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Research Help

Welcome to the home of handouts, tutorials and other information to help you navigate research projects! You can learn more about research by checking out the Library Micro-Courses (short, self-paced, online lessons). The Library also provides one-on-one research assistance by email, text, phone, chat, and Zoom. Please don't hesitate to contact us!

  • Getting Started with Library Research (video 3:58 min.)
    Overview of where to find research tools like the library catalog and databases on the COS Library’s web site and what each tool does best.
  • Picking Your Topic Is Research (video 3:10 min.) from North Carolina State University
    Taking time to think through your topic idea will make researching and writing easier!
  • From Idea to Library (video 2:28 min.) from North Carolina State University
    How information is turned into a journal articles that make their way into library databases.

General Searching Skills

  • One Perfect Source? (video 2:09 min.) from North Carolina State University
    How to break your topic down into multiple searches since that "one perfect source" often doesn't exist.
  • Keyword Searching Basics (video 5:19 min.)
    Explains what keywords are, why they are important, and how to choose them.

Ebook Central

EBSCO: Academic Search, CINAHL (nursing), MasterFILE, and many more

JSTOR

OverDrive

SIRS Issues Researcher

Academic Video Online

Films on Demand

Many of these resources focus on using the CRAP/CRAAP Test (CRAAP = Currency, Reliability/Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose).

Scholarly Articles & Peer Review

  • All About Peer Review (video 2:58 min.) from CSU Dominguez Hills
    Explains the peer review process for articles, as well as peer review’s strengths and weaknesses.
  • Anatomy of a Scholarly Article (video 4:48 min.) from North Carolina State University
    A tour of the parts that make up a scholarly article and what you can expect to find in each part.

Primary & Secondary Sources

  • Primary and Secondary Sources (video 5:51 min.) from Grand Valley State University
    Explains what primary and secondary sources are and how those definitions can vary between different disciplines like history, literature, political sciences, and biology.
  • Primary vs. Secondary Sources (video 3:17) from Clovis Community College
    Brief overview of what makes something a primary or secondary source.

General

MLA

  • MLA Style, 8th Edition: Introduction (video 4:30 min.) from Raynor Memorial Libraries
    Provides an overview of how MLA citations work, MLA terminology, and examples; includes both in-text citations and end-of-work citations.
  • MLA Citation Style (8th edition) (video 6:15 min.) from Santiago Canyon College Library
    Walks through an example of how to create an MLA citation with all the formatting and punctuation details.

APA

Contact the Library

College of the Siskiyous Library
800 College Avenue
Weed, CA 96094

Email: library@siskiyous.edu
Text/Phone: (530) 938-5331
Fax: (530) 938-5226

Zoom Drop-in Hours:
Monday: 3:00 - 4:00 pm
Tuesday: 8:00 - 10:00 am
Thursday: 8:00 - 10:00 am