The first year of college initiates students into the scholarly community. The Writing Program and the Library have a shared mission to help students develop the research skills that are necessary for successful participation in the scholarly writing process throughout their years at Dartmouth and beyond. Through collaborative work over the last several years, the Writing Program and the Library have identified ten core research concepts and library skills that students should develop by the end of their first year.

By the end of his or her first year at Dartmouth, a student should understand:

• The purposes and processes of library research and the student's place in the scholarly conversation.
• The difference between academic library resources and the free internet.
• How to evaluate information resources – print, electronic, academic, and non-academic – in terms of scholarly and academic quality.
• How to cite and format sources in a bibliography according to the guidelines of an academic style manual.
• The principles of academic integrity and how to avoid plagiarism.
• How to search for books in the Library Catalog, interpret Catalog records for books and other materials, and find books in the Library stacks.
• How to use Library databases to identify scholarly journal articles.
• How to connect from citations in Library databases to print and electronic articles in scholarly publications.
• How to order non-Dartmouth-owned material from Borrow Direct and DartDoc (interlibrary loan).
• How to get help from professors, librarians, and peer tutors.