This tutorial is chiefly aimed at beginning graduate students and undergraduate majors in Classics who are about to write a research paper, junior paper, or senior thesis. To illustrate this step-by-step approach, I have chosen a topic, Aristotle on the Function of Music in Tragedy. It seems a particularly useful topic for this purpose since it incorporates several subjects and disciplines -- ancient Greek language and literature, philosophy, music, history, education, and politics -- and, therefore, offers good practice in doing research.

To illustrate these principles of research, as well as to highlight various library resources at Princeton, I have chosen to perform actual searches in this tutorial. For general advice on research papers, see Researchpapers.com (URL: http://info-s.com/researchpapers.html)

I have not separated formats. The point is to find pertinent materials, not in which format (print or electronic) they may be found.

This tutorial will describe library research at the Princeton University Library although it does describe strategies that can be used in any research library. To do research at the Princeton University Library requires knowledge both of how the computerized library catalog works and also some basic knowledge of the organization of materials.