Back in the day, writing a term paper wasn’t as simple as typing keywords into a search engine and clicking through sources. No, it involved a journey—one filled with actual sweat, patience, and a little creativity. For those of us who grew up in a time before the internet, researching a paper was a hands-on process that kids today couldn’t even imagine. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane and remember the old-school ways we used to gather our information for term papers—ways that today’s generation would never understand.
1. The Card Catalog
Before computers, the card catalog was the holy grail of information. You’d walk into the library, beeline for the rows of tiny wooden drawers, and start flipping through index cards, looking for books by subject, author, or title. It was a slow, methodical process, and half the battle was figuring out where to begin. Then, you’d copy down the Dewey Decimal number, hoping the book you needed wasn’t checked out. Today’s kids will never know the thrill of finally finding the right card—after 20 minutes of flipping!
2. Microfilm and Microfiche
If your research needed primary sources, you were heading straight for the microfilm room. These rolls of newspaper archives were stored on giant reels and had to be loaded into clunky machines that looked like they belonged in a 1960s spy movie. Scrolling through old newspaper pages on a glowing screen was an art in itself, requiring patience as you adjusted the focus. The more compact cousin, microfiche, was just as cumbersome—tiny sheets of film with articles you could view one painstaking frame at a time. Today’s students have it easy with digital archives at their fingertips.
3. Actual Encyclopedias
Remember cracking open a thick volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica? If you were lucky, your family had a set at home, or you had to head to the library to find the right edition. These were the reference books of our day, containing a treasure trove of factual information—just the basics, though. You couldn’t click hyperlinks for more details. Writing out your notes by hand (or typing on a typewriter!) from an encyclopedia entry felt like a rite of passage. Wikipedia? Not in our world.
4. Interlibrary Loans
When your local library didn’t have a book you needed, you had to rely on the interlibrary loan system. That meant filling out a paper form to request the book from another library—then waiting, sometimes for weeks, for it to arrive. You’d check back regularly, fingers crossed that it was finally available. Today, waiting days, let alone weeks, for a resource sounds ridiculous, but back then, we celebrated every successful delivery like a small victory.
5. Handwritten Notes from Books
Before laptops or smartphones, all note-taking was done by hand. You’d sit at a desk surrounded by piles of open books, scribbling furiously in a notebook or on index cards. If you were lucky enough to have a home typewriter, you might retype your notes, but most of the research process involved page after page of handwritten notes. The muscle memory of flipping through books and copying passages remains strong for those of us who lived it.
6. Library Research Guides
Many libraries had pamphlets or booklets specifically designed to help students navigate their stacks. These research guides walked you through the process of finding relevant books, using the periodicals section, or searching special collections. The guide might even include some tips on citation styles or writing structure. While it may seem rudimentary now, these handouts were life-savers in a world without Google.
7. Index Cards for Source Citations
Keeping track of your sources was critical, and index cards were the tool for the job. For each source—whether it was a book, article, or microfilm—you’d create a card with the proper citation format. You might have hundreds of these cards by the time you finished your paper, each representing the blood, sweat, and tears that went into tracking down a valuable resource. Imagine today’s kids printing citations with the click of a button!
8. The Periodicals Room
Before JSTOR and online journal databases, the periodicals room was your go-to place for research. It housed racks of magazines, journals, and newspapers neatly bound in rows, often sorted by year. You had to physically pull the bound volumes, flip through them, and read actual articles, taking notes by hand. Sometimes you’d need to photocopy a few pages, but often, you were reading the whole article right then and there. The quiet, slightly musty atmosphere of the periodicals room had its own strange charm.
9. The Infamous Yellow Highlighter
When you were lucky enough to have a book you could actually write in (like a textbook you owned), your highlighter became your best friend. You’d mark important passages in fluorescent yellow, hoping the highlighted words would stick in your brain. Of course, the danger was over-highlighting and turning every page into a blinding sea of yellow. It was an art form, finding just the right balance.
10. Waiting for the Librarian
If all else failed and you hit a dead end in your research, you would go to the actual librarian for help. You’d wait in line, possibly feeling a little intimidated, and then present your topic. The librarian was your guide through the maze of resources, often pointing you to obscure books or archives you didn’t know existed. That personal interaction—complete with a whispered conversation over a reference desk—was something today’s students miss with their instant online chat functions.
11. The Xerox Machine
Once you finally found the perfect article or book excerpt, the next stop was the Xerox machine. Armed with a pile of loose change, you’d feed coins into the machine and pray it wouldn’t jam. Photocopying was a skill in itself, with paper jams, misaligned pages, or ink smudges always a possibility. But when you had those crisp, warm copies in hand, you felt like you’d hit the jackpot. Carrying stacks of photocopies in your backpack was the ultimate sign of research success.
12. The “Good” Typewriter
While this technically came after the research part, writing the paper itself required another tool of the trade: the trusty typewriter. If you were lucky, you had a “good” electric one that didn’t jam or have sticky keys. Every keystroke was permanent, so you’d carefully measure your words and hope you didn’t make too many mistakes. White-out was your best friend, and you learned to proofread like your life depended on it. Kids today will never know the struggle of typing up a term paper in one go.
13. Using a Thesaurus—The Paper Kind
Need to sound smarter in your paper? You turned to the dog-eared paperback thesaurus sitting on your desk. Flipping through the pages to find just the right synonym was a painstaking process, but it made you feel like a real scholar when you found the perfect word. These days, with a thesaurus built into every writing app, kids have no idea what it was like to labor over just the right turn of phrase.
14. Asking Parents for Help
Research could spill over into family time, and sometimes, you’d turn to your parents for help. Maybe they remembered a book you could use or had some old articles lying around. They might even offer to take you to the “bigger” library in town. In a world before online research and digital downloads, the quest for knowledge often became a family affair.
15. Taking Field Trips to the Big City Library
For certain projects, your small local library wouldn’t cut it, and you’d have to venture into the big city for the real research experience. The trip itself felt monumental—walking through the massive marble halls, navigating the towering bookshelves, and spending hours among volumes older than you were. The excitement of a “library field trip” is something today’s generation, with their endless digital libraries, will never quite understand.
Writing term papers in the 70s, 80s, or even early 90s wasn’t just an academic exercise—it was an adventure. Each step of the research process was physical, time-consuming, and, looking back, kind of magical. While kids today have instant access to a world of information, there was something deeply satisfying about the hunt for knowledge, even if it took weeks.
