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NURS 1075: Primary Midwifery Practice, Assignment 1

Assessment 1: Essay - First Antenatal Appointment

This page has been created to help you get started finding resources for Assignment 1. This assignment has 2 parts, a flowchart and an essay. 

Please refer to your Course outline in the LearnOnline site for the assessment instructions. 

Understand your task

View the Student Engagement Unit's Academic Skills website for help planning your assignment and making sense of the assignment and instruction words.

  • Assignments at uni help you show your understanding of different ideas and perspectives.
  • The main purpose of an essay is to convince the reader of your position on an issue.
  • You should use academic sources to support your argument.
  • Look at your assignment task for:
    • content words: these tell you what to write.
    • instruction words: these tell you how to do the task.
    • focus words: these help you identify the limits of the task.
  • Do some background reading to familiarise yourself with the topic.
  • Find academic sources from the Library Catalogue or databases to find more information.
  • Remember to record the referencing details for any good resources you find.
  • Essays have a general structure including:
    • an introduction
      This contains background information, your position, and an overview of the organisation of the essay.
    • body paragraphs
      These focus on one main idea per paragraph and contain a topic sentence, supporting sentences with evidence and examples, and a concluding sentence.
    • a conclusion
      This should summarise the main points of your essay and restate your position.
    • a reference list
      This is where you include the citations for all the references you used in your essay.
  • Writing is never a linear process. You will need to write drafts, do extra readings, and edit your essay.


You may find it useful to make a mind map to organise your thoughts about the topic:

Plan your search

Start by identifying the concepts (main ideas) from your assignment topic or question. Then consider alternative words for each.

As this assignment asks multiple questions, you should perform a search for each sub question. Use the common concepts plus one or more question-specific concepts. 

For example, for the common concept:

First, identify the concept common to each question in the assignment, for example see the tables below, please note this list of alternative keywords is not comprehensive 

Concepts Alternative Keywords
antenatal  ante-natal, prenatal, pre-natal

communication

education, discussion, inform, interact

Now do the same for the concepts unique to the sub-questions.

Concepts Alternative Keywords
health history medical history
culture ethnicity, religion
routine testing non-invasive prenatal testing, NIPT
chromosomal testing

 chromosomal abnormality screening, Chorionic villus sampling, CVS, amniocentesis, routine screening, first trimester combined screening, FTCS

Next combine your terms:

  • Combine all the search terms for the same concept using OR
  • Combine different concepts using AND
  • Use "quotation marks" to keep phrases together 

Example search

antenatal OR prenatal
AND
communication OR education OR inform OR interaction
AND 
"chromosome test" OR "chromosomal abnormality screening" OR "routine screening" OR "chorionic villus sampling"

For more help:

Flowcharts

As part of the assessment you will need to design a flowchart for midwives and health professionals, there are examples of flowcharts provided in your learnonline site

Office 365 is available for all UniSA students and includes Microsoft PowerPoint and Word which you can use to create a flowchart. 

Peer-reviewed journals

Articles from peer-reviewed journals are of high quality and can be used to support the argument that you are presenting. Articles in peer-reviewed journals must go through an evaluation process with experts in the field before being published. The term refereed is also used. 

Watch the following video to learn more about scholarly sources.

  • Often you will be asked to use scholarly, academic, or peer-reviewed sources in your assignment.
  • Scholarly sources (also called academic sources) can include journal articles, books, conference papers, and theses.
  • Sources such as Wikipedia, newspapers, magazines, trade journals, newsletters, blogs, social media and personal websites are called popular sources.
  • A scholarly source:
    • is written by researchers within a subject area,
    • reports on research findings,
    • contains comprehensive in-text citations and a reference list or bibliography,
    • uses specialised terminology and a formal writing style, and
    • is often peer-reviewed or refereed.
  • A peer-reviewed or refereed journal article is assessed by experts within the field before it is published.
  • Peer-reviewed journal articles should include:
    • author details including affiliations with organisations,
    • an abstract which summarises the article,
    • evidence of research findings, and
    • in-text citations and a reference list.
  • When searching in the Library Catalogue or databases, you can filter for scholarly, academic, or peer-reviewed resources.
  • Books can also be scholarly. A scholarly book:
    • is written by an expert,
    • is published by a reputable publisher,
    • has a table of contents,
    • provides in depth subject information,
    • includes an index of terms, and
    • has in-text citations and a reference list.

Search the Library collection

In the Library Catalogue:

Do a search using the keywords you have identified

  1. Look at the 'Refine my results' menu on the right hand side
  2. Tick the box to show only Peer reviewed articles
  3. In the date field, select the years you want to look at
  4. When you're done, click the 'Apply Filters' button

 

Databases

You can also search for journal articles in databases. Databases are large collections of articles that the Library subscribes to. 

Emcare is a key database for nursing and allied health.

To enter your search in Emcare enter each of your concepts on a separate line. Once you have entered each of your concept lines, select each line and combine with AND. This instructs the database you need your results to have at least one word from each of your concept lines.

More databases

Select appropriate references

You should critically evaluate all resources found to determine their appropriateness for your assignment. The video below explains more.

  • Having access to a lot of information can be overwhelming.
  • Evaluating information helps you decide what resources you should use.
  • One technique you can use is the CRAAP test.
  • Currency: How recent is the information? Does it suit your needs?
  • Relevance: Is the information relevant to your assignment?
  • Authority: Who wrote the information? Are they an expert?
  • Accuracy: Is the information accurate? Is it supported by evidence?
  • Purpose: Why was the resource created? Is there any bias?
  • You can use the CRAAP tool to think about these issues when evaluating your resources.

Write your assignment

View the Student Engagement Unit's Study Help website for help writing your assignment, or to make an appointment with SEU staff.

Correctly reference your sources

You must appropriately cite (‘acknowledge’) all references used in your assignment to avoid plagiarism.