APA format - the formatting style for essays and papers in the social sciences, designed by the American Psychological Association. Go here for help.
Bias - an unbalanced weight in support of or against an idea. Biases can be held at times without us realizing it; against other people, beliefs, or whole groups.
Bibliography - This can refer to a few slightly different things, but usually means the formal listing of all materials you used during your research. Check this out.
Citation - Closely tied in with a bibliography, citations are crucial in any kind of research, and especially research writing. A citation not only gives credit to the person whose work you have used to support your own, but it also allows readers of your work to go and check that source for themselves. Citation formats can vary depending on the type of assignment you've been given, as well as the style guide you've been asked to use. Here's some help, and here's some more help, and don't forget to look around the rest of this guide too!
Confirmation Bias - a tricky form of bias that occurs when we stick to, or automatically trust, information that supports something we already agree with. It's a bad habit because you end up not knowing how to explain why you believe something.
Example: Your favorite YouTuber is reviewing a product you've been wanting. Because you already like that person AND you already want the product, you trust their positive review more. Confirmation bias wants you to stop there instead of finding the opinion of someone who might negatively review the same thing.
Databases - Also sometimes called "scholarly" or "academic" databases, these are where most of the published and peer-reviewed journals you'll need for assignments and projects are. You can explore and get comfortable with what you have access to by clicking right here.
Empirical - A type of data that can be gained through observation.
Fact - Something that can be verified to be true, real.
Footnote(s) - Notes at the bottom of written pages, typically commenting on a cited reference. Deeper explanations, as well as how and when to use footnotes, are here.
Journal article; scholarly article - These are articles published in journals and are written by experts in different fields. Every field of study has many journals, each of which contains articles available for other scholars to read. College and university students often end up conducting research that is published in journals, too.
Keyword(s) VS subject headings - Subject headings relate to how information is input and organized into databases. Keywords reflect your attempts to access those subjects through searching. The terms you put into a search engine off the top of your head usually are called "natural language" keywords. You could imagine it with PIZZA as a subject heading, while "cheese" "pepperoni" "veggie" "thin crust" might be keywords you use within the subject of PIZZA, to get more specific.
Lateral reading - the act of fact-checking something as you read it, by having another tab or window or other resources open to compare claims or ideas against.
MLA format - the formatting style for other written essays and papers, designed by the Modern Language Association. Go here for help.
Objective VS subjective - Anything objective is factual, and verifiable through evidence. Anything subjective is based on opinions or preferences and will vary from person to person.
Opinion - That's right, we all have them. If I say, "bacon is disgusting" - that's my opinion. You might think bacon is delicious, but that's still your opinion. It's only a fact if it can be tested, proven, and sometimes tested again. Opinions are subjective, as in the above definition!
Paraphrasing vs Summarizing - somewhat similar processes, but with major differences in how and when to use them.
Learn more about how to paraphrase, and how it differs from quoting, here.
Peer-reviewed - For a journal article to be reputable, one of the criteria is to be peer-reviewed. This means that one expert's findings must be judged by other experts in the same field of study before that article is allowed to be published. Peer review prevents a single person or persons from saying, well, whatever they want and passing that off as factual.
Plagiarism - This tends to happen accidentally, but sometimes people do it purposely. It's when you pass someone else's works or ideas off as your own. Read more about how to prevent this from happening to you here, because even accidental plagiarism could cost you your whole academic career. When in doubt, ALWAYS cite it. And for good measure, here's a short video.
Primary VS secondary source - A primary source belongs to the person who created it, so let's imagine you are famous and someone someday gets to go through all of the text messages you wrote to learn more about you. (Yikes, eh?) You created a primary source because it's your life and your texts. (This sometimes happens after you're dead, so diaries or documents or reports created by historical folks are a common form of primary sources.) Check this out.
Secondary sources would be whatever someone does with the primary source. So again, if you're famous and someone writes a book about you based on having read your text messages, they've created a secondary source. Here's some more help with these concepts.
Quantitative vs Qualitative - Quantitative, think quantities. Quantitative data measures things and mostly presents percentages and charts. For example, a quantitative researcher might want to know how many people pass a course each semester and find that it is 96%.
Qualitative data describes things and tries to understand the reasons why. For example, a qualitative researcher with the same question might want to see what factors are responsible for students not passing. Which could mean students aren’t coming to class, or don’t turn in their assignments on time, etc.
Website endings - When you are researching online, sometimes there are clues right away about who owns or operates the site.
.edu - belongs only to colleges and universities.
.gov - belongs only to government websites (state and federal.)
.com - this stands for "commerce". Even though it tends to be the default website ending, it's usually used for businesses.
.org - this one is tricky because any type of organization can register a .org, but these are typically used by not-for-profit organizations. (Which, by the way, does not mean they're doing their work without making any money.)
As always, use all of the skills you possess when evaluating a source.
Works Cited Page - If you are using (citing) a source that you have read for your research project, it must go here. Typically used in an MLA format paper.
The {modified} above glossary was written by me, but if you want another fantastic one with even more terms than I have included, check this out.