Research Support:For Students

Research Guides

Librarians provide resource expertise in a variety of ways, one of which is by creating and developing curated, topic-focused lists of readings and resources known as Subject Guides or Course Guides.  You might hear librarians refer to these as "Research Guides" or "Resource Guides," as well.

Subject Guides are guides that include resources on a general subject area.

You may view all of the CalArts Library's Research Guides here, or select / search through specific guides, including Course Guides.

Course Guides are guides that include resources specific to your assignments / projects, discussions, and other relevant topics in a specific class.  If a guide for your course does not exist and you would like one created, tell your instructor to notify your school's librarian.

Style Guides, Citation Tools +             Reference Management Systems

Need help creating citations for materials you're using and referencing in a paper, project, or proposal?  Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL) is the go-to website for various citation style guides (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.) as well as general writing help.

There are also numerous citation tools found online, including citation generators such as Citation Builder, or CitationGenerator, which can be very helpful for quickly creating a well-formatted citation when no previous example seems to exist. 

If you are performing more in-depth research and are curious about ways to more easily keep track of your citations / references / sources, there are a variety of reference management software options.  We recommend Zotero (Zotero is free, and offers a browser plug-in that interfaces with virtually any type of online search engine, database, and library catalog), but that certainly isn't the only option; alternatives such as EndNote, RefWorks, and Mendeley (among others) also work well.

CalArts Library
24700 McBean Pkwy
Valencia, CA 91355
661.253.7889

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