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Assignment Help: VSAR 2031

1. Assignment 1: Written essay

This assessment requires you to choose one topic from the Assignment 1 topics page and write a formal, academic essay, which includes references to scholarly texts and a bibliography. 

Remember to read all the information on the course website related to your assessment to understand what you are required to do.

2. How to write an essay

To understand your assignment, you need to understand what academic writing is and how formal essays are structured. Check out these resources for help:

Tip: These resources are designed to provide a general overview of academic writing and writing styles. Please refer to your course assessment tab for more resources to support your assessment.

Attend online academic skills workshops

The Student Engagement Unit is offering free online academic skills workshops which are designed to help you understand assignment types, assignment writing, and referencing.

See the Study Help site for more details, including dates and times for sessions. 

3. Plan your search

Before you start searching you should:

  • Identify the main concepts within your topic or question
  • Consider any alternative words or synonyms you could also search for

The following video (2 min 26 sec) will guide you through this process.

 

Learn more about searching with the quick guide and worksheet below:

4. What are academic references?

Each of the topics for assessment 1 requires you to support your critique using scholarly sources.

Scholarly sources can also be referred to as academic references or peer-reviewed (refereed). These can include journal articles, books, book chapters, reports, and other sources.  To find out more about academic references look at the resources below.

Tip: When searching in the Library Collection you can filter your results to show only 'peer-reviewed'.

5. Finding scholarly resources

The Library Collection can be a useful starting point in locating academic references.

Screenshot of Library search bar with search string: (abject OR abjection) AND ("female body" OR "maternal body").

Use 'Refine my results' to refine your search by:

  • Peer-reviewed journals
  • Publication date, e.g., 2010-2020

Google Scholar is also a good place to search to find scholarly material. 

By linking your session through the Library homepage you can access the full text of many UniSA scholarly/academic articles.

The Advanced search option gives you more flexibility when you search. Note: you will have to click on the hamburger menu then select Advanced search to access this function.

Screenshot of Advanced search in Google Scholar.

Journals are publications similar to magazines. They have issues which are published regularly (e.g., monthly, quarterly, annually) and focus on a particular subject. 

BrowZine allows you to explore and browse a range of journals on similar topics. such as Gender and Sexuality, Women's Studies, and Cultural Studies.

6. Finding artefacts

Galleries and museums

  • Galleries and museums offer a wide selection of artworks and artefacts in a range of mediums, including images, paintings, sculptures, film, fashion, and more. See the list of galleries and museums in the Find and attribute images for your work document (PDF, 238 KB).

  • Google Arts & Culture Project allows you to explore museums, galleries, exhibitions, artworks, and more You can search for a particular item or browse by theme, artist, medium, or art movement. 

Image databases

For a complete list of Art image databases that the Library subscribes to, see the Art images databases tab.

Referencing support

Managing your references

What do you do with all those references you have found? You can use a bibliographic management software to store, organise, and cite your references.

There are many free systems available. The Library supports the bibliographic management tool EndNote. EndNote automates citing your references and allows you to create and organise a library of references. For more information and to download the software, check out the EndNote Guide: