Library Research 101: Start Your Research

Articles--works of nonfiction writing found in a newspaper, magazine, or journal.

Books--published works that provide an overview of a topic; usually longer than articles.  Books published by scholarly publishing companies may count as scholarly sources.

Citation--listing the source or sources you're using when you're writing a research paper.

Citation format--a citation that is structured in a particular way.  APA and MLA are types of citations that have different formats.

Databases--searchable collections of many articles from many publications.  Databases Fogler subscribes to may be called library databases.

Generative AI--artificial intelligence tools that generate a response to a query based on the patterns of sentences or other materials it has in its data set.

In-text citation--citing the source of an idea that comes from an article you've read immediately after you quote or paraphrase the idea in your project.  Usually done either parenthetically or with footnotes.

Journal--a publication published regularly (monthly, weekly, etc.) that contains articles.

Library catalog--a searchable tool provided by a library to find materials that library has in its collection.  LibrarySearch is the name of the catalog for the University of Maine System libraries.

Magazine--a publication published regularly (monthly, weekly, daily) that contains articles.  Usually written for general audiences, not specifically for researchers.

News articles--articles written to inform readers about current events in some geographic location.  Usually not specifically written for researchers, although they may be useful to researchers studying current or historical events.  Not peer-reviewed.

Newspaper--a publication published regularly (most often daily) that contains news articles.  Usually written for general audiences, not specifically for researchers.

Peer review--a process by which scholarly articles are read and edited by a group of experts on the topic.  These experts may suggest changes and catch mistakes before the article is published, to try to make the article as complete and correct as possible.

Reference list--a list at the end of a research project listing the full citations for all articles cited in the project.  May also be called a bibliography or a works cited page.

Research guides--Webpages created by the librarians at Fogler Library to help students and other researchers find resources about a specific area of study (physics, business, or art, for example).

Scholarly articles--articles published by researchers for other researchers and scholars to read.  Usually peer-reviewed.  May also be called research articles or journal articles.

Scholarly databases--searchable collections of scholarly articles from many scholarly journals.  JSTOR is an example of a scholarly database.

Scholarly journal--a publication published regularly (monthly, yearly, etc.) that contains scholarly articles written by researchers. 

Topic--the issue or idea your project is about.

...you can always ask your subject specialist librarian for help.  We'll be glad to hear from you!