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MC 2010 Media Writing: Research Tutorials

How to Develop a Topic

This tutorial should take you 15-30 minutes to complete. When you are done, you will be able to:

  • View research as a process
  • Understand the importance of background research 
  • Choose a research topic that is not too narrow or broad
  • Translate your background research and knowledge about your chosen topic into thesis statement drafts

How to Identify and Locate Sources

This tutorial should take 30 minutes to complete. When you are done, you should be able to:   

  • Select appropriate databases to search for the kinds of sources you need
  • Develop a search statement for targeted search results
  • Narrow or broaden your search results
  • Select the most relevant results

How to Evaluate Sources

This tutorial should take you approximately 20 minutes to complete.

When you are done, you will be able to:

  • Understand why evaluation is important  
  • Determine what type of source you have found       
  • Determine whether a source is scholarly or peer-reviewed
  • Determine whether a source is relevant to your research
  • Evaluate sources based on a variety of criteria
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