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UCI Librarians have created numerous research guides to help you discover the most useful resources to use in different disciplines. Here are some potentially useful guides:
The X̱wi7x̱wa Librarians at the University of British Columbia have created numerous research guides supporting indigenous research. Topics range from indigenous children's literature, to poetry, to Two-Spirit & indigiqueer studies. These guides can provide a lot of information and links to resources, but please remember that library resources that require a subscription will not work for UCI researchers. Talk to your librarian to learn if we have comparable resources.
The UCI Libraries and the UC Irvine campus are located on the homelands of the Acjachemen and Tongva peoples who, in the face of on-going settler colonialism, continue to claim their place and act as stewards of their ancestral lands as they have for the past 8,000 years. The region extends from the Santa Ana River to Aliso Creek and beyond.
The UCI Libraries acknowledge our presence on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Acjachemen and Tongva peoples. And we respectfully honor and recognize the original and current caretakers of this land, water, and air: the Acjachemen and Tongva peoples and all of their ancestors and descendants, past, present, and future. Today this meeting place is home to many Indigenous peoples from all over the world, including UCI faculty, students, and staff, and we are grateful to have the opportunity to live and work on these homelands.
The research process can be daunting. Where do you start? Everyone develops and refines their own strategies and processes based on what makes the most sense to them. Generally speaking, research is an iterative process - research questions may evolve as you dive into the scholarly literature or explore how your topic is currently framed in the news. Or if your project involves collecting data (in interviews or from questionnaires, for example), your literature review may take different shapes as you analyze the data for prominent themes.
Below are a few of my tips and strategies to get started and stay organized. UCI Libraries also has a few self-paced tutorials to stimulate your thinking and support you as you work through your research process.
Google Scholar searches for scholarly literature in a simple, familiar way. You can search across many disciplines and sources at once to find articles, books, theses, court opinions, and content from academic publishers, professional societies, some academic web sites, and more.
To learn more, check out our:
When you find a promising resource, try the following strategies to find additional material:
The content and links on the guide came together thanks to the incredible work of numerous librarian colleagues across the U.S, including the libraries at the University of Arizona, University of Minnesota, and University of British Columbia.