Welcome to the First-Year Students: Library Basics Guide
This guide introduces several concepts that help to transition from high school to university. Concepts include:
- Academic Integrity
- What is research?
- Building effective searches
- What is peer-review?
Research in Residence is an initiative by the library to bring Research Support Services to students living in residence. Dates and times that the library will be in Residence Commons can be found below.

Academic Integrity can be an overwhelming idea/concept for students new to the university.
The following videos introduce students to some of the ideas of Academic Integrity. The full Academic Integrity Policy for Carleton University can be found here.
The following videos provide a brief introduction to Academic Integrity and looks at plagiarism and citation specifically.
Introduction to Academic Integrity
- Introduction to Academic Integrity (video)
- Defining key terms (video)
Paraphrasing
- Paraphrasing introduction (video)
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Document:
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Document:
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Citations
- Citation introduction (video)
- Using citations to find additional resources (video)
- Activity 1: American Psychological Association (APA) practice
- Activity 2: Modern Language Association (MLA) practice
- Activity 3: Chicago Manual of Style Practice
Citation Resources
OWL Purdue
- Online Writing Lab (OWL) Purdue-This resource is maintained by Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL). This is an excellent resource for citations. They have detailed guides for most of the major citation styles that students will use in university.
- OWL Purdue APA (American Psychological Association)
- OWL Purdue MLA (Modern Language Association)
- OWL Purdue Chicago
- OWL Purdue IEEE
Official Guides (available online or through Carleton University Library)
These are the official guides for the various citations styles. Where possible this list includes link to the online version of the guides. Please note, some guides are not available in electronic format. When no electronic version is available, I have linked to the library's physical item record.
- Publication manual of the American Psychological Association : the official guide to APA style
- MLA Handbook
- The Chicago Manual of Style Online
- IEEE Editorial Style Manual for Authors
- IEEE Reference Guide
Carleton MacOdrum Library's Citation Guides
Carleton's MacOdrum Library has created a number of guides for helping students with the various citation styles.
Carleton’s Academic Integrity policy means that the Library cannot check or verify if your citations are correct. Librarians and Subject Specialists can answer general questions about citation practices. In all cases students should consult the specific edition of the citation guide assigned for your class.
Need more? Checkout the library's Academic Integrity Help Guide directly!

Research can be a complicated thing to master. In this series of videos we look at the research process for new students and explore some of the feelings you might encounter throughout the research process.
We also try and provide a few tools that will help you with your research.
- What is research? (video)
- [Resource] SAGE Research Methods (video)
- [Resource] Assignment Calculator (video)
- [Resource] Library Subject Guide (video)

Building effective searches will be important in your research process. However, if you are new to academic research it can be a bit overwhelming. In this series of videos we look at some of the strategies you can use to help you build strong search strategies and get good results in the library search tool OMNI or our subject specific databases.
The following videos will break down building an effective search, covering: AND Operator, OR Operator, NOT Operator, phrase searching and synonyms and parentheses. We have also included exercises to test your knowledge about the various tools for search.
Building effective search video series
- Introduction to building effective searches (video)
- Using the AND Operator (video)
- Test your knowledge: AND Operator (Activity)
- Using the OR Operator (video)
- Test your knowledge: OR Operator (Activity)
- Using the NOT Operator (video)
- Test your knowledge: NOT Operator (Activity)
- Phrase Searching (video)
- Test your knowledge: Phrase Searching (Activity)
- Synonyms and Parentheses (video)
- Conclusion: Putting it all together (video)

Peer-review is a term you will hear throughout your academic career. These videos will explain what peer-review is, the process that goes into peer-review, why you want to use it in your academic studies, and how to find peer-reviewed journals through Omni and some of our subject specific databases.
- What is peer-review? (video)
- Finding peer-review journal articles (video)

Research in Residence is an opportunity for students to get research help right in Residence Commons!
Dates and Times for Research in Residence
Winter 2023 Research in Residence dates and times will be updated soon.