Doing Research: A Student’s Guide to Finding and Using the Best Sources

Good research is more than finding a few promising search results. It means asking a workable question, understanding what kinds of information are available, and judging whether a source is fit for your purpose. Doing Research: A Student’s Guide to Finding and Using the Best Sources lays out that process in four connected parts, from getting started to evaluating the material you find.

Start with a question worth investigating

The guide opens with the early decisions that give a research project direction: narrowing a topic, reading for background, and developing a research question. These steps help students move from a broad area of interest toward a question that can guide the search for relevant information.

Understand the sources you encounter

Before choosing what to use, readers consider different types of information and what a particular assignment may require. The guide addresses popular and scholarly articles, how information is produced, and the purpose of peer review—useful distinctions when a source’s appearance alone does not tell you how it was created or assessed.

Build a search strategy, one step at a time

Rather than treating searching as a single query, the book introduces a sequence of practical approaches: begin with keywords, examine the results, move to databases or a library catalogue, add filters, and follow citations. The progression gives students several ways to refine a search when an initial set of results is too broad, too narrow, or simply not useful.

Evaluate sources with care

The final part turns to source evaluation. Checklists provide a starting point, while questions about authority, authorship, currency, purpose, accuracy, and relevance help readers consider a source in context. Together, these prompts support more deliberate choices about which information belongs in a research project.

A practical companion for student researchers

Organized as a tutorial, Doing Research follows the broad arc of a student project, from developing a question to finding and assessing sources. It is aimed especially at students new to university-level research or working in a field with unfamiliar conventions, and can also offer more experienced researchers a useful refresher. If you’re at the point of wondering what to search for—or whether a source deserves your trust—this guide offers a clear place to begin.