English Composition II

Welcome

This guide is intended for students taking English Composition II (ENGL 112). If you are taking English Composition I (ENGL 111) or would like a review of what was learned during the library instruction portion of your English Composition I course, please visit the English Composition I guide. 

Finding Scholarly Articles Using RVOne Search

RVOneSearch is a one-stop search tool that pulls results from many of the library's different resources, including article databases, the library catalog, e-book collections, and streaming video collections. You will retrieve a lot of results with one search, but it is a good place to start research to see the wide variety of sources available. 

The video below demonstrates how to effectively search RVOneSearch for scholarly articles. For assignments that require you to find only one or two scholarly articles, you may want to use this search method.

Research to Decide on or Narrow a Topic

At the beginning of your research, you may need to read several sources to understand more about your topic. Often, your first topic selection will be very broad. Doing a little preliminary research, or pre-searching, will help you determine ways that your topic can be narrowed down into sub-questions or smaller, more manageable ideas to research. 

The databases on the next page can be used to pre-search your topic. Different databases focus on different subject areas. Some will cover just about any topic; others will be specifically for history, health and medicine, literature, etc. Remember, even though you may spend some time reading these sources, they might not necessarily be sources that you quote in your paper. Their main purpose is to help you understand more about your topic.