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Introduction to Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Welcome!

Research and library resources for students taking ESL/Wr 107, Wr 109 and SEC 111 at Caltech.

Guide Contents

On this site you will find resources to help you with your assignments for ESL/Wr 107, Wr 109, and SEC 111.


Interpreting Citations - how to use the Library to find a cited source.

Finding Articles - tips (beyond Google) to help you find research articles.

Recommended Databases - Library resources to help you get started.

Citation Management - information about programs and tools to help you organize and format your bibliography.

Library FAQ - some basic FAQ's about the Caltech Library.

Getting Started

Key Concepts

After you have formulated your topic question, take a minute and think about the key terms you chose.

Key Concepts and Descriptions

Looking at the terms you've identified, are there other terms, or synonyms, that might be related?

Search Terms

Databases may cover different journals and different time periods. It's important to think of several other related terms to use in your search. Databases may use different key terms in their indexing. In addition, terminology may have changed over time - so a concept may be referred to by different names at different times in history.