Finding the best articles on your topic requires these steps.

• Select an appropriate database.
• Enter and combine terms appropriate to your topic
• Scan the best items on the results list and look for new subject terms or keywords. Then revise your search using these new terms.
• Save the journal title, volume, date, and page numbers.  This is all part of the "citation". 
• Explore other databases and subject terms (which vary between databases) for more information.

Think critically about web sites and print resources.  

• Authority: Who is the author or creator?  What are their credentials for this topic?
• Content: What is the author's bias? Who was the information written for?
• Currency: What is the publication date?  When was the website last updated? Does this matter for your topic?
• Validity: Is the information accurate or valid?  Are there references to other works that support the information?
• Publisher: Do they have a good reputation?

When using information from another source you must give credit to the original author or you are plagiarizing. You give credit by citing the source. Make sure your citation contains everything you would need to backtrack and find the information again. It is best to pick one citation style and be consistent.

When working on extensive research projects, you will need to collect, organize and format all those citations!

The following tools are appropriate to use at Penn State. They all allow you to store and search for your references, as well as link with MS Word to easily create in-text citations and bibliographies.