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Career Research

The purpose of this research guide is to help students explore possible careers.

Searching the Occupational Outlook Handbook

How to Use the Occupational Outlook Handbook

The Occupational Outlook Handbook is a regularly-updated publication from the US Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. It's an excellent tool to use to explore a wide variety of careers. For each career, it includes training and licensing requirements, median pay, predicted job growth, common workplace environments and duties, and related careers. This video shows you how to search it.

How to Use O*Net Online

How to Search O*Net Online

O*Net Online is a free website that describes thousands of different careers. Like the Occupational Outlook Handbook, it is sponsored by the US Department of Labor and makes use of data from the Employment and Training Administration. What makes O*Net different from the Occupational Outlook Handbook is that its emphasis on career interests. Additionally, it provides state-wide employment data for individual professions and links to job openings in your area. The video below shows you how to search it.

How to Search Career One Stop

Career One Stop is a career and job research website developed by the US Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration. Search it for information about different careers. Among many other functions, Career One Stop allows you take career interest assessments that lead you to specific career paths. The video below shows you how to search it.

Ferguson's Career Guidance Center

Database Basics

Ferguson's Career Guidance Center is a library subscription database. It is not a free website. Have you used the library databases before? If not, then you should watch this introductory video first before attempting to use Ferguson's Career Guidance Center.

Ferguson's Career Guidance Center

Ferguson's Career Guidance Center is a subscription database that helps you research future careers, learn about educational and scholarship opportunities, write resumes and cover letters, prepare for job interviews, and search for current job openings.

APA Documentation

This is our video that introduces APA documentation. I urge you to watch the entire video carefully before starting to write your paper or annotated bibliography. It is much easier to cite correctly as you go along, rather than try to fix your documentation after you have written your paper.

This is our complete APA guide, which goes into more detail about citing sources and formatting correctly.

It includes our sample paper. When you're writing a paper, you can model the formatting of your paper after this one.

If you are unsure how to set up the formatting in Microsoft Word so that it fits the requirements for APA formatting, you could instead download this blank Word document that has the formatting already set up for you.

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