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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 need 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.

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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
  • Think of alternative words or synonyms you could also search for

This Video will guide you through this process

 

Learn more about searching with the below resource and library worksheet.

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.

Read: How to Find Scholarly Sources (PDF)
Watch Study Help: Scholarly Sources Explained (2:22)

Tip: When searching in the library catalogue 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



Use 'Refine my results' on the left-hand side to refine search by:

  • Peer-reviewed Journals
  • Publication date eg. 2010-2020

Google Scholar is also a good place to search to find scholarly material. 
By linking your session through the Library home page you can access the full text of many UniSA scholarly/academic articles.

The Advanced search option gives more flexibility when you search (note you will have to click on the hamburger menu then select Advanced search).

Journals are publications similar to magazines. They have issues 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 & 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.

  • Google Art & Culture Project allows you to explore museums, galleries, exhibitions, artworks and more, all from the comfort of your computer. 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 database tab.

Referencing support

Other referencing support tools: Referencing software (EndNote)

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

The Library supports the bibliographic management tool EndNote. There are also many free systems available.

EndNote Guide