First Year Writing Guide at Northeastern University Libraries  

After you complete the tasks in this guide, you will know how to:

• Express your research topic in the form of a statement or a question and identify pertinent keywords

• Determine the type and amount of information you need

• Select the appropriate research tools.

• Search the research databases effectively to retrieve relevant results

• Evaluate search results and refine your search if necessary

• Get the full text of the materials you need

• Understand the legal and ethical issues involved in use of the materials you have collected

• Cite your sources

Welcome to your First Year Writing Guide!

NU Librarians and English Department faculty have worked together to develop this guide to help you use the Library. This guide will introduce you to library services and resources you will need to complete your assignments for this and other courses at Northeastern.

Web search engines such as Google are convenient for quickly finding information that is freely available online. 

But:

• Much of the most valuable and important material is not free.  

• Web search engines offer limited search options.

Library databases:

• Offer flexible search options that help you to quickly identify the best content on your topic. 

• Link to the full text or to options for quickly obtaining the full text at no cost.

• Help you to manage your content and cite it properly.