Nursing: HLTH 1047: First Peoples' Health

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Assessment 1: essay

For assessment 1, you need to write an academic essay on how a contemporary healthcare strategy can improve a health issue experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

This page will help you through the process from understanding your task, planning your search, finding and evaluating information, writing your assignment, and referencing correctly.

Please refer to your learnonline course site for 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 prior to searching. 

Then consider alternative words for these concepts which, together with the concept term, become your searchable keywords.

Have a look at the example question below to see how to start preparing your search strategy:

 

Example question: how do socio-economic factors impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in access renal care? 1. Identify concepts: socio-economic factors, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, renal care. 2. Think of alternative terms for each concept. Include synonyms or similar words.

You can use quotation marks (“ “) to find an exact match, e.g. “healthcare professional”

Combine your terms to form your search strategy (you'll type this in the search box):

  • combine all the search terms for the same concept using OR
    This will search for any of the words included
  • combine different concepts using AND
    This will search for at least one word from each line

Search strategy: socio-economic or social status or economic status, and, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander or Indigenous Australians or first nations or first people or Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, and, renal care or renal disease or chronic kidney disease or CKD or kidney failure.

This list doesn't show every possible search term, just a few examples.

Start your search

You can search for information using a range of tools, including the Library Catalogue and databases, Google Scholar, and internet search engines. Choose the sources that are best suited to your need.

Select the plus symbols below to learn more about different search options.

Basic search
This is the default option when searching in the Library Catalogue.

1. Add in one keyword for each concept, combining them with AND.
    Note: Searching for more general terms will find more results. 
2. Select Search.
3. Swap your keywords with your alterative terms to see different results.

Basic search containing the search strategy: socio-economic and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and renal care

 

Advanced search
If you would like to do a more comprehensive search, use the Advanced search.

1. Put each concept on a new line
2. Add your alternative words, combining them with OR.
3. Select Search.

Advanced search strategy containing socioeconomic or social status or economic status on the first line, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander or Indigenous Australian on the second line, and renal care or renal disease or chronic kidney disease or CKD on the third line.


Filters

Use the filters on the left to limit and refine your results.
You could try limiting to:

Tick box Peer-reviewed journals
Tick box Full text online
Tick box Resource types
Tick box Publication date range

Medline
Searching in Medline is different to searching in the Library Catalogue.

1. Type your first concept and alternative words into the search box.
2. Untick the box labeled Map to Subject Heading.

Search box containing the search strategy: socio-economic or social status or economic status

3. Select Search.
4. Repeat steps 1-3 for your next concepts.
5. Tick the boxes next to each of your concept lines.
6. Select Combine with AND.
Medline search history showing each concept as its own search line. Selection boxes next to each line are ticked. Lines will be combined using the and button at the bottom of the search history.
7. Scroll down to see your results.
 

Scopus
You can do a basic or advanced search, just like in the Library Catalogue.

1. Type all your keywords for your first concept into the search box.
2. Select the plus symbol to the right to add a line for your next concept.
3. Add all your keywords for your second concept into the search bar.
4. Repeat steps 2-3 until you have used all your concepts.
5. Select Search.

Advanced search with search strategy: socio-economic or social status or economic status on the first line, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander or Indigenous Australians on the second line, and renal care or renal disease or chronic kidney disease or CKD on the third line.


More useful databases:

Google Scholar
You can search Google Scholar in the same way as a Catalogue basic search.

  1. Access Google Scholar through the Library website
  2. Follow the instructions to link your session to UniSA
  3. Use the basic search box like the Library Catalogue
  4. Look for the PDF links or Fulltext at UniSA links to access the resource

Basic search containing: socio-economic and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and renal care

Relevant websites

To find relevant websites that are recommended for your area of study, have a look at the Find evidence: government and organisation information tab in this guide.

You could also visit the following resources:

 

Google 
You can use Google to search for information from professional bodies, governments, and non-government organisations. This might include reports, clinical guidelines, professional standards, codes of conduct, and more.

Google has a number of useful search features that can make your searching more efficient:

 

LibKey Nomad

If you are looking for information on the internet, it's worth downloading LibKey Nomad. It's a browser extension for Chrome that will look for full text PDFs of journal articles from websites outside of the Library Catalogue. This is helpful when looking on pages such as Wikipedia, because you can easily access and read the articles from the reference list. Instructions to download LibKey Nomad are available here.

Extend your search

For a High Distinction, your assignment must use a comprehensive range of sources of evidence.  The Feedback Rubric provides further information for the marking criteria.

The Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet website is a great place to start.  They have a range of resources and reports which will be helpful for your assignment including:

You can also look at other resources available at Google Scholar.

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 evaluate your resources.

Write your assignment

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

Correctly reference your sources

Referencing roadmap banner. Navigate to the referencing roadmap resource.

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

If you need help, just ask!

Navigate to the Ask the Library webpage. Navigate to the UniSA study help pals webpage. Navigate to the Studiosity webpage. Navigate to the Learning Advisors' webpage.
Contact: Ask the Library Ask: the Study Help PALs Use: Studiosity Talk to: a Learning Adviser