Research is messy: Teaching students to expect non-linear research

Abstract

As academic librarians, we provide an array of research services to support teaching and learning on campus. We lead instruction sessions on how to search databases effectively, demo software during workshops, and prepare guides on conducting research. We highlight tools and techniques that instill good research habits, helping students develop advanced research skills that they can use throughout their academic careers and beyond. Because librarians prepare for these activities, often with canned searches and preselected examples of good articles, we can make research look much easier than it is. The messiness of research and how literature searching fits within the larger research process often gets left out. As librarians, we are familiar with this messiness and may allude to it, but how often are we explicitly telling students what to expect?