Steps for locating information for a research paper/project:

1. Select a topic of interest and then state your topic as a question
2. Identify the key concepts and words that describe your question
3. Locate and retrieve information sources that support the topic question; this includes using library catalogs to locate reference books, encyclopedias, bibliographies, handbooks, statistics, videos, and other media
4. Use online databases to find journal articles, newspapers, statistics, and other kinds of supporting materials
5. Find Internet resources; this may include government documents, images, graphs, data, maps and more
6. Evaluate what you find; take detailed notes; summarize and quote source material accurately
7. Cite your sources of information accurately
   • Use a bibliographic management program such as EndNote to organize materials and write your paper with properly formatted citations

When searching the Web, it is important to determine if information presented is accurate and reliable. The CRAAP test is a list of criteria that can be applied to determine if the information on a site is reliable.

• Currency: the timeliness of the web page
• Relevance/Coverage: the uniqueness of the content and its importance for your needs.
• Authority: the source of the web page
• Accuracy: reliability, truthfulness and correctness of the informational content.
• Purpose: presence of bias or prejudice; the reason the site exists.