General Resources

Research

  • UA Library’s Mathematics research guide

    List of resources specific to statistics.

  • Finding a Topic and Beginning Research

    A guide from Dr. Dianne P. O’Leary at the University of Maryland. Quite good.

  • How To Do Graduate-Level Research: Some Advice

    Specifically, see section 3 (p. 7), “The Craft of Research—Basic Skills.” Good for undergraduates to sink their teeth in, too. Don’t let the “graduate-level research” bit throw you off. This is great advice for undergraduates, as well.

  • Discovering Statistics

    Yes, it’s focus is statistics but it’s an incredibly useful resource. Great assistance with graduate-level work, though it’s no replacement for a methods course. Even at the undergraduate level it is very useful.

Writing

Not everything here is going to apply to every assignment but they will definitely come in handy at some point.

  • Purdue’s Online Writing Lab (OWL)

    Bookmark this. Get to know it. Shower it with affection. This will likely be your best friend in university.

  • Microsoft Word APA template

    You’re highly encouraged to use the papaja R package (even required in this class) but, barring that, this is a great way to make sure you’re actually following the required style guide, especially if you’ve never done it before. Of course, I would suggest you try using an automated process that lets you focus on the quality of your content and less on how it looks.

  • Reverse dictionary

    Incredibly handy little tool, this. For when you just can’t think of the right word or concept. From the website: “This tool lets you describe a concept and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept. Your description can be anything at all: a single word, a few words, or even a whole sentence. Type in your description and hit Enter (or select a word that shows up in the autocomplete preview) to see the related words.”

  • The De-Jargonizer

    Shows you just how accessible your writing is in terms of scientific jargon.

  • Writing a Literature Review

    The literature review is intended to be a comprehensive look at the literature on a particular topic. Writing one can be devilishly difficult. Here is a guide.

  • Writing a paper with Citavi

    In case you go down the Citavi rabbithole.

  • Zotero and Better BibTeX for Zotero

    Zotero is my go-to citation manager and Better BibTeX makes using it while writing in RMarkdown a breeze. Combined with papaja, it ensures perfectly formatted references and citations.

  • Avoid plagiarism | University of Arizona Libraries

    Using a citation management system like the ones below can go a very long way to preventing this. A very important read.

Tutoring

The University provides free tutoring for writing and math, and various other related subjects, at multiple locations and fully online. Students can access free tutoring in-person at the Cochise and Yuma County locations, at the UA Think Tank in Tucson, as well as fully online from the UA Think Tank.

To find tutoring hours and availability near you, please select your location below to find the tutoring available at your learning center.

Databases

  • Google Scholar

    A quick resource. Good for getting an overview. Certainly is not a replacement for some of the more specialized databases (see below).

  • Academic Search Ultimate

    Great way to search lots of social sciences research. Filters are your friend. Lots of peer reviewed journals and will likely serve as your source for much of the foundational theory and core research. Tip: pay attention to suggested readings after finding an article that’s very well suited to your search.

  • ERIC

    Educational Resources Information Center. Sponsored by the Department of Education. Focus is on pedagogy and education in general, not technology (though it may be included).

  • LearnTechLib

    Formerly EdITLib. Contains a considerable amount of research from technology-focused conference proceedings, journals, and eBooks. Great place to find niche research.

  • CrossRef

    Found the perfect article and want to see what’s cited it and progressed the research? This is your best friend.

  • Scopus

    Much like CrossRef but I’ve had better results with it.

Software

  • UA Library’s Citation Tools Overview

    The library put together a brief page with descriptions and a comparison of the various citation mangement choices. It’s worth a look.

  • Citavi

    I love Citavi and really wish I could get into it more than I do. Maybe it’ll work for you. It’s very in-depth.

  • EndNote Online

    I believe EndNote is the library’s citation mangement software of choice.

  • Zotero

    Another very popular (and now my service of choice) citation and reference management system.

  • Mendeley

    My (former) citation software of choice and I’ve tried a lot of them. Downside (if this bothers you): it was purchased by Eselvier.