Skip to Main Content
Accessibility Information

Online MFA in Creative Writing

This guide is intended to help you identify and locate scholarly and non-scholarly resources (books, articles, etc.) for the Online MFA in Creative Writing program.

Researching as a Writer


We are often told to “write what we know,” but how can we authenticate the reader’s experience for the things we do not know? Research.

Depending on the tale you weave, you may need support in researching details on everything from historical facts, medical procedures, travel times, diseases, legal rules, linguistic discrepancies, to accounts of alien abduction, weather patterns, or regional dialects. For instance, if your character performs brain surgery, you might read up on the procedure in Health Reference Center Academic This link opens in a new window, or if you character works at a sports management firm, you may read up on industry specifics at SMA (Sports Market Analytics) This link opens in a new window. Please feel free to dive in and peruse our databases for all of your scholarly research!  

Research Tools