These research strategies are based on the Information Literacy Competencies and Criteria for Academic Libraries in Wisconsin , as adopted by the Wisconsin Association of Academic Librarians, 1998. Identify and articulate needs which require information solutions. Think about whether your chosen topic is too broad or too narrow in terms of the amount of information you will find. Identify and select appropriate information sources.
Books are often good for broad background information on a topic.
A periodical index is used to find magazine, newspaper, or professional journal articles. These articles generally provide timely, concise information on topical issues. Libraries generally use electronic versions of indexes now. Some indexes will give you the full-text of the articles, while some will just give you a citation to the article, which is the information about the article which allows you to cite it in your paper. The Internet's World Wide Web is a collection of interlinked documents that work together using a specific protocol.