How do you develop research skills?

ECON 002B: The Health of Nations

Simon Elichko (they/them)
Social Sciences & Data Librarian

What we'll work on:

  • Why does developing research skills matter?
  • Getting comfortable using some of the resources available to you at Swarthmore
  • How to get the most out of research projects

Research skills?

Kosmyna, Nataliya, et al. "Your brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task." arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.08872 4 (2025).

Expertise &

Disciplines

wheel with colorful segments representing academic disciplines, economics is highlighted
screenshot of Browzine journals library

Swarthmore Works
faculty & student scholarship

Browzine
academic journals
you can access

Doing research vs.

directionless tab overload

stylized illustration of multiple browser windows, each with many open tabs

Practices that can help you actively build knowledge as you work on a research project

  • Create a synthesis matrix to track particular questions and claims across different articles
  • Consider setting up Zotero, which lets you tag your sources, add notes to them, and format citations (also: free storage with Swarthmore.edu email)
  • Brainstorm your research questions and take high-level notes visually using a mind map

Research mapping can help with background reading and your literature review

Active Reading: Synthesis Matrix

Article 1

 		 Article 2 Article 3
Question 1:

 
Question 2:

 
Theme 1:

 

Information Timeline Graphic by adstarkel. Used under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Resources available to you
at Swarthmore

 

Resources

Expertise

Services

Spaces

{Subscriptions to journals and newspapers, books and ebooks, databases, technology}

  {Instruction, project consultation, assistance with requests, selecting materials, managing systems}

{Requesting articles, borrowing books from other libraries, putting materials on reserve for courses}

Some things the Libraries provide:

{Study spaces, meeting rooms; McCabe, Cornell, Underhill, Special Collections}

Some useful tools for doing
research in Economics:

  • Tripod - find books, journal articles, and other resources available through the TriCo libraries

     
  • EconLit - specialized database for finding and reading economics research on particular topics

     
  • Data Resources - resources for finding statistics and datasets, including PolicyMap, ICPSR, Statista, and others

     
  • News Resources - Swarthmore subscriptions to Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times. (*These aren't research, but can be useful for background and current updates.)

Getting a book from the library

  1. Take the paper with your book title and call number
  2. Scan the QR code to open the tutorial on finding a book in McCabe
  3. Use the call number to find your book on the shelf
  4. Take your book and bring it back with you (McCabe 306)

Need the elevator? Turn right

Call number starts with Floor in McCabe
A-E Lower Floor
F-K 2nd Floor
L-Z 3rd Floor

source: McMaster University Library

Library Book Basics

Example call number:
HQ1163 .H55 2022

H: Social Sciences
H: 2nd Floor

Call number starts with Floor in McCabe
A-E Lower Floor
F-K 2nd Floor
L-Z 3rd Floor

Tutorial: How to find a book in McCabe

Scholarly Books

Tripod: Search TriCo Libraries tripod.swarthmore.edu

You can find scholarly books in Tripod and Worldcat,
but you'll also find plenty of non-scholarly books intended for a popular audience.
 

How can you tell which books are scholarly?

• published by a university press or academic publisher (e.g. Routledge, Springer/Palgrave) • cite other research • written by economists (or sociologists, political scientists, etc.) •

Relevance

  • Is it on topic?
     
  • What are you looking for?
    • Background information
    • Evidence / data
    • Arguments
      • Other scholars' arguments that you can critique and build on
    • Methods
      • Ideas for how to approach studying your specific question

Quality

  • Is it scholarly?
    • Does it cite other research?
    • Author expertise
      • Author/contributor bios
      • Try searching:  first name last name cv
    • Publisher
      • Article: was it published in an academic journal?
      • Book: published by a university press?
        • Routledge, Springer
  • How often is this article cited? An imperfect metric, but can be roughly helpful (look up article in Google Scholar)

How do you know if a source is any good?

TriCo
Login to Tripod to request delivery (arrives 1-2 days)

E-Z Borrow
Borrow from academic libraries in PA, NJ  (arrives in ~1 week)

Worldcat &
Interlibrary Loan

Borrow books, journals, microfilm, DVDs, etc. from all over the world. (arrives in 1-3 weeks)

   Penn      Drexel     Temple     NYU      Rutgers

  Swat          Haverford      Bryn Mawr

 Oxford       Columbia      University of Amsterdam

Harvard       Stanford     Museum of Natural History

You can also access library materials from
TriCo and beyond

You can request PDFs of articles & book chapters not owned in the TriCo.

Where to find scholarly journal articles in Economics

You can get links to databases and other resources for this class on the Economics Research Guide


Find a link to Research Guides in Tripod 
or on the Swarthmore Libaries site.

To connect to EconLit, click the yellow S.

Now, try searching EconLit for articles on the country you've chosen for the assignment you discussed earlier today.

Searching EconLit

Research help & advice

 

More ways to get help: