1. What you need to do
This assignment help will assist you with the annotated bibliography section of your Creative Journal assessment.
For this part of the assessment, you need to find at least three scholarly sources (as defined in your assignment brief) and three promotional videos.
Remember to always read the course outline and course website for the full assessment instructions and marking criteria.
2. Understand your task
What is an annotated bibliography?
| An annotated bibliography is a summary of sources (e.g. journal articles, books or book chapters) addressing a research topic. |
Each source is listed as a separate entry including:
- Full reference information
- Short summary of the main ideas in the text
- Brief critical evaluation/critique of the text
3. Plan your search
Identify keywords
Taking time to plan your search will save you time and help you find information more efficiently.
- Identify the main concepts/keywords in your research question
- Think of any relevant synonyms (similar concepts) for each concept
- Connect your concepts together using boolean (AND and OR) to form a search
A table or mindmap - PDF (323.76 KB) can be a useful strategy for doing this.
For example, if you are researching youth homelessness in Australia, you might identify the following main concepts and relevant synonyms:
|
Concept 1 |
Concept 2 |
Concept 3 |
|
young people |
homeless |
Australian |
Tip: As you search you may find more alternative words to include in searches.
Watch the Plan your search video (2 min 26 sec)
Connect your keywords
Once you have identified your keywords and found alternative keywords, you need to connect these to put your search together.
Use the following operator words, which most search tools will have, to indicate how you want the tool to search for your keywords:
- OR: Combines similar keywords
- AND: Combines different keywords
- NOT: Excludes words from the search (use cautiously and only when necessary or you might exclude results you actually want)
Remember to use "quotation marks" to keep phrases together.
For example:
youth AND homelessness AND Australia
(youth OR adolescent) AND homelessness AND Australia
youth AND "unstable accommodation" AND Australia
Test your knowledge
4. Start your search
Once you've built a search strategy, you can apply it in search tools as listed below.
Library Collection
The Library collection can be a useful starting point in locating information.
Use Refine my results on the left hand side to narrow your results. The following are useful refinements to try:
- Show Only - Peer-reviewed journals
- Resource Type - Book chapters
- Publication Date - limit to the last 10 years
Databases
The Library collection does not list everything we have access to. Try a database when you are not finding relevant results in the collection or if you want to restrict your results to a specific discipline, topic area or material type.
Proquest Central is a multidisciplinary database covering 160 subject areas including digital media, film screen and cultural studies.
Google Scholar
Try Google Scholar to find scholarly information. An advantage of Google Scholar is that it provides access to the full text of many UniSA scholarly (academic) articles. Setup your browser with the University of South Australia Library links to enable the "Fulltext at UniSA" link to always show without linking from our site. To receive Library links in Google Scholar link your session to UniSA.
5. Putting it all together
Write and reference
Check out the video below to learn how to put an annotated bibliography together.
Use the UniSA Study Help links below to help you write and reference your assignment:
Want to know more?
- Writing an Annotated Bibliography (University of Toronto guide)
- Creating an annotated bibliography (Interactive tutorial)
- Researching the annotated bibliography (Interactive tutorial)