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ENG 111: College Composition I (Frost-Loudoun)

Research tips for your research projects. Direct comments and resource suggestions to Barbie Keiser, bkeiser@nvcc.edu.

Websites

Search Google for your topic keywords. Look for government, education, and/or organization webpages as well as news/magazine publications. Be cautious if using Wikipedia as the content cannot be verified.

Google Web Search

Before using information found on a webpage, consider the following criteria to evaluate its credibility.

  • Who is the author?
  • What are his/her qualifications?
  • Why was the website created?
  • When was it last updated?
  • How reliable is the information?

Beyond Google

Scholarly resources may not be apparent if you simple "Google." You can increase the likelihood that an authoritative resource appears at the top of your results by limiting your search by filetype (filetype:pdf) or domain (site:gov or site:edu or site:org). Alternatively, you can begin your search at Google Scholar

Internet Archive Scholar is a good alternative to Google Scholar. For scientific literature, there is Semantic Scholar

You might even try Elicit, ResearchRabbit, or Perplexity, three Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Assistants. You'll have to "sign up," but it's free and worth experimenting with this AI tool.