Description

What to include:

Focused and comprehensive engagement with the assignment brief, showing evidence of in-depth understanding of the issues. Extremely clearly structured and demonstrating a coherent argument throughout. Evidence of wide, independent reading with a literature review based almost entirely on peer-reviewed journal articles or other relevant sources.

Excellent citation and referencing skills. We will give good grades.

No or very few obvious errors in grammar, spelling or syntax.

Use this list as your checklist to ensure you have met all the initial requirements for this assessment.

A brief introduction to the topic
A sufficient number of relevant pieces of literature to provide a review of the topic with a good flow of ideas between paragraphs
Appropriate citations within the literature review
Appropriate references using the APA format

WHAT INFORMATION DO YOU NEED?
The information you will need to use in your assignments will include facts, figures, images, ideas and arguments. You will find this information in many different places such as books, e-books, journals, e-journals, internet sites and government reports.
WHERE WILL YOU LOOK?
LibrarySearch (our online catalogue) and the databases in your subject area are the best place to start looking for the information you need.
Initially you might look for information which has been suggested to you by your lecturers. Your module reading list is a really useful starting point directing you to good quality information that is relevant to your module. You will find your reading list in your module guide. To find items on your reading list, you will need to do an author and title search in LibrarySearch.
You will also need to use information that you find yourself. You do this by using keywords to search LibrarySearch and your subject databases to identify material that best matches your information needs. Key or subject words are ones which best describe the topic you are researching. There are several ways to identify keywords:
 Read your assignment title and pick out the keywords
 Identify the keywords from the titles of items on your reading list
 Use encyclopaedias and dictionaries to find alternative words and phrases
 Think of synonyms (words with similar meanings), e.g. Internet / World Wide Web
 Consider alternative spellings and word endings, e.g. organisation / organization
For example you are looking for information for your assignment: “Explore how the media reports crime in the UK”
Your keywords from the title are media, crime and United Kingdom, however you might also want to thinking about using related and alternative words such as television, newspapers, radio, mass media, criminals and particular types of crime – violent, mugging, fraud, burglary.
TIPS FOR SEARCHING

1. Deciding upon your keywords before you search will ensure your search finds relevant information quickly. Also, databases work best with keywords so entering the whole of your assignment question may mean your search misses useful items.
2. If you find too few items, use more general keywords or just look for one keyword
3. If you find too many items, try using more or more specific keywords
   Ref: LS013 | Skills for Learning | March 2018
4. Be methodical about recording your searching. Keeping a note of which keywords you have used will help avoid duplication.
5. When doing an author search just use the surname don’€™t worry about the initials.
6. If you can’€™t think of any keywords try look at what words are used in the titles of books and journal articles on your reading list.
7. Before you search think about any limits you might to place on the information. For example does the date of the information matter or do you only want information from journals?
8. Library Search and our subject databases work in similar ways but it is useful to spend some time looking at the various search options on each resource

Sample Solution