WRT102 McGrath   Tags: wrt 102  

Use your NetID and password to access library resources when off-campus.

If you're having trouble finding material for your paper, take advantage of the Library's Research Assistance.

My contact information is on the right side of this page.  Send me an email.

Instant Messaging. Use the Ask A Librarian instant messaging system on the right side of this page and and on other pages throughout the Library web site.  The service is available M-F 9-5.

Email a question.  We’ll respond within 24 hours.

Visit the Reference Desk in the Central Reading Room (CRR).  There are librarians until 6 pm M-F and trained employees until the CRR closes at 2 AM.  See our HOURS.

Call the Reference Desk at 631-632-7110.  If you're at home, you can call until 2 AM Sun-Wed.  See our HOURS.

Use your Smartphone, iPhone, or iPad to scan the QR code.

More information and a list of scanner applications.

The purpose of this guide is to help you find appropriate materials for doing college level research.

Do NOT use the search box above to search for articles - go the Find Articles tab and search one of the databases listed there.

Use the tabs above to navigate the site.

• Find Books - Find print and eBooks related to your topic.
• Find Articles - Find a list of databases where you can get scholarly, academic, peer-reviewed, popular, and news articles on your research topic.
• Where Can I Find...? Where to look for the type of information you need.
• What Do I Do When...? Ways to resolve various search problems.
• Evaluating Websites - How do you know when a website has good informaqtion?
• Research Tutorials - Interactive and video tutorials to help you with your research.
• Citation - Find out about tools and sites that offer help with handling citation.
• Plagiarism - Make sure you understand the issues involved including examples of good and bad paraphrasing.

Here are some easy tricks that can help with your searching:

Putting an AND between words will search for BOTH words on a webpage or in an article.  When you do a normal Google search, you are doing an AND search.

EXAMPLE: immigration and employment will only give you web pages or articles that have both of those words.  This means you will get fewer results, but they should be better results.

Putting QUOTATION MARKS around a phrase will search for web pages or articles that have that exact phrase.  This is a very useful trick.  It will cut down on the number of bad results.  Be careful not to include too many words inside the quotation marks, because that's EXACTLY what will be searched.

EXAMPLE: “genetic engineering” will only give you web pages or articles with that exact phrase.  Other examples are "climate change," "no child left behind," "body image."

An ASTERISK (*) search is very useful when similar words are being used to talk about a topic.  It searches for all the various words using the same root.

EXAMPLE: comput* will give you articles that have the words compute, computer, computing, etc.  Or: educat* will search for educate, education, educator, educators, etc.

Putting an OR between words will give you articles with at least one of the words.  This will give you more results.  It can be useful when you're not sure which word is being used more.

EXAMPLE: fat OR obesity will give web pages and articles that have the word fat.  And it will give you web pages and articles that have the word obesity.

Use (Parentheses) to group multiple search terms together.  You're basically doing TWO searches at the same time.

EXAMPLE: debt and (teenagers or adolescents) will give you web pages or articles that have the words debt and teenagers and web pages and articles that have the words debt and adolescents.

Still have questions?
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Let me know if there is anything else you would like to see on this site to help you with the class.