Getting started, getting on, or getting stuck? We are here to help!

As the age-old adage has it, “there is more than one way to skin a cat”.  I’ve never looked into the origins of that peculiarly disturbing phrase, but the point holds true - there are many ways to get most things done.  Take researching your assignments - you could struggle on alone, but why not ask a skilled librarian to help you find precisely what you need to succeed?  Whether you are struggling to get started, have hit a technical hiccup halfway through, or you find you need to upskill yourself so you can more easily and rapidly find the best information going forward, we are here to help.

Getting started

Many people find they have difficulty finding quality academic information because they have yet to discover the best electronic library resources for their subject or don't yet know how to formulate a search strategy that will net them the best results in the shortest time. Your subject page on the Library website walks you through assignment research, from the basics to expert-level research, in easy steps, explaining key concepts as you go. 

Getting on

Working your way through your subject page, you will find yourself exploring the lay of the land using encyclopedia articles that you can cite in your essay to exploring textbooks and ebooks through the Discovery Service that brings together most of our eresources in a single search, and on to subject-specific resources that can make all the difference.  Explore resources from health demographics and best practice evidence for Nursing, to company and market profiles and analysis for Business, and audio and visual clips you can edit and recombine for the creative industries. 

Getting stuck

Learning largely means making mistakes and learning from them.  One of the best ways to learn from your mistakes is to recognise you need someone more expert than you to help you find the way forward.  That's where your friendly librarian comes in!  

Stop by the Library Help Desk (11 am - 3 pm, Monday - Friday) in the Library Atrium and chat with a friendly librarian in person.  Show us what you are trying to research and tell us where you are having difficulties and we'll be more than happy to help.  Perhaps you don't know how to start, can't identify the best search terms, or perhaps you have come up with a sophisticated search strategy but it is not finding the evidence you need.  We can help, and we can help you learn to help yourself better in future, helping teach you life skills in finding and evaluating information at speed and communicating what you have found ethically, including referencing it properly.

Librarians can help you find the best information and evidence for your course and assignments (and anything else you are researching!), log into resources, showcase how you can do more than you might think by using built-in tools, demystify everything online, and teach you to search efficiently and effectively to find what you want as quickly and reliably as possible. We also help people understand referencing - what it is, how it works, and how you do it.  A lot of enquiries come down to someone asking us for help to reference something.  While we have a whole lot of guidance online, finding what you need is not always immediately obvious, and we are happy to point you to the right guidance or simply 

Referencing

Referencing is worth a mention on its own.  This causes more anxiety than anything else, despite everything else being worth more marks! Whether it is helping you understand how referencing works - including when you need a citation and when you don't, and how in-text citations relate to the reference lists at the end of assignments,  pointing you to the specific guidance for a particular type of referencen, checking a tricky reference and helping you correct your mistakes, or just giving you a confidence boost and reassuring you that you really do know what you are doing.