Skip to Main Content

Undergraduate Research: Home

This guide will assist you in finding the literature written about your research topic, as well as guide you in managing and using the sources that you find.

Assistance from an Expert

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

Go APSU Library Mobile!

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

Review the Primary Research Literature

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

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

Find Secondary Sources (Books and Journal Articles)

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

Interlibrary Loan / ILLiad

Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is a service used to request library resources not owned by Woodward Library.  ILL has many advantages:

  • Users will be able to submit ILL requests efficiently. You will enter your name and contact information into the system only once, when you register in the ILLiad system. You will not 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 their 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 will not have to enter any citation or personal information to request the article.

Use RefWorks

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.

Find Periodicals (Journals, Magazines and Newspapers)

Looking for a journal article that you saw listed in a source's references?  Use the search box below to see if APSU's Library has electronic or print access to the journal title.  Selecting "subject" will allow you to search for a list of journals by subject. 

Limit to...
Full Text Resources
Public Access Resources

Off Campus Access

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 APSU single sign-on (OneStop) credentials to login.

APSU SSO login
If you have problems accessing resources from off campus, please call the Library’s Access Services Desk at 931-221-7978 or Ask the InfoHub