1. Introduction
At university, you’ll need to use scholarly information such as academic articles for your assessments. If you’re new to finding academic articles, this short module will teach you how to do it. Along the way, we’ll teach you tips and tricks to make it easier to find what you need.
In this module, you’ll learn how to:
1. Pick apart a research topic
2. Develop a search strategy
3. Find academic articles
4. Reference an article.
Digital Literacy and you
This module forms part of your development of the Graduate Learning Outcome Digital Literacy. Digital literacy is the ability to use technology confidently, creatively, and critically to meet the demands and challenges of living, learning, and working in a digital society. It’s also a skill valued by employers. The Foundation for Young Australians recently identified that 90% of future jobs will require digital literacy.
What are academic articles?
Academic articles are also known as peer reviewed, scholarly, or refereed articles. They are research papers written by experts in the field. They go through a rigorous review by other experts in the same field to check the information is good quality, unbiased and accurate.
Watch the video below to learn about the peer review process and how to identify academic articles.
Where can you find academic articles?
There are lots of places you can look but the easiest way to find academic articles is to search in library databases. Library databases are collections of resources that the library subscribes to. You'll learn more about databases later in the module and will have a go at searching one.
It's important to use databases and not rely on Google. When you search Google, you’ll have to sort through lots of results to find the best ones. You'll also be restricted to using free resources, and their authority and trustworthiness cannot be guaranteed. You’ll need to do a lot more evaluation to check their quality.