Whether you are writing an essay, a research paper or class assignment you may find that you need help to get some information or data necessary for your work. So aside asking colleagues to help what other resources can you rely on to help you get the information you need to put together your academic paper?
We take a look at some not so known online resource sites that can be of good help with getting academic information for your papers, tests etc.
1. Research Libraries and Databases: If you are working on a paper chances are someone has written something close or relevant to what you are researching/writing on. Some of the best places to find helpful resources will include online libraries and research platforms such as Afribary. Some of the useful research databases you can access to help with your work include Researchgate, Academia.
2. Google: Get online and search your major topics on Google. As the major search engine of choice you are likely to find previous academic resource that will prove helpful to your current paper.
3. Question and Answer Sites: The usefulness of the top Q & A sites is that you can get answers to some unique questions you have that you may not have sufficient answers for when you search online. You are likely to interact with knowledgeable people with more experience in that field and get answers to your questions. The clear leading question and answer site you can join is Quora.com. There are a few general and niche others like Yahoo answers, Stackoverflow (for programming) etc
4. Forums: Online forums, though going out of vogue, are still relevant to asking and finding out relevant information needed for your research. In Nigeria the major forum is Nairaland and we are sure if you search around there would be a forum in your country with at least hundreds of thousands of members. Forums are good for Polls and business research questions.
5. Twitter: Twitter has slowly become a useful tool for research. Depending on how many followers you have amassed you can ask questions, create Twitter polls and have your followers respond. However to use Twitter effectively as a research tool requires some initial work. You should have committed time to grow your actual followers into the thousands at least or more ideally, the tens of thousands.
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