Research and Paper Writing

An Easy Way to Create a Bibliography in Microsoft Word video: Short video showing how to use MS Word to create citations and bibliographies.
EasyBib: MLA Format: Everything You Need to Know Here: Step by step directions for formatting a paper in MLA style, using in-text citations, and creating your works cited.
How Do I Cite Sources?: An article to take you step-by-step through some general guidelines for citing sources.
How to Automatically Insert a Bibliography in Google Docs: A bibliography might be a necessary part of your essay, research paper, or academic piece for including your references. If you create your document in Google Docs, you can automatically insert a bibliography with your citations.
How to Use the Citation Tool Built Into Google Docs: Short video showing how to use Google Docs to create citations and bibliographies.
MLA Style Center: Works Cited: Citations by Format: Shows how a citation looks depending on the format of the source (book, audio recording, website, etc.).
OWL: Purdue Online Writing Lab: MLA Formatting and Style Guide: Detailed explanation of MLA format from Purdue University’s Writing Lab.

Copyright Basics: A short general overview from the Purdue University Library.
Copyright Frequently Asked Questions: Short overview of what copyright is and when it applies.
Creative Commons Licenses: Creative Commons lets the creator decide the terms under which they want to share their work. Learn more at: Get Creative (video) and What are Creative Commons Licenses? (video).
Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Overview: Part of a set of pages from Stanford, the overviews contain clear readable explanations of the basic principles of copyright and fair use.
Welcome to the Public Domain: Discusses public domain (non-copyrighted) materials, how works enter the public domain, as well as copyright is and how long it lasts.

Critical Thinking Web: Over 100 free online tutorials on critical thinking, logic, scientific reasoning, creativity, and other aspects of thinking skills.
The Fallacy Files: Logical fallacies – what they are and how to recognize them.
Five simple strategies to sharpen your critical thinking video: Is the sky really blue? That might seem obvious. But sometimes things are more nuanced and complicated than you think. Here are five strategies to boost your critical thinking skills. From the ‘BBC Ideas’ YouTube channel.
A List of Fallacious Arguments: Describes several common fallacious arguments. Here you can learn to avoid using these false arguments yourself and to recognize when your opponant is using them.
The Ultimate Cheatsheet for Critical Thinking (infographic): Want to exercise critical thinking skills? Ask these questions whenever you discover or discuss new information. These are broad and versatile questions that have limitless applications!
Why people fall for misinformation: How does a fact become a misconception? Dig into the world of misinformation to see how facts can become distorted and misleading.

Evaluating Resources: The questions on this page should help you explain why a particular source is a good fit for your research project. From Berkeley University Library.
Evaluating Web Sites: From the Cornell Library, a set of questions to ask about the trustworthiness of a website. For a more general guide, check out Critically Analyzing Information Sources at the same site.
Four Moves: Part of the longer work, Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers, these simple steps offer specific web-based techniques that can get you closer to the truth on the web more quickly.
Four Moves and a Habit: Handy infographic of four steps to take when checking unknown sites or dubious claims.
How to spot a misleading graph video: This TED-ED video discusses ways in which graphs can be used to mislead and outright manipulate, and what to watch out for to tell if a graph is honest or not.

College Guide to Preventing Plagiarism: From Marywood University, a very complete guide to the various kinds of plagiarism, with suggestions for avoiding accidental plagiarism, and links to detection tools.
Plagiarism: This handout explains what plagiarism is and outlines steps students can follow to avoid plagiarizing.
Plagiarism Game: Test your knowledge of plagiarism with this game from Lycoming College.
Plagiarism Tutorial: A tutorial from the University of Southern Mississippi with information about plagiarism and citing sources, plus quizzes and a self-check test.
Recognizing and Avoiding Plagiarism: Test your knowledge with this quiz from Cornell.
Understanding Plagiarism: This tutorial will help you to understand and recognize plagiarism. From Indiana University’s School of Education.
You Quote It, You Note It: Short interactive tutorial about what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. (In English and Spanish.)

How to Conduct Research Online: Offers a step by step process from finding a topic and refining it to various kinds of information you might look for.
Introduction to College Research: This online book (with download options) is a great place for informtion on disinformation, fact-checking, types of sources, search strategies, databases, citation, and more.
How to Do Research in 7 Simple Steps: In this guide, I’m going to show you the 7-step process for researching everything from a 10-page term paper to a final presentation. Not only will you learn how to do better research; you’ll also learn how to research more efficiently.
Learn to Research Videos for Secondary: A series of animated videos from the Oregon School Library Information System.
Purdue OWL: Research and Citation Resources: These OWL resources will help you conduct research using primary source methods, such as interviews and observations, and secondary source methods, such as books, journals, and the Internet. This area also includes materials on evaluating research sources.
Selecting a Topic: The ability to develop a good research topic is an important skill. …When deciding on a topic, there are a few things that you will need to do…

How to Write a Five-Paragraph Essay: Luckily, five-paragraph essays are really easy to write if you know the expected format and give yourself the time you need to write it. From WikiHow.
How To Make A Paper: Here, we’ll walk you through the most important aspects of making a paper, from beginning to end so you won’t have to whip up a paper in an afternoon, plagiarize, or neglect to do the assignment.
Quoting, Paraphrasing, & Summarizing: Explore 3 different ways of including the ideas of others into your assignments.
Recipe for Research: A Six-Step Process pdf: This guide offers a six-step process for acquiring and organizing information for a research assignment, with emphasis on writing a paper.
WikiHow: Academic Wiriting: Learn about topics such as How to Write, How to Write a Bibliography, How to Write a Reaction Paper, and more with our helpful step-by-step instructions with photos and videos.
The Writing Center: Tips & Tools: Advice from a university on how to write for college.
Writing a Paper: Overview: A thorough yet easy to follow guide through the steps of writing, from describing the steps of the writing process to prewriting and outlining to how to make logical arguments to revising and proofreading.
Writing in College: This short 2016 textbook both explains the purposes behind college-level writing and offers indispensable advice for organization and expression. (2016)