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A student perspective: adapting to college-level research

by Margery Ashmun on 2022-02-16T14:38:00-05:00 | 0 Comments

 

 

Dear Readers,

The blog post contributor for this entry is EJ Peck, a Library student employee in the Research & Reference Dept. We've asked her to share insights on how she's adapted to college-level research as a first year student. Thanks EJ!

 

Adapting to College-level research 

EJ Peck, CLA Class of 2026. Major: Undecided 

When I came to college, I knew that I would have to do many research papers but I do not think I was prepared enough for what they would require.

In high school, the teacher was right there to help students and we took it one step at a time. When I received my first research paper prompt at college I saw that I needed 5 sources and none of them could be from the internet. I had a moment of freak out but I knew the library was there to help. 

 

 

I thought that I would have to search the Library website and figure out how to use their website all by myself and that I would be very confused. I opened the link to the Library’s Research Resources webpage from Treehouse and saw the search engine Scholarsearch right there at the top of the Library webpage. I had a sigh of relief when I saw how easy it was going to be to find reliable peer-reviewed sources. The more I looked the more I realized how easy it was to search by subject or find a database that was perfect for what I needed. 

 

 

Although finding the perfect database for your research project is important, just using the simple Scholarsearch search engine on the library home page works great for much of what you may have to do. For other classes I have had to write a simple paragraph that needed a source, so I have just opened Scholarsearch and found an article within a minute. For my longer, more involved projects, I have taken the time to find a subject-specific database that is perfect for the subject area by going to the Resources by Subject” link on the Library webpage. 

 

 

Long story short, always remember that the library is here to help you with research. The website is user-friendly and designed to make this process easy for all students. The website is a great resource, as well as the Research Help desk. Being a Library student employee at the Research Help desk has made me more knowledgeable about Drew’s Library databases and I can confidently say that the people and website are there to help you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contributing to this blogpost: EJ Peck and Margery Ashmun


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