What is research? It means systematically collecting and analyzing information in order to do something about it. Research can be as momentous as developing a new drug or as mundane as writing a term paper or deciding which refrigerator to buy. Everyone at some time needs to perform research.

First, clarify the question. Even for buying a refrigerator, you need to find out prices, features, brands (and perhaps how often they need service over their lifetimes), etc. Knowing all of that, you won't waste your time looking at models that are too expensive, have a poor reputation, or won't fit in the space you have available. Reference librarians have learned over the years that the question people ask at first is rarely what they really want or need. With or without the help of a librarian, you must focus your question.

Do you want to find out more about the Civil War, either for a term paper or just general interest? For openers, if you ask a librarian, specify which civil war. The American Civil War is not the only one. Do you want a general overview? Or are you interested in learning about a battle one of your ancestors fought in? Focusing your question will keep you from wasting your research time dealing with information that you don't really need or want.

Second, find some information. Most people start with Google or some other search engine. Just as it is important to focus your question, it also helps to choose well focused keywords. Poorly chosen keywords will return thousands of hits, with nothing of any use among the first couple of pages of results. Librarians perform many searches every day and will be happy to help you.

You may or may not be able to find enough information free on the Internet. At some point, you will have to decide if the information you have found is reliable, and then whether it is enough.Besides whatever you can find with search engines, you should know about at least two other major information sources. One would be all of the books, magazines, etc. that have never been digitized. The other would be all of the online information that is not free.

Suppose you want to research what were the major news events on the day you were born. You will need to look for newspapers for that day and magazines that appeared shortly afterward. The library will very likely have a number of newspapers on microfilm and bound copies of interesting magazines.

More and more newspapers are available electronically, but they are contained in various proprietary databases. In order to read them, you must buy access or go to a library that subscribes. Libraries also have other databases from general ones like ProQuest or EBSCO Premier to highly specialized databases in chemistry, history, communications studies, etc.

Databases operate on different principles from search engines. The online library catalog is itself a database, although one that you can find free on the Web. Databases organize information by means of various indexes--for example, author, title, subject, various kinds of numbers, and many more. You can confine your search to a single index. Part of learning effective research techniques therefore requires leaning to take the best advantages of library materials and services.