My least favorite type of writing is research papers. I find them dry and difficult to read and write. Unless the topic is incredibly interesting, I do not think I have ever enjoyed reading or writing a research paper. But when I do have to write a research paper, when I am assigned one, I generally try to choose a topic that interests me most.
That is my first step, finding a topic that holds my interest. I generally have some sort of background in the subject, at least enough where I know I am interested. I then turn to the internet for all of my research. At least that is what I used to do. In college so far I have worked on one research paper. I wrote a 12 page paper on street art for my art history class. I have always been interested in the topic and therefore the paper was not too difficult to write. But what I did not like about this paper was that I had to physical texts as sources.
Like the reading we did in class on Wednesday, I, like Liw, generally get my texts from the internet. Now when I heard that I needed physically books for my research paper, I immediately thought I could easily find some online sources that will get the job done. Unfortunately I actually did have to go to the library and talk to a real person and ask them for help finding subject books. It was a nuisance to say the least.
But I eventually did get it done, just not in my normal matter.
My normal routine is along the lines of what Liw did. I do not make things up when they are incomplete or so they integrate into my paper better, but I do use the research strategies he does. Google scholar is, in my opinion, the best way to find reliable sources in the shortest amount of time. It is way better than the library. I also use wikipedia, but never source it. It is just useful to gain a better understanding of a subject.
Although writing research papers is not my favorite thing to do, I do consider myself quite decent at it. That is probably just because I am a good googler, which is all research papers really is.