Welcome!  This research guide has been created to help you locate, access, and evaluate sources for your WRT 104 or 106 research. If you need further assistance, please don't hesitate to reach out to a librarian.  Learn more about how to contact a librarian here: Reference & Research Help.

By the end of your library instruction session, you will be able to...

• Demonstrate flexibility and resilience in your research by adjusting search strategies based on initial results.
• Find credible sources using relevant keywords from a research question.
• Apply the CRAAP test to evaluate the currency, relevance, and authority of a selected source.

Here are a few research questions that you might see modeled in your library instruction session:

• How have health disparities impacted COVID-19 treatment in the United States?
• What are the effects of caffeine on health?
• How has climate change impacted Rhode Island, and how are communities responding to these changes?

Still figuring out what you want to research? Not a problem! Use a sample research question from this PDF for your practice in the library databases today.

Concept mapping is a useful activity that helps you brainstorm and identify connections between the critical concepts involved in your topic.  Visualizing the relationship between these concepts is an important step towards crafting your research question.

Use the worksheet below to develop a concept map and create a research question for your topic.

Check out these other guides to find additional information.

Created by J. Kinnie and N. Fosher, 3/2011

Updated by J. Kinnie, 6/2017; Alicia G. Vaandering, 7/2020, 9/2022, 8/2024