LibGuides: Research Smarter: Information Literacy Skills: Pre-Research

Understanding the Pre-Research Process

Conducting pre-research is an important step when writing a research paper or completing an assignment that requires research. Conducting pre-research allows you to

Determine if your topic is searchable
- not enough results? broaden your search
- too many results? narrow your search
Learn additional keywords
- look for synonyms or additional terms related to your topic
Get context about your topic
Learn more about your topic and find a starting point to your research

Wikipedia Game

Wiki Concept Map

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Questions & Comments

Beginning Research with Wikipedia & Google

Watch this short video to learn about beginning your research with search tools you already know - Google and Wikipedia. Never cite Wikipedia in an academic paper, but use it for pre-research and background information to get familiar with your topic.

Click the image below to complete the Background Research Tips Tutorial to learn more about conducting background research.

Get Started With Library Search Tools for Pre-Research

Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
Covers every major subject, from art to medicine, psychology to history, and technology to literature. The award-winning titles in Credo Reference include general and subject encyclopedias, dictionaries, biographies, bibliographies, chronologies, handbooks, atlases, and more. Credo's collections are continuously updated to reflect the most relevant, up-to-date content.
Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
Offers a wide variety of full-text interdisciplinary content on virtually any subject area to tackle assignments, papers, projects and presentations. The database includes thousands of full-text proprietary titles from Gale and more than 80 strategic publishing partners, including the complete contents of Drama for Students, Epics for Students, Novels for Students, Poetry for Students, and Short Stories for Students.