Social and Environmental Justice: Start Here

This page provides resources to help new users find materials in Laurier Library, including how to plan a research strategy, links to tutorials about identifying scholarly research, using Omni, and a list of databases for preliminary research. 

Beginning Your Research

If you want personalized help, contact your Subject Librarian.

Start researching as soon as you get your assignment. Some resources that you may want to use might not be easy to access; some materials may be kept in off-site storage or need to come from another organization entirely. Give yourself as much time as possible to find these materials by starting right away.

BEFORE YOU SEARCH LIBRARY DATABASES

Get a basic understanding of your topic. News aggregators, news articles and internet resources can help you get familiar with your topic before you plunge into full research mode. 

Use the Start Here list of databases below to gather basic information about your topic to help you plan your research strategy. You can also search the library's collection of encyclopedias and reference books.

It's okay to use online non-scholarly resources to help you get familiar with your topic, but you cannot cite them as scholarly sources in your work. Use this information to learn who the experts in the field are, to spot trends and gaps in works about your topic, and to generate a list of keywords and subject headings to help you in your main search.

When you search online, remember to test any website you visit for currency, relevance, authority, accuracy and purpose.

Watch these short videos for help with the research process:

Developing a Research Question

Creating a Search Strategy

Recommended Reading:

Developing Information Literacy Skills: A Guide to Finding, Evaluating, and Citing Sources by Janine Carlock

What are Scholarly Resources?

Scholarly resources are materials that have undergone a peer-review process: basically, they have been read and approved by other experts in the field, and deemed good research.

Follow this link to learn about evaluating resources.

Click here for quick videos about evaluating resources.

Click here for a guide to reading strategies for scholarly materials.

See All Tutorials

Omni, Laurier Library's Academic Research Tool

Omni allows you to search all of Laurier's databases and physical materials all at once. You can also search for physical materials available from our Omni-partner libraries.

Getting Started with Omni - 5 Minute Video    Omni Help Page

Encyclopedias & Reference Books

Start Here - Databases for Preliminary Searching

These resources can help you get a feel for your topic by giving you quick access to the most recent news, journal, and magazine articles, and online news resources.