Undergraduate Research: Home

Try Research Assistance at the RAD, located behind the Access Services Desk.  A more in-depth Research Consultation is also available.

Gain access to library hours, databases, research guides, and more, as well as chat with a librarian.

One way to find a topic to research is to scan the available issues of Annual Reviews.  Read the article (chapter) titles and their abstracts. 

Each year, the most significant primary research literature is critically reviewed to guide you to the principal contributions of the field and help you keep up to date in your area of research.  

Plan your search strategy carefully before you begin typing words. 

Do you want to start broad and then sift through lots of results?  Do you prefer starting with a small number of precise results, then use each article's list of article references to broaden retrieval?

Broad - Use All or Full Text search which looks throughout the record and full-text article

Less Broad - Use Keyword search limiting to title, abstract and subject headings

Most Precise (fewest results) Use Subject search limiting to subject headings

Use one of the Subject Research Guides to guide you in finding, accessing, managing, and organizing your sources.

ILLiad is an online system used to request library resources not owned by Woodward Library.  ILLiad has many advantages:

• Users will be able to submit ILL requests more efficiently. You will enter your name and contact information into the system only once, when you register in the ILLiad system. You won't have to enter your personal information each time you request materials.
• Users may check on the status of submitted requests through the Web at anytime (24/7).
• Users may view, edit and cancel requests via the Web.
• Users are notified via email when your requests are ready for pick-up.
• If you find an article that you want to request while searching in one of the Library's databases, you won't have to enter any citation or personal information to request the article.

Spending the necessary time to learn RefWorks on the front-end will save you hours of work later!

Simply stated, RefWorks creates a near-perfect Bibliography/References/Works Cited page from the Library database citations that you import while researching a topic.  You only need follow-up in making minor adjustments. 

Additionally, the Write-n-Cite plug-in allows you to easily format your in-text citations using your imported references as you word-process your paper in Word.

When you are off campus and you select a link to an online resource from the Woodward Library website, you will be prompted to provide your Last name (username) and "A number" (password) to login.

For more detailed information, go to the Off Campus Access guide. If you have any problems accessing resources from off campus, please contact us.