Get started on that term paper!

Even though it's only mid-October, you might want to start thinking about any end-of-semester projects or term papers you have to write. Some professors will force you to start early by asking you to hand in various parts of the paper throughout the semester. But if you have a class where the professor isn't doing that, you might find yourself scrambling for sources in the week before it's due. Taking a few minutes now to get started will help you out in the long run. Even if you only start gathering sources and don't look at them right away, you'll still be a step ahead of the game.



If you're not sure where to start, first check out our Survival Skills Workshops. Otherwise, the best place to start is our subject guides. In the "Find Articles and Other Resources" section on the library homepage, there's a menu labeled "Subject." Pull that down and select the appropriate field for your project. This will take you to the Subject Guide for that discipline, where you'll find information on the best research databases (for articles), reference books, websites and other resources. Depending on exactly what you're researching, you might also want to check some of the other subject guides.

For books, you'll want to search the library catalog. You can do that from the library homepage, in the "Find Books and Media" section. If you find something in our catalog that's at another college, you can have it delivered here by clicking the "request" button at the top of the page.

If you want to expand beyond what's available in our catalog, you can search WorldCat (linked at the bottom of the "Find Books and Media" section of the homepage) and find even more books. If we have a book that's listed in WorldCat, you'll see a link to the library catalog to get the call number. For all the rest, you can put in an Interlibrary Loan request (you can link to the form from the top right of the library homepage) and have the book delivered here.

You can also use Interlibrary Loan for articles -- providing you have the whole citation, and haven't been able to find the article through our "Find E-Journals" search (guess what -- that's also on the library homepage) or in the library catalog. Here's a tutorial on how to check those two places before you submit an Interlibrary Loan request for an article.

Take a look at our How do I? page for quick answers to some basic questions about using LNDL. For more in-depth help, check out our Help Guides. Both of these are linked off of the library homepage as well. And of course, you can always contact the Research Assistance desk for help.