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Getting Started

Building a Research Strategy (Part 1)

From the Two-Minute Tutorials Series by Cal State LA Library.

Quick Overviews

Sometimes you don't know enough about a topic to search effectively. Encyclopedias and other reference sources give concise overviews of topics that can help you get to know the topic so you can do better searches for in-depth and scholarly information. This includes:

  • Art movements
  • Artists' biographies
  • Historical events that impact art

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is similar to other encyclopedias, except that the authors can be anyone instead of professional writers. This means that some writers are experts in the topic, and others are regular people like you and me.

Like all encyclopedias, Wikipedia should be used as a starting place for research and not as an authoritative source for your research projects.

Using Wikipedia for Academic Research (CLIP)

This tutorial explains how to use Wikipedia as an exploratory tool and where it can appropriately fit in the research process.

By ClipInfoLit, Creative Commons license CC BY

John F. Kennedy Memorial Library
California State University, Los Angeles
5151 State University Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90032-8300
323-343-3988