Polk LibraryCole Comm 111
3 Research Steps to Successful Research when a Thesis is needed
(eg. Persuasive speeches)
- Explore and pick a topic
2. Learn the basics of your topic: Who, what, when, where, why. You should be able to talk for a minute,
without repeating yourself, on your possible topic.
When you participate in research or scholarship, you are entering into an ongoing conversation; you
have to listen or read about that conversation before finding an interesting, relevant question. Many
try to skip this step and end up frustrated. You wouldn't want to go up to two strangers on the street
and join their conversation before you knew what they were talking about.
3. Find an interesting question--not too easy, not too fuzzy, not too many parts, not too impossible.
Should require analysis and thought. Should be debateable.
Topic Exploration (Using AI in student research)
Congressional Research Service
Opposing Viewpoints in Context
Government Search
For current information on the state of a particular issue or bill, try searching in the Government
domain online. For example; 'your search term site:.gov'
Data Use: statistical data can be a tremendous support of for your persuasive speech.
For congressional bills go here
US Data and Statistics Home - scroll down to review all government data sources- explore one
that relates to topic
Journal, Magazine and Newspaper Articles
(Only after you have a tentative questionand keywords)
Google Scholar is a freely accessible search engine that indexes scholarly articles, theses, books, conference papers,
and patents across various disciplines. It allows users to easily find academic literature, track citations, and access
research materials, making it a valuable tool for students, researchers, and educators.
Academic Search Complete contains more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database
offers indexing and abstracts for more than 12,500 journals and a total of more than 13,200 publications including
monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc.
Academic Universe provides access to nearly 5,000 publications on a wide range of topics: news, business, legal, and
reference information. In Business, it includes company financials, SEC Filings and reports, directories, accounting
journals & more
Ethnic NewsWatch is a full-text collection of newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native
press. A rich collection of articles, editorials, columns, and reviews provide a broad diversity of perspectives and
viewpoints -- the other sides of the stories. This resource is searchable in both English and Spanish.
Use for environmental topics
Use for topics concerning social topics or society
Political Science Complete
Political topics
Topics related to sports and athletics
References
Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)
Great information on citing a variety of sources in APA, MLA, and Chicago styles. This site also includes a lot of good
information on the writing and research process.
Citing References in Your Paper
Great site from the UW Madison Writing Center.
Images (Public domain and copyright friendly images)
Pixabay is a vibrant community of creatives, sharing copyright free images and videos. All contents are released under
Creative Commons CC0, which makes them safe to use without asking for permission or giving credit to the artist -
even for commercial purposes.
"Wikimedia Commons is a media file repository making available public domain and freely-licensed educational media
content (images, sound and video clips) to everyone, in their own language." --Be sure to check out their *quality images*.
"Looking for high resolution stock photos for your illustration, comp or design needs? Search morgueFile for free reference
images. Yes, they're all completely free. whether you're an illustrator, art director, instructor or looking to add a defining
visual to a presentation."
