For more information on these and other suggested weekly resources, please review the ILR260 and ASC Resource Alignment Handout.
Learn how to write an introduction, including how to introduce the problem under investigation, describe the background literature, and explain your approach to solving the problem.
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© 2025 American Psychological Association.
Learn how to summarize and paraphrase text to show understanding of research.
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© 2025 American Psychological Association.
Learn the basics of seventh edition APA Style, including paper elements, format, and organization; academic writing style; grammar and usage; bias-free language; mechanics of style; tables and figures; in-text citations, paraphrasing, and quotations; and reference list format and order.
Academic Writer
© 2025 American Psychological Association.
Learn how to create a References section, including how to ensure entries are accurate, complete, consistently styled, and up-to-date.
Academic Writer
© 2025 American Psychological Association.
Learn how to cite references in the text, including how to implement the basic in-text citation formats, cite multiple works, achieve clarity, and format in-text citations with missing author and/or date information.
Academic Writer
© 2025 American Psychological Association.
Direct Quotations and Paraphrases
Learn how to cite and format direct quotations, including short quotations and block quotations; make and indicate changes to quotations; and cite paraphrased material.
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© 2025 American Psychological Association.
Learn how to set up an APA Style paper, including the font, line spacing, margins, paragraph indentation and alignment, and page header.
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© 2025 American Psychological Association.
Revising, Editing, and Proofreading
Learn how to successfully revise, edit, and proofread your draft so you can confidently submit a polished paper.
Academic Writer
© 2025 American Psychological Association.
Research is a life skill. You use it every day - which smartphone should you buy? What college should you choose?
You apply the same skills in your coursework for papers, presentations, discussion posts, and more. It is crucial to know how to navigate through the research process because details for each step of the research process will vary depending on the topic, available research, and assignment or research goal. The main idea behind each step, however, will always remain the same.
Are there assigned topics? Can you choose your own? What are you interested in or passionate about? How many sources are needed?
Think of narrow, broad, related, and similar (synonyms) words that represent the main ideas of your topic or question.
Input your keywords in different combinations in the library databases. AND combines different ideas, and OR combines keywords for the same idea.
Once you've found sources on your topic, review the sources to make sure they are objective, accurate, and meet the assignment requirements.
Did you find what you needed? If not, think of more keywords or try different databases to find better sources.
Once you're happy with your sources, make sure to pull the citation information from the database. Review the citation formatting for any mistakes.
Now that you have your sources, start writing. Remember, you can always go back and find more sources if you need to!
Remember that the research process takes time and effort. You should not expect to complete all of these steps in only a few hours. By thoughtfully approaching your assignment you will be able to pick a reasonable topic, research the topic, and compose an organized piece of scholarly research.
