This is Jessica and, like you, the time she can spend on each assessment task is limited.
Like many university students, Jessica originally started university with search techniques that are good for personal searches, but often poor for finding quality material for assessment tasks.
Can you think of any reason why your current searching might not get what you want for university assessment tasks?
Theodore Sturgeon once wrote: "ninety percent of everything is crud".
This same applies to the websites. No matter how good the search engine, it can only find freely available web pages.
Web pages can be out-of date or incorrect, and many websites are designed for marketing.
Many web pages are simplified for public viewing, without the detail you need as a professional.
Professional content often requires payment, and is not available to search engines as Google.
Access to this content is available to students, employees in some fields of work, and members of some professional organisations.
Let's have a look at some of these resources.
Jessica likes to use a couple of books to give her broader coverage of a topic, and then use journal articles for specific points.
However, her time is limited, so she can't always get to the Library before it closes.
Fortunately, about a third of the overall Library book collection is now available as ebooks, 24 hours a day. (Not many textbooks, unfortunately, as publishers still want to sell these to students individually, even as ebooks.)
About 99.9% of the journal collection is electronic.
Click the button below to show (and hide again) information for finding and reading ebooks:
To read the ebook, click on Online access. The book will open in another window.
Most ebooks will require a login using your normal FedUni ID number and password (the same one you use for Moodle and FedUni email).
Different ebook providers will have different reading and searching interfaces.
After clicking the button above and reading how to search in QuickSearch, try it yourself:
Library QuickSearch - items on the shelves or in the Library's electronic collections and subscriptions
Jessica knows that lecturers and other assessment markers love to see journal articles use as references, even if you only get a small amount of useful information out of each article.
Fortunately, journal articles are not hard to find using QuickSearch
Click the buttons below for information on finding, reading, and referencing journal articles in QuickSearch
Start in QuickSearch. Type in some search words for a topic and click Search (Library main page) or the magnifying glass search icon (in QuickSearch).
The ANDs are optional, the same as in Google.
The double quotation marks indicate phrases (a "lump" of multiple words found together in that order), also the same as in Google.
The asterisks [*] indicate multiple possible endings to a word, so nurs* will find nurse, nurses, nursing (and also nursery and nurseries), while student* will find both student and students.
Because QuickSearch looks at multiple sources, you might sometimes find the same result repeated from more than one source.
Click on the link for Peer-reviewed Journals (this limits your results to quality journals where articles undergo a review process before being published).
Normally you will want to limit by Creation Date (publication date) as well. For Nursing, a good rule-of-thumb is to only use articles from the last 5 years.
Depending on the number and variation of your results, also limit by Topic
.
To read any article, click on the Full text available link under each article.
One or more providers will be listed. Click on the blue Go button beside any provider.
Different providers will vary in their presentation (in a few of them, you will have to search for the article again).
Most providers will have a PDF link somewhere on the page so you can view the full article (and download or print the article).
After clicking the button above and reading how to search in QuickSearch, try it yourself:
Library QuickSearch - items on the shelves or in the Library's electronic collections and subscriptions
Publishing without peer review - articles are submitted, selected and possibly modified by the editor, and published.
Publishing with peer review - submitted articles are reviewed by other experts in the field before being accepted for publication.
Publishing without peer review - articles are submitted, selected and possibly modified by the editor, and published.
Publishing with peer review - submitted articles are reviewed by other experts in the field before being accepted for publication.
The typical scholarly article contains some or all of the following sections (and possibly other sections not mentioned here). Click each one to learn more:
The abstract provides a brief summary of the journal article contents.
Look at the abstract when deciding whether to select and use an article in your search results.
The introduction sets the background and context of the article, and may include the reason the research was undertaken.
Pay attention to this section on your first reading.
The methodology might not be included in some "discussion articles", but will be included in many research articles.
It gives explicit details of how the research was conducted, and should be sufficient to reproduce the research.
On your first reading you might skip over this section.
It's the research equivalent of a cooking recipe.
Results and analysis (sometimes merged, sometimes separate sections) give a detailed listing of the research results, and details on how the results were summarised and interpreted, and may include statistical details.
On a first reading you might skip over this section.
This section might not be present in some "discussion articles".
This is usually a discussion of the results or other sections of the paper, including potential flaws in the research and implications of the results.
Pay attention to this section on your first reading.
This usually sums up the outcome or recommendations from the research or discussion. It is the "bottom line" of the article.
Pay attention to this section on your first reading.
At this point, you might want to consider whether the results and the analysis justifies the conclusion, or whether a strong conclusion is being made from insufficient or uncertain results.
Good-quality journal articles will provide references to either support the ideas and arguments in the article, or to provide a source for the ideas and information used. In-text citations in the other sections will show where each reference has been used. On a first reading you might skip over this section.
If you are using a recent article, the references can be a good source for finding more articles on the same topic.
Is this information relevant to your assignment? Is there likely to be better information?
Is this aimed at the correct audience?
Brown, J. (2001). Silence, taboo and infectious disease. In A. Mills & J. Smith (Eds.), Utter silence: Voicing the unspeakable (pp. 83–91). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Douglas, C., & Crisp, J. (2017). Gathering relevant information and making decisions. In J. Crisp, C. Douglas, G. Ribeiro, & D. Waters (Eds.), Potter & Perry's fundamentals of nursing (pp. 60-80). Sydney, Australia: Elsevier Australia.
Carbonation, L. A. (2012). Can we use MR-mammography to predict nodal status? European Journal of Radiology, 81(1), 17-18. doi:10.1016/s0720-048x(12)70007-4
Locht, C. (2016). Pertussis: Where did we go wrong and what can we do about it? Journal of Infection, 72, S34-S40. doi:10.1016/j.jinf.2016.04.020
Department of Health. (2017). My Aged Care: Ageing and aged care. Retrieved from https://agedcare.health.gov.au/programs/my-aged-care
Fry, S. (2013, August 7). An open letter to David Cameron and the IOC. [Blog post]. Retrieved from The new adventures of Mr Stephen Fry website: http://www.stephenfry.com/2013/08/an-open-letter-to-david-cameron-and-the-ioc/
Department of Health & Human Services. (2018). Rubella (German measles). Retrieved from the health.vic website: https://www2.health.vic.gov.au/public-health/infectious-diseases/disease-information-advice/rubella