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Faculty Resources at The New School Libraries and Archives

6 Tips for Creating Effective Research Assignments

1. Step one is to test the assignment using our system to determine if needed relevant materials are available. By doing so, you'll ensure students have a positive research experience. (Recommend materials with the Request a Purchase form.)

2. Feel free to email your syllabus or assignment to a Subject Librarian for feedback or suggestions. The librarians are also available to meet with you for a one-on-one consultation (in-person, over the phone, or online via Zoom). 

3. Encourage your students to use a variety of library and archival resources, including books, encyclopedias, periodical articles, images, videos, and primary source materials.

4. Prompt students to find suitable, reliable, and appropriate sources for a research question from physical and electronic sources, primary and secondary sources, scholarly and popular sources, and sources from the library or elsewhere.

5. Encourage students to plan ahead.

6. Refer students to campus resources such as librarians, archivists, computer labs, and University Learning Center.

Plagiarism and Citation Support

The librarians and the University Learning Center support students using proper citations in their projects. We provide access to various citation manuals including Chicago Style Manual, Modern Language Association (MLA) citation manual, and the American Psychological Association (APA) citation manual. For further assistance, we recommend that you reach out to the University Learning Center through their website

Information literacy exercises