There are many sources on the Web that are specifically designed for academic research. Try InfoMine , Librarians' Index to the Internet , and The Best Information on the Net . A good introduction to web searching is Ask Jeeves . This site responds to natural language and is very user friendly. Databases - When you use these you can find articles by searching by author, title, subject, etc.
Databases provide citations and locations for articles.
Sometimes you can find full text articles that you can download or e-mail to yourself. Three databases you might want to try are FirstSearch , ProQuest , and InfoTrac . You can access these from on or off campus. In some ways it acts like a code book to demystify and explain the mechanics of paper writing. These guides explain how to write citations for a bibliography, the proper way to use footnotes, how to cite quotations, and dozens of other topics.