Online Resources for Research Essays and Papers
During the prewriting stage of a research essay or paper, students are asked to gather facts and information. Here are online resources.
Research Tips: How to Research
Easy Bibliography and Works Cited Resources for Essay Formats
For these two research essay resources, just fill in the blanks and it will return a correctly formatted citation. Cut and paste into your word processor; don’t forget to alphabetize by the author’s last name (MLA) or put in chronological order (APA).
- Easy Bib
- Citation Machine (click on the left menu)
Word Processor Formatting for MLA or APA
- MLA Essay Formatting Tutorial for MSWord
- APA Essay Formatting Tutorial for MSWord
Free MLA Essay Template from MSOffice Online
Online Research Sites for Your Essay or Paper
- Research Beyond Google: 119 Authoritative, Invisible, and Comprehensive Resources. The exhaustive list!
- Google Scholar. Searches scholarly and academic journals.
- Bartleby.com.
Searches for quotes in poetry or in Bartlett’s Quotations, Columbia’s Quotations and other sources. - Google Images.
Research For Photos - Wikipedia is an online resource often used by students doing research for an essay or paper. If you use it, look at the View History Tab at the top of the page to see how old the page is. If it’s recent, be careful: it may not have had enough editing to be accurate. If it’s several years old, it’s more likely to be accurate. For example, I wrote the original listing for Prewriting but it’s been edited many times.
Even for established pages, follow up by looking at the suggested references: don’t use Wikipedia as the only resource, but as a starting point for research. Pay careful attention to the bottom of the article where references and external links are given. Often, these are good resources for your research essay or paper and will be allowed by your teacher.
- American Memory, Library of Congress. This government website is a good place to research American History and has first person accounts of many events.
TIP: How to Handle Facts and Information. Once you’ve found facts and information, Paper Lightning: Prewriting Activities that Spark Creativity has easy-to-use activities on sorting facts into categories or topics for use in your essay.
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