About Research

Research skills are one of the most important things you should get out of this class. Research may sound like something that is hard to do, but I have tried to make the point that we all conduct research almost everyday. Conducting research in a college class is different from conducting research in your everyday life because you are expected to present that research formally in a speech or in a report. You should understand that learning how to do "college level research," in part means learning the culture of research. To learn the culture of research you should consider assumptions, values and artifacts like we talked about when looked at cultural analysis as audience analysis. 
What are the assumptions your teachers or you have about college level research? What do college level researchers value? What kind of evidence is valuable? What kinds of objects or tools do researchers have?  

Below are some valuable tools that researchers use. 

The Sacramento Public Library is another resource accessible to you 

Research 101: The Library

The main tool in the researchers toolbox is the library. Our Sacramento City College Library is an excellent resource. There are a lot of online resources and now it IS possible to use sources completely from the Internet. But please do not underestimate the value of the library. There is much more than books in any library. Utilize the librarians. Librarians are very special people who often have specialized training and can assist you in ways you could not have known. 
Databases is a keyword you should know and you should explore databases.

The Sacramento Public Library is another resource accessible to you. Their "Research Tools" page is excellent. There are many libraries that can help you and some libraries have special collections and resources about specific topics, people, places, times, events and etc.
More Libraries:
The Library of Congress
The National Archives 
Sacramento State University Library (CSUS)
The California State Library (as in not the college or the Sacramento Public Library)