiting a Megasite where broad topics are listed.  When you find a topic of interest, you can click on it and investigate it until you settle on a specific aspect of the topic that most interests you. 

Megasites contain comprehensive, encyclopedic subject information.  Some good ones are:

Best Information on the Net  (also see Great Links to Research Topics)	An outstanding site with information on a huge variety of topics, maintained by Stella Herzig of O'Keefe Library, St. Ambrose University.
Digital Librarian	"A librarian's choice of the best of the Web." A comprehensive site maintained by Margaret Vail Anderson, a librarian in Cortland, New York.
IngentaConnect	IngentaConnect provides a free online search service of published content from reliable research sources and is one of the UK's top 20 Web services.
Internet Public Library	A public service organization part of whose mission is to provide library service to Internet users.
Especially for Young Researchers:   Start Squad	"The very best place to start" for kids to find information.

2. Getting Information About the Topic

A.	Finding Keywords, Synonyms and Related Terms When you know the subject you will write about, it is important to identify: keywords (words that pinpoint your topic) synonyms (other words meaning the same as your topic), and related terms (words or phrases that are similar in meaning to your topic) These words and phrases will serve you as additional search terms to help you find all possible information on your subject. To find keywords, synonyms and related terms, you can use dictionaries, thesauri or other reference books. NoodleTools  has an excellent page to help with your search, including a section you can use to find alternative or related topics (third section down from "I need help to define my topic").
B.	Resources for Finding Information on Your Topic When you have keywords, synonyms and related terms for your topic, you can find information by searching in:

Books *	- to find a book on a subject, use the CMC Libraries Consortium Catalog; e-books (electronic-format books) indexed in the catalog are located on NetLibrary via NC LIVE.  (To access NetLibrary away from the college campus, you must first use a campus computer to set up a free NetLibrary account.) Project Gutenberg is a source of freely-accessible copyright-free (mostly pre-1923) e-books. Other sources are listed at the Internet Links page under Literature.
Magazines and Journals	- to find out if the library has magazines or journals on a subject, use the Periodicals Holdings list
Magazine and Journal Articles, etc.	- to find articles on a general subject, use Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, or NC LIVE  (See the NC LIVE Information webpage for info about NC LIVE & links to specific databases) - to find reports on major issues in the news, use CQ Researcher   - to find articles on subjects relating to literature, use Literature Online (LION) and Bloom's Literary Reference databases - to find articles relating to medical and health, use STAT!Ref and Health Reference Center databases
Metasearch Engines	- to find information on the Internet (see next section below for selected links) Great Links to Research Topics will connect you to Internet information and links about a variety of topics.

* Distance learning students, please see the special note to you on the Interlibrary Loan page about getting books from the college library.

Metasearch Engines can be used to locate additional useful information on the Internet.  These search tools use multiple search engines in one combined search.  Some good ones are:

Google	Searches “2,469,940,685 web pages;” also searches for Images or Groups and has a Directory of topics to search
Google Scholar	Google Scholar finds references (not necessarily full text) to "articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web."  Best used for graduate-level research.
Dogpile	Searches AltaVista, Direct Hit, Looksmart and About, plus others
Search.com	Searches more than 250 search engines at once
Metacrawler	Search for phrases or single terms in a variety of search engines.
Windows Live Search	Microsoft's version of Google's search engine.
Yahoo	Search news, images and videos.

Also see the University of Tennessee Library's Internet Search Engines site for recommended search engines, subject directories and metacrawlers to help you locate information.

3. Judging the Value of Information
Since anyone at all may put any kind of information on the Internet, not all information found there is reliable.  Information Literacy--Evaluating Resources contains guidelines for distinguishing scholarly information from propaganda, and aspects to consider when evaluating websites. 

4. Primary vs. Secondary Sources of Information
If your instructor asks you to use both primary and secondary sources of information, find out the difference at the Xavier University Library site (click on "next" to see a list of examples).
 
5. Other Writing Resources
Need tips on how to get started writing your paper?  Here are some links to Writing Resources on the Library's Internet Links webpage. 
   
6. Avoiding Plagiarism
Plagiarism may have very serious consequences at the collegiate level.  Find out how to steer clear with Avoiding Plagiarism.
    
7. Listing Sources of Information
You will need to list the resources from which you gather the information to write your paper.  Information about Documenting Resources gives you information and links on using various documentation styles for citing both traditional and electronic information.