Content Research Resources
Use the GWRJ Tags to find published pieces on a variety of topics in the Grassroots journal, from activism and social media to sports and music.
In this Bad Ideas about Writing chapter, Alison Witte challenges us to understand that doing research is more than just looking up answers. Witte shifts the definition of research away from locating information and confirming ideas, and toward generating information and solving problems.
In this Bad Ideas about Writing chapter, Emily Wierszewski describes how research should start with unsettled questions and problems rather than predetermined answers and thesis statements. Wierszewski encourages us to embrace curiosity and uncertainty to conduct genuine inquiry that changes us as thinkers and researchers.
Purdue OWL shares APA’s recommendations regarding avoiding bias in our language regarding race, disability, and sexuality. APA reminds us that researchers and writers can make adjustments to the labels we use, avoid gendered pronouns, and find better descriptors that aren’t exclusionary or inaccurate.
In this library resource, ISU’s Milner Library shows us how sources are more than one thing. This resource defines primary, secondary, and tertiary sources and gives examples for each type of source in various disciplines.
This ISU Milner Library chart describes the nuance within genres by comparing six different types of articles: scholarly journals, trade publications, general interest magazines, newspapers, popular magazines, and sensational magazines. For each type of article, the chart compares a range of elements, like purpose, language, and audience.
This ISU Milner Library interactive image shows some genre analysis of a published scholarly journal article. The interactive image identifies various components of a scholarly article, including the abstract, introduction, and references.
You can also find a plain text version of the Anatomy of a Scholarly Article on Milner Library’s website.
This ISU Milner Library resource shares one way of assessing a research source for credibility: by using guiding questions to evaluate a source’s currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose.
This ISU Milner Library resource describes multiple strategies for using library search tools to locate useful research: using the Milner Library Catalog, using Everything Search, filtering your Everything Search, and navigating to specific databases.
APA is a popular academic formatting and style guide from the American Psychological Association. Because the full manual is sometimes inaccessible, Purdue OWL offers a condensed version of the APA Formatting and Style Guide with navigable online pages.
MLA is another popular academic formatting and style guide from the Modern Language Association. Because the full manual is sometimes inaccessible, Purdue OWL offers a condensed version of the MLA Formatting and Style Guide with navigable online pages.