Chapters on doing research in the library are the backwater of English handbooks and rhetorics. Even a cursory survey of the contents of these chapters reveals a strange combination of intimidating lists of indexes, vague-if hopeful-advice about the uses of the card catalogue, and caveats about choosing books carefully and remembering not to steal them. After reading through seventeen introductions to research in twelve currently marketed handbooks, a recently issued guide to the research paper, two popular textbooks, and two widely used technical writing handbooks, I am led to ask 1) what relation exists between what professional researchers do and what the handbooks recommend and describe? 2) what should be the pedagogical goals of these chapters? and 3) how might research writing be taught more effectively ? Professional researchers start with an hypothesis or an observation, not with a topic; they look for answers, not for an exercise in debate; and when they seek out information, professionals scope. They look for every conceivable way to save time and cut through the literature by finding a few trustworthy guides. First, of course, they turn to the telephone to network, to make contact with people who can recommend either experts or publications that present the most recent information. Second, researchers send letters of inquiry to concerned individuals and organizations, a strategy that recognizes that we live and work by committees, institutes, centers, associations, and lobbies that produce thousands of publications, many of which may never appear in traditional bibliographies. Professionals also use automated bibliographic searching, with all of the methods now available for selecting review articles and limiting the field in other ways. Finally, and most important for the purposes of composition teachers, professionals use selected bibliographic tools to find 1) recent studies, 2) review articles, and 3) recent publications that include annotated bibliographies. Here I would emphasize the word selected. It takes time to use