Research Tips

As many of you are about to embark on research tasks for your Term 2 assessment, the iCentre are here to support you with your research goals with some tips and tricks for effective research.

1. Find and use authoritative and credible resources.

Finding and using good quality resources can seem overwhelming with Google at the tip of your fingertips. The iCentre OPAC provides a range of resources and databases for you to access. A simple search in the OPAC for your key terms will result in a range of resources to help you start your research, including books, articles, and websites. Also, by clicking on One Search you can access the databases we have.

You can also find a tutorial on the OPAC, which will step you through using the databases.

Other authoritative and credible websites we recommend include:

• The State Library
• Trove
• National Library of Australia

To help students with the issue of assessing resources, they can find helpful tips from the Study Skills Handbook, located under the Quicklinks tab on the website.

By going to the Research Skills section, students can view the following video and access strategies to help them verify the authenticity and accuracy of information sources.

2. Researching effectively.

To make sure you are getting the most out of your research, it is important you research effectively. To help with your research practice, the iCentre has a wide range of Research Guides which can be used as a starting point.

Each Research Guide has been specifically tailored to suit a particular subject offered at the college. You can find these on the OPAC, simply search Research Guides, and this will bring up all the current research guides at the iCentre. Once you have accessed the one applicable to you, follow the steps on the guide to access reliable sources for your assessment.

Another good quality research skill is effective note taking. For information on how to take effective notes, access the Summarising module in the Study Skills Handbook. This section has a lot of great information on how to take good study notes, the importance of learning how to paraphrase and not just ‘copy-paste’, and using templates for your notes, such as the Cornell note-taking system.

3. Citing your research

It is essential that you record your citation information as you perform your research. At Mount Alvernia we use APA 7. Try to develop the habit of taking down your citation information as you go, as this will save you a lot of time at the end of your assignment when it’s time to put together your Reference List! You can find information and websites to help with citing on the iCentre website by clicking on Quicklinks, then Referencing.

Ask a Librarian!

Lastly, the iCentre website offers the option for you to ask a librarian any question regarding research. There are two clickable links that will take you to the Ask a Librarian page, from there you can put forward your query and a teacher-librarian will get back to regarding your research question. This is a great way to get more information on how to identify and access relevant and credible source for your learning.

Pop down to the iCentre for more information or help with starting your research.