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CONS 440: Environmental Justice

Research Log

Getting started on a longer term or larger group project? Research is a process and you'll want to keep a log of what you are doing so you don't reduplicate your work or miss steps or useful information. The research log below can help you with this.

Using the research log below (click File>Make a Copy), state your topic as a phrase or question, break it up into the main concepts you need to search, and think of keywords. Also think about what kind of information you need (background, peer-reviewed primary research articles, conference proceedings, foundation or think tank reports, etc).

Literature Review Overview

NCSU Libraries has a great overview of the literature review process in the video below.

Video: Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students

Research strategy

Welcome!  Get started on your research for your project.

Some helpful hints...

  • Questions? Don't hesitate to email or schedule an in-office research consultation.
  • Begin by familiarizing yourself with current and available information and generating keywords and phrases about your topic. Then, search for those keywords and phrases using:
    • The library catalog (for interdisciplinary information resources at W&M) or Worldcat (for national and some international resources available through ILL)
    • Google Scholar for interdisciplinary scholarly resources
    • Databases and other specialized resources in this guide
  • Set up your research strategy and information management
  • Research background information about your topic
  • Do a preliminary literature search in major databases
  • Discover web resources,"grey literature" (non-peer-reviewed scholarly and substantive info), government info, statistics, etc. 
  • Gather or generate analysis of your own information
  • Be sure to evaluate what you are finding! 

Search the W&M Libraries Catalog

Search WorldCat: Libraries around the world


Use WorldCat when you can't find what you want through Swem! It searches article databases and library catalogs from libraries all over the world. Request items through Interlibrary Loan with one click using the "FindIt@WM" button.

Google Scholar Search