First things first:
- Make the most of the resources available on campus. Visit your university’s libraries and databases.
- Ask your peers or professors which literature they recommend.
Whether it’s a term paper, a thesis, or just an essay, academic work always requires specialized literature. However, finding the right texts for a given topic can be challenging—especially when you’re new to university and working on your first paper. The following tips will help you find the right literature more easily and quickly.
Recommendations from Professors
No matter what subject you study, there is always basic literature on it. Even on more specific topics in your subject, there are usually already some general and basic treatises. In many cases, you write a scientific paper on a topic specified by a lecturer. So you can be sure that this person is familiar with the topic and has already read a lot of specialist literature on it or even written it himself. So be sure to ask your lecturer which literature is suitable for a general introduction to the topic of your thesis, and you will have a few titles at hand without having to make much effort. At the same time, you can be sure that literature recommendations from lecturers meet the scientific requirements.
Visit the Library
Yes, of course, it’s actually logical that you go to the university library or even a university library to write a scientific paper and then borrow the titles you need. What is meant here, however, is this: Go to the library and browse among the shelves that contain books on your topic. On site, you are guaranteed to find more titles that fit your specific topic than are displayed in the University Library’s online catalog for certain keywords. Feel free to go to seemingly unrelated specialist libraries and browse a little there, often you can find helpful literature away from the actual focus.
Here’s an example: Suppose you’re writing a paper on family magazines in the 19th century. Your primary research might lead you to a library focused on philology. However, it’s also worth visiting a history library to gather background information on the 19th century. These broader insights can enrich your research significantly.
Recommendations from Fellow Students
In most cases, you are not the only one who writes a scientific paper on a fixed “overarching topic”. Of course, your fellow students from the same course also have the same requirements, but the focus is different for everyone. For example, it can happen that a fellow student finds a title during research that doesn’t quite fit your own work, but helps you. Therefore, exchange ideas with your fellow students, do research together and in the end you will not only get other perspectives on your topic, but also find more helpful literature.
Of course, the same applies to any text that seems helpful to you: look at the bibliography. In most cases, you can find helpful basic works or more specific essays on the topic you are interested in via bibliographies of scientific papers.
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