Scholarly articles are not the place to start your research. First, you need to get to know your category/topic. With general background information you can start to narrow the topic down and create the necessary focus. This will help you develop context for your topic as well as get to know the specialized terms used by experts.
Try Credo and the Oxford Bibliographies resources to obtain general knowledge. Your textbook is helpful at this stage as well.
Credo is an easy-to-use tool for starting research. Includes materials from over 650 reference books on a variety of topics in higher education, including art, business, history, languages, literature, science, criminal justice, and political science.
Use the Credo mind-map function to learn alternate terms and concepts for key points, such as:
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PowerNotes is a research manager that works on anything you can open in your browser.
Save and organize quotes as you research so you've got an outline ready to go. The built-in citation tool can export a bibliography.
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