Introduction

Welcome to the Research Skills 102 micro-course series, brought to you by the Mary and Jeff Bell Library. Each micro-course (lesson) teaches you essential information literacy skills that will help you succeed in your academic work, but also transferable skills for navigating online information in your daily life long after you complete your coursework. 

Objectives

Upon completion of these 5 micro-courses, and the final assessment, students will:

1. Develop a research question based on an initial broad research topic.
2. Identify relevant keywords and related terminology, and develop a search strategy to refine search results in either the Quick Search, Google Scholar or a subject-specific database.
3. Learn methods to streamline your use of Google Scholar to help make your searching more efficient.  
4. Identify resources for subject-specific research, including subject-specific library databases, online reference resources, and library curated-subject guides.
5. Define the concept of research as scholarly conversation and identify ways that they can participate and engage in the scholarly conversation. 
6. Understand the concept of plagiarism, identify common forms of plagiarism, and identify how it can be avoided with proper citation and attribution.