65 Research
Advanced Information Research Skills (AIRS)
Lyndelle Gunton, Sal Kleine, and Rani McLennan (Queensland University of Technology)
2025
Licence: CC BY-NC
AIRS is an open educational resource (OER) created to empower learners and researchers with the confidence and capability to navigate today’s complex information landscape. It is designed for anyone who wants to strengthen their skills in finding, evaluating, managing, and using information effectively for research. Whether you are a research student, supervisor, librarian, or research support professional, AIRS offers practical strategies and tools to help you, and those you support, develop advanced information skills that make a real difference in research success.
Formats: Online, EPUB, and PDF
APA Style Citations – 7th edition 
Ulrike Kestler (Kwantlen Polytechnic University)
2021
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA
The tutorial covers why it is important to use citations, elements of common source types, and how to create reference and in-text citations based on the 7th edition APA guidelines. This tutorial can also be used as a reference resource.
Formats: Online, EPUB, PDF, and more
Chicago Style Citations – 17th edition
Ulrike Kestler and Sigrid Kargut (Kwantlen Polytechnic University)
2021
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA
The tutorial covers why it is important to use citations, elements of common source types, and how to create footnotes or endnotes and bibliographic citations based on the 17th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. This tutorial can also be used as a reference resource.
Format: Online
Choosing & Using Sources: A Guide to Academic Research, 1st Canadian Edition
Lindsey MacCallum (Ohio State University), adapted by the University of Regina
Licence: CC BY
Canadian adaptation by the University of Regina, with engaging graphics, compelling examples, and easy-to-understand explanations that make Choosing and Using Sources: A Guide to Academic Research, a valuable, open-access resource for completing research-based writing assignments and projects. Students will be better equipped to tackle the challenges of developing research questions, evaluating and choosing the right sources, searching for information, avoiding plagiarism, and much more.
Formats: Online, EPUB, PDF, and MOBI
Doing Research: A Student’s Guide to Finding and Using the Best Sources
Celia Brinkerhoff (Kwantlen Polytechnic University)
2019
Licence: CC BY
A modules-based approach to learning research skills that emphasizes the reflective nature of information discovery, the contextual basis for evaluating that information, and a recognition that information has value.
Formats: Online, EPUB, PDF, and more
Health Professions Education Research Primer
Edited by Teresa M. Chan (McMaster University)
2022
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA
Formats: Online and PDF
Library 160: Introduction to College Level Research
Iowa State University Library Instruction Services
2021
Licence: CC BY-SA
You will learn how scholarly information is produced, organized, and accessed; how to construct and use effective search strategies in a variety of web tools and scholarly databases; how to choose finding tools appropriate to the type of information you need; critical thinking skills in the evaluation of resources; and best practices in the ethical use of information.
Formats: Online, EPUB, and PDF
Making Meaning With & Through Writing: An Approach to Research Writing
Ilknur Sancak-Marusa (West Chester University)
2025
Licence: CC BY-SA
Academic writing is an act of intellectual translation which converts raw ideas into academic discourse to bridge the gap between writer and reader. However, writing is often viewed as a mechanical skill rather than an intellectual craft. This brief text reframes academic writing as a translation process that transforms complex thoughts, research findings, and abstract concepts into purposeful, persuasive writing.
Using the writing process as the foundation, each chapter aims to provide a practice to navigate the recursive nature of writing. To that end, fundamental translation principles are utilized to analyze audience needs, understand scholarly articles, synthesize and craft arguments that resonate across disciplinary boundaries.
Writing isn’t separate from thinking as it allows us to refine our ideas and share them with others in meaningful ways. Embracing this connection between writing and its impact, positions an individual as an active participant rather than a passive observer in conversations that shape disciplines and the world-at-large. This writing guide seeks to equip students with the essential tools needed to engage meaningfully in the communities they serve and soon will discover.
Formats: EPUB, and PDF
Preparing to Publish – Second Edition
Sarah Huffman, Elena Cotos, Kimberly Becker (Iowa State University)
2026
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA
This book offers a wealth of instructional material on the topic of research article writing for publication and thesis or dissertation completion. The text provides graduate student writers with helpful information, strategies, and tips on navigating disciplinary writing in their fields and how to understand, dissect, and ultimately, construct their own research article. The text is organized according to a standard research article format, breaking down each section of the empirical research in a simple and straightforward manner to help graduate students build a quality, argument-driven manuscript as they write up their empirical study findings.
Format: Online, PDF, Ebook
Qualitative Research – a practical guide for health and social care researchers and practitioners
Darshini Ayton, Tess Tsindos, and Danielle Berkovic (Monash University)
2024
Licence: CC BY-NC
This guide is designed to support health and social care researchers and practitioners to integrate qualitative research into the evidence base of health and social care research. Qualitative research designs are diverse and each design has a different focus that will inform the approach undertaken and the results that are generated.
Format: Online, eBook, and PDF
Research and the Information Landscape
Libby Wheeles and Helena Marvin (University of Missouri-St. Louis)
2025
Licence: CC BY
This open textbook accompanies the University of Missouri-St. Louis class INTDSC 1010: Research and the Information Landscape. Intended for undergraduates new to academic research, the course covers practical search and evaluation skills as well as a basic introduction to the world of scholarly communication.
Format: Online, PDF
Social Science Research: Principles, Methods, and Practices
Anol Bhattacherjee (University of South Florida)
2012
Licence: CC BY-SA
This book is designed to introduce doctoral and graduate students to the process of scientific research in the social sciences, business, education, public health, and related disciplines. It is a one-stop, comprehensive, and compact source for foundational concepts in behavioral research, and can serve as a stand-alone text or as a supplement to research readings in any course on research methods.
The contents and examples are designed for anyone interested in behavioral research (not just information systems people), and so, the book should appeal to most business programs, social sciences, education, public health, and related disciplines.
Format: PDF
Sourcing, summarizing, and synthesizing: Skills for effective research writing
Wendy L. McBride
2023
Licence: CC BY-NC-SA
Sourcing, Summarizing, and Synthesizing: Skills for Effective Research Writing by Wendy McBride is a practical guide for students and researchers working on academic literature reviews. It begins by explaining the purpose of a literature review and emphasizes the importance of tone, style, and grammar. The book supports readers in improving their writing through focused grammar instruction on articles, nouns, question formation, sentence structure, and parallelism. It also highlights the development of strong research questions and clear, arguable thesis statements. Readers are taught how to identify, evaluate, and effectively integrate source material, laying a foundation for clear and ethical academic writing.
McBride devotes significant attention to the skills of paraphrasing, summarizing, and synthesizing, showing how these techniques require understanding and interpretation rather than simple rewriting. Sentence strength and variety are emphasized to help writers present ideas clearly and persuasively. The book also provides instruction on writing annotated bibliographies and abstracts, along with guidance on structuring literature reviews. With a blend of grammar support and advanced academic strategies, this guide equips writers to craft focused, coherent, and well-supported research writing.
Format: Online
Surviving Research Publication: A Guide for New Scholars
Lily Compton, Megan O’Donnell, and Kristin Terrill (Iowa State University)
2026
Licence: CC BY-NC
This handbook provides the hidden information needed to successfully navigate your first research publications. From the basics of a literature review, through ethics and the use of technology, this book is an essential guide for graduate students and early career researchers. Topics covered include: literature reviews, citations, literature searches, scholarly publishing, research impact measures, research ethics, copyright, authorship, plagiarism, document formatting, and digital accessibility.
Format: Online, PDF. Ebook
Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers
Michael A. Caulfield (Washington State University Vancouver)
2021
Licence: CC BY
This is an unabashedly practical guide for the student fact-checker. It supplements generic information literacy with the specific web-based techniques that can get you closer to the truth on the web more quickly.
This guide will show you how to use date filters to find the source of viral content, how to assess the reputation of a scientific journal in less than five seconds, and how to see if a tweet is really from the famous person you think it is or from an impostor. It’ll show you how to find pages that have been deleted, figure out who paid for the website you’re looking at, and whether the weather portrayed in that viral video actual matches the weather in that location on that day. It’ll show you how to check a Wikipedia page for recent vandalism and how to search the text of almost any printed book to verify a quote. It’ll teach you to parse URLs and scan search result blurbs so that you are more likely to get to the right result on the first click. And it’ll show you how to avoid baking confirmation bias into your search terms.
Format: Online
Writing for Inquiry and Research
Jeffrey Kessler. Mark Bennett, Sarah Primeau, Charitianne Williams, Virginia Costello, and Annie R. Armstrong (University of Illinois Chicago)
2023
Licence: CC BY-NC
Writing for Inquiry and Research guides students through the composition process of writing a research paper. The book divides this process into four chapters that each focus on a genre connected to research writing: the annotated bibliography, proposal, literature review, and research essay. Each chapter provides significant guidance with reading, writing, and research strategies, along with significant examples and links to external resources. This book serves to help students and instructors with a writing-project-based approach, transforming the research process into an accessible series of smaller, more attainable steps for a semester-long course in research writing. Additional resources throughout the book, as well as in three appendices, allow for students and instructors to explore the many facets of the writing process together.
Format: Online, PDF
