This Library Guide by Justina Elmore is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Any part of it may be used as long as credit is included. Derivative works can be licensed under Creative Commons to encourage sharing and reuse of educational materials.
I wish to honor and express my gratitude to the Indigenous peoples who cared for the lands where the majority of this guide was developed. I acknowledge that the lands that UR inhabit are the unceded ancestral territory of the Seneca Nation, known as the Onöndowa'ga or “Great Hill People” and “Keepers of the Western Door” of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy whose loss of lives, culture, knowledge, stories, and experiences are a part of Rochester, New York State, and U.S. history. May we all work collectively to combat the continued erasure of indigenous lands, life, and knowledge. For more information on how you can support preservation efforts visit ganondagan.org and senecamuseum.org.
What is Open Access?
Most publishers own the rights to the online books and articles they publish. Anyone who wants to read them must pay to access them. Open access (OA) refers to online research outputs that are free of all those restrictions. Below are tools for helping you locate OA research.
Once you have one (or more) useful article on a topic, use the references at the end of article to find more sources on your topic using our Citation Search tool. This helps you see what was written previous to your current article, often called citing backward.
Use Google Scholar to see who has cited your article after it was published. This helps you see what has been written after your article was published, citing forward.
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Justina Elmore, University of Rochester.
If UR doesn't have the article or book you need, Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is a service that will deliver a copy to you. PDFs of articles usually arrive in two days or less! If you have the citation of the item you wish to request, go to the ILL page: https://illiad.lib.rochester.edu
& log in with your NetID to request an item.
From within any of the library any databases, click the 
button. It will find the full text of your article online if it's available through the libraries. Or, it will search the library catalog for you to see if we have your article in print--or let you request it via Interlibrary Loan.
Looking for books we don't have in the library? Try searching WORLDCAT (either for a title or by keywords on your topic). Click on the button to request a book through ILL.
Still can't find what you're looking for? Please contact me!
Specific: Too much territory to cover? Be sure your scope isn’t so broad or so vague that you can’t answer your research question. Can you break a larger task down into smaller items?
Measurable: Establish clear definitions to help you measure (both qualitative and quantitative) if you are reaching your goal.
Action-Oriented: What is your plan of attack? Using action verbs, describe your goals and outline specific steps you will take to accomplish your goal.
Realistic: What are some possible obstacles to this research? Set goals that you will actually be able to accomplish.
Time-Bound: You only have a certain amount of time to complete your research, so plan accordingly. Decide when you will start and finish your project.