❖ Try to find a proper topic for your research.
2.2 Exploring Data
❖ 1. Reference books. ❖ encyclopedias, biographical dictionaries,
sources for current events, book indexes, periodical indexes, computer databases, internet sources
❖ 2. Evaluating the Sources. ❖ Ask about the Subject: ❖ Is the subject directly related to my
research question? ❖ Does it provide helpful context or
background information?
❖ 5. If you want to omit part of a long quote, use three dots to explain that there is an omission.
❖ Thurber tells us that “the high-water of my youth . . . was the night the bed fell on my father” (305).
❖ 6. It’s permissible to make changes in a quote for the sake of clarity or grammatical consistency. Use brackets to indicate that you made a change.