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College Writing

Use this guide to improve your writing skills. Find help for selecting topics, searching for and documenting evidence, writing essays, and more. You may also find this guide helpful for crafting speeches. 

Develop a Research Mindset

Understand research as a process of asking questions and exploring. 

The quality of your research depends largely on the questions you ask. Practice asking a lot of them. Adopt the mindset of an explorer or investigator. Develop a plan; where will you start?  Use different kinds of search tools and resources, and conduct different kinds of searches. 

Think like a researcher: Keep an open mind, be curious, be persistent, patient, maintain high standards, be flexible, and explore

Research takes time and patience; it can also be fun and has value.

Developing your research skills will enable you to identify a problem, collect informational resources that can help address the problem, evaluate these resources for quality and relevance, and come up with an effective solution to a problem. Research skills develop critical thinking and equip you to write better research papers and craft better speeches. You will also improve problem solving skills required to tackle issues in your personal life and in the workplace. 

St. Louis Community College Libraries

Florissant Valley Campus Library
3400 Pershall Rd.
Ferguson, MO 63135-1408
Phone: 314-513-4514

Forest Park Campus Library
5600 Oakland
St. Louis, MO 63110-1316
Phone: 314-644-9210

Meramec Campus Library
11333 Big Bend Road
St. Louis, MO 63122-5720
Phone: 314-984-7797

Wildwood Campus Library
2645 Generations Drive
Wildwood, MO 63040-1168
Phone: 636-422-2000