English Language and Literature: Getting Started

Fall 2025

August 18 - December 12

In-person and Online
Monday – Wednesday 8:30am – 7:00pm

Thursday 8:30am - 5:00pm

Friday 9:00am - 4:30pm

Online only

Circulation Desk:  510-981-2824
Reference Desk:  510-981-2821

Understand the assignment

• What type of assignment is it? Research paper, personal essay, opinion paper, or other?
• How long does the paper need to be?
• Do you need to use specific types of sources such as newspapers, magazines, scholarly journals or websites?
• How many sources do you need?
• Which citation style are you going to use for your bibliogrpahy? MLA, APA, Chicago or other?

Choose a topic

• Think about a topic that might interest you, you know something about, or you feel strongly about.
• Find a topic in your textbook, a class reading or class discussion.
• Still stumped? Look at today's New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Huffington Post, or Google News and find a story that interests you and do more research.

Develop Keywords

• Keywords are the terms you use to search for information on your topic.
• Two or more words (a phrase) should be searched in "quotes" for better results.
• Try synonyms, related words, and broader terms if your first search doesn't yield the right kind of results.
• Use AND to limit your search and OR to broaden.