Education (Early Childhood, Primary, Secondary, Health & Physical Ed.)

Start here

• Understanding your topic and your task
  Identify what you already know about your topic … and what you need to find out.
• Gathering essential background information
  A very important place to start is by thoroughly reading any learning resources and references provided by your Course Convenor ​(e.g. in Learning@Griffith or in class), or by a tutor or supervisor.
• Finding definitions, using reference sources 
  Check out reference works such as the dictionaries and encyclopedias listed under the Reference sources link on the left.  These will help you build a useful overview of your topic and an understanding of its terminology.

Next steps

Finding and using

• Books (including ebooks)
  Use the Library Catalogue to locate books relevant to your topic and to help identify related concepts that you wish to follow up. See the Books link on the left for tips.
• Journal articles and library databases
  A distinctive feature of study at university level is researching and analysing the ideas and research of others as you develop your own knowledge, ideas, and conclusions.  This will usually involve critical use of another category of scholarly literature in your discipline in addition to books, and this is journal articles. Journal articles are usually briefer, more focused, and more current than what you will have found in books on your topic and are an important complement to them.  The library provides specialised databases to help you access this material. See the Journals and journal articles and the Library databases links on the left for guidance in locating this important category of material (and also statistics, conference papers and other reports where relevant). 

Citing the sources you use

• The importance of acknowledging your sources
  At the university level it is essential -- for reasons of academic integrity, good scholarship, and readability -- to clearly acknowledge and accurately cite all sources that you use.
• The process of acknowledging your sources
  See the Citing your sources link on the left for tools and support that will assist you in accomplishing this.

Finding resources for teaching

• The Griffith Library Curriculum collections, other curriculum resources, syllabi, lesson plans etc.
  The Mt Gravatt, Gold Coast, and Logan campus libraries have extensive Curriculum collections which contain textbooks, junior fiction, and various other teaching materials in a variety of media for you to explore and/or take into the classroom on prac.  See the Curriculum materials and Classroom resources links on the left for how to access the contents of these collections and also for guides to a range of other physical and electronic curriculum resources outside of Griffith -- and also to syllabi and official curriculum documents.

Accessing help and training

• Our Library team 
  The members of our Library team are an invaluable source of assistance and expertise and are here to help you. They include knowledgeable and helpful Librarians, Learning Advisers, and frontline staff. Between them, they design a range of self-help resources such as this guide, provide workshops and training, and can help you with a quick answer or in-depth assistance via a variety of channels (face-to-face, by email, phone, or via chat and other onilne means).
• Training, consultations, and self-help resources
  For the range of ways they can help you, depending on your individual needs, see the Help and training link on the left.