Art History: Getting Started

Fall Hours

Mon - Th 8:30a - 8p

Fri 8:30a - 4p

Closed Sat, Sun

Questions about borrowing library textbooks, Chromebooks, or other materials?
Call us: 707-468-3158
Email us: libraryhelp@mendocino.edu

Need assistance with your research?

Call us: 707-468-3245
Email us: librarian@mendocino.edu

​Ukiah Campus
Library/Learning Center, 2nd Fl.
1000 Hensley Road
Ukiah, CA  95482

Understand the assignment

• What type of assignment is it? Research paper, personal essay, opinion paper, or other?
• How long does the paper need to be?
• Do you need to use specific types of sources such as newspapers, magazines, scholarly journals or websites?
• How many sources do you need?
• Which citation style are you going to use for your bibliogrpahy? MLA, APA, Chicago or other?

Choose a topic

• Think about a topic that might interest you, you know something about, or you feel strongly about.
• Find a topic in your textbook, a class reading or class discussion.
• Still stumped? Look at today's New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Huffington Post, or Google News and find a story that interests you and do more research.

Develop Keywords

• Keywords are the terms you use to search for information on your topic.
• Two or more words (a phrase) should be searched in "quotes" for better results.
• Try synonyms, related words, and broader terms if your first search doesn't yield the right kind of results.
• Use AND to limit your search and OR to broaden.