First-year writing students engage information at a near constant clip through tools that are familiar to them, and most embrace their ready-access to information of all kinds. They understand and perform "research" from a wide variety of perspectives and in diverse contexts. Yet they perceive a gap between personal research, which they typically describe in positive ways, and their school-based research, which they describe negatively. The difference for students lies primarily in the process, the topics and the kinds of sources they see as defining features of research in each context. Students claim curiosity, interest and personal development motivate their personal research, whereas extrinsic motivators like grades drive school-based research. This dissertation confirms and challenges what college educators think they know about their students as researchers and writers. I explore contemporary first year writing students' views of research in personal and school-based contexts to understand whether they connect their experience as every-day researchers to their school-related research and writing. Two-hundred and five students responded to a survey administered across a first-year writing program, and I analyzed students' perceptions and descriptions of research. In follow up focus groups, I talked with students about specific research experiences in both personal and school-based contexts. Examining students' perceptions and descriptions of their personal research as compared to school-based research exposes limitations in how we conceptualize and teach research-based writing to early college students. I suggest a theoretical framing of creativity as integral to meaningful school-based research and writing. Rather than emphasizing the outcomes or products of research, my analysis of the student data and professional scholarship suggests we might more actively value the research process, particularly the creativity exhibited though individual problem-posing and answer seeking. Writing studies scholarship might more closely consider the social and cognitive implications of source engagement and promote pedagogies for teaching school-based research and writing to better channel students' aptitudes and interest. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]