Academic Librarian Jennie Winterburn discusses finding information with Skills for Learning tutor Laura Key. 

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Key, Laura

Welcome to our latest episode in the Skills For Learning Podcast series. Today, we're going to be talking about finding information. I'm Laura Key and I'm one of the Academic Skills Tutors here at LBU. And today I'm joined by Jennie Winterburn, who's one of our Academic Librarians.

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Key, Laura

Hi, Jennie!

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Winterburn, Jennifer

Hi!

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Key, Laura

Thanks for joining us today. And so, finding information: it's one of those academic skills that all students have to engage with while they're at university. So whether it's looking for articles or books or online resources, or other things entirely. So, where would you start with finding information Jennie, if you were doing an assignment?

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Winterburn, Jennifer

While the first thing I like to explain to students is that before we dive into an actual search on anything, it's great to just step back and spend a little bit of time – not too long, you know like even just half an hour – to look at exactly what the assignment’s asking you. This sort of interpretation of the brief is really useful because it keeps you focused and in the long run it definitely saves you time going down different, going down the wrong route perhaps. So find your module handbook, usually in your MyBeckett module on the left-hand menu, check the module outcomes and the marking criteria, and that’s what your work will be created against. This will tell you what you're aiming for. So with this in mind, these little aspects that the tutor is expecting you to include, it's then important to look at the actual question itself, the assignment itself.

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Key, Laura

Mm-hmm.

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Winterburn, Jennifer

And then when you get to that stage, it's a case of exploring this question.

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Key, Laura

OK, so let's assume then that I've looked at my module handbook and I've read it carefully. I've looked closely at the question, but I'm still not quite sure what the key terms are in my question. How might I go about working out what the important bits are?

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Winterburn, Jennifer

So umm, it's useful to remember your tutor isn't looking for everything you know about the subject. It's more about how you develop a kind of an argument in response to the question that's being asked in a way. So, the first thing that you should do is identify what we call instruction words in your question. Yeah. So these are the kinds of words that give, that are telling you how you should answer the question. For example, analyse the link between critical thinking and educational attainment in higher education. So there's a lot of buzzwords really going on in that statement. We've got critical thinking. Yeah, we've got attainment and we've got higher education. So these are our action words. So it's really beneficial to get these on paper, you might want to use a spider diagram, a matrix. You might just prefer to use a table really. And then with these words, you can have a quick little quick brainstorm about thinking, you know, would it be critical thinking? It might be called critical working…

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Key, Laura

Yeah.

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Winterburn, Jennifer

You might decide that that there's educational attainment, but also the word achievement is very similar and also for higher education you might also want to search for university as well, just to, to mix and match those, those keywords. So it's kind of just giving yourself that quick moment about really breaking down those, those main words and just thinking about any similar words that you might want to use that might capture extra research.

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Key, Laura

Yeah, I think that's a really good idea to sort of scribble some ideas down on paper when you're, you know, when you're approaching that question and to maybe use the different techniques you were talking about there, with matrixes or tables and things. And, you know, we've got lots of resources on the Skills for Learning website to help support students with that. So, that's definitely a good place to look if you're looking for ways to approach this keyword search work.

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Key, Laura

Yeah, yeah.

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Winterburn, Jennifer

Absolutely. Yeah, definitely. There's, yeah, there's lots and lots and lots of great ideas and recommendations to, to just and it's, it's also something you'll, you'll develop. You'll get better at with each assignment. You'll get quicker at it. You'll even start to think when you're in a lecture theatre, you might be, like, jotting down some, some keywords that inspire you perhaps or might expand on the topic.

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Winterburn, Jennifer

Yeah.

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Key, Laura

I think you're right. I think definitely. When I was a student, I found that that got easier as time went along and, and I approached more assignments. OK. So once you've got your key terms, what do you need to do with them in order to find some information about the topic?

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Key, Laura

Mm-hmm.

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Winterburn, Jennifer

So, I still recommend that you have a super quick check through any of your lecture material just to see if there's any authors or theories on your topic that your tutors recommended because that's a super quick way to start exploring a, maybe an angle on your question. Then of course, check your reading list. There's a possibility your tutors will have, uhh, signposted some material for you there. So yeah, you need to do a bit of research of your own; your tutor hasn't done all the work for you, but this is a really important starting point. Just check in with that reading list before you move on to your own research.

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Key, Laura

Yeah, it's really handy just to get some basic ideas, isn't it#, from that material that you tutor’s recommended in the first place?

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Winterburn, Jennifer

Absolutely. It might be that there's an entire textbook, and of course be aware that you're, you're not expected to read a textbook cover to cover. It's about using it as a tool, so check your contents page, have a look in the index right at the back of the book and there'll be an alphabetical list of the key terms that are inside the book. So again, that can, you know, help you out. If it's an ebook, even luckier, you can usually search within the, within the ebook for your keywords.

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Key, Laura

Right. Brilliant. Yeah, that's a really good tip.

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Key, Laura

So, Jennie, you were talking about going beyond the reading list and obviously we've got access to Discover at the University to search for literature. So why is it important to use Discover and maybe not to just search in Google, for instance?

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Winterburn, Jennifer

I think the, the best thing about discover is that it brings together the Leeds Beckett collection of books, ebooks and a good chunk of our articles. And I think that the, the beauty is that we can go there and we know we’re accessing academic quality resources.

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Key, Laura

Of course, yeah.

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Winterburn, Jennifer

Yet they've been bought by Leeds Beckett to support all of our studies, and tutors expect to see their students using them so it's…. Freely available information, as we know, will, was just, we will always just absolutely go to Google and have a quick search to help our basic understanding. But we really don't want to rely on that. We're becoming more aware these days that freely available information is not always fact checked and…

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Key, Laura

Yeah.

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Winterburn, Jennifer

…it's occasionally quite misleading, actually, and your assignment is, It's like the, the, the resources that you're using in your assignment reflects on you, good or bad. So if you've used a bad piece of research, it will reflect badly on your work; on you and your work. If you've selected good piece of research, it will be more favourable and your, your tutor will be looking out for that and will be marking it accordingly. So it's… but it also takes a bit of the stress out of it. You don't have to evaluate the information as much. You can feel a bit more confident that it's good academic quality.

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Key, Laura

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we all do it, don't we? Have a quick search in Google to find out about a topic? But you're right, though, actually if you look at discover, then you know that you're accessing information that's academically sound and rigorous. So yeah, no, that's really, really good advice.

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Key, Laura

Umm I’ve found, though, sometimes when I look in Discover, that I end up with a really high number of results coming back and it can be hard to know where to start in terms of selecting the material that I actually want to read for the work I'm doing. And have you got any tips to sort of help with making a start on choosing information from that list that you end up with?

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Winterburn, Jennifer

Yeah, definitely, it’s the most common thing ever, and for any students struggling or stressing out, it stresses out staff as well! Academics sometimes are a bit overwhelmed as well when they search for a certain word and they get a million results back and the first thing that I recommend doing, just like you would do with Google, is check that first page of results. If, you know, and you know, if it's a bit too vague, change your keywords around in the search box, see if the results make more sense that way. So it's really important that you're all aware that the order of the keywords in Discover, it's really relevant. The first word is treated more importantly than the 2nd, so it's weighted. So for example, if I was looking at critical thinking in higher education, it would really front load the critical thinking. So I'd probably get a lot of textbooks about introductions to critical thinking and I wouldn't get anything necessarily for, I wouldn't get as much covering higher education. So it's always worth doing a swap around of those keywords and just seeing what the, what happens with the results.

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Winterburn, Jennifer

And this isn't a very common thing, so it's, it's actually really handy with Discover. It gives us two searches for one, so to speak. So I always tell students have a quick go of that, it can really help you realise, ‘Oh! that was a much more focused one’. I mean, some students want to go wider and some students want to go more focused. So just have a bit of a play around. You'll soon find out very, very quickly. You can kind of judge that first set of search results on that first page, like you would with Google to decide if you're really on the right track. Or not.

Key, Laura

I think that's really interesting. I don't think it's necessarily common knowledge that if you just swap those terms around, it can really help you to select and sort of sift through the material. So I think that's an excellent one for students to try and something that anybody can just have a go at really easily.

Winterburn, Jennifer

Yeah, definitely. It's definitely something that I find really, really quite straightforward, but it works really effectively. And the other thing is that if, if you're if it's gone a bit too detailed and you think actually I need something a bit more general to start with, try searching for, for example, something like an introduction to critical thinking. So an introduction…. Yeah, introductory textbooks are fab because they give you that nice clean overview of the entire topic. Then you can go in and, you know, for example, have a look in the contents go to a particular section of the book and explore a certain aspect. So, for example, you might be wanting to explore critical analysis tools. So that's another thing that again, it's depending on if you want to go a bit more focused or a bit wider in your search.

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Key, Laura

Yeah, yeah. Now that's another good bit of advice there. But coming back, then, to…. So we talked a bit about Discover, but I want to think a bit more about the course reading list and we talked, you know, before, about the fact that tutors supply some titles usually for students to, to have a look at. Is it enough to just go off that reading list if you're doing an assignment or should you be looking in other places for information?

Winterburn, Jennifer

I think it's really important that you check your reading list. It's a ready-made starter for you.

Key, Laura

Yeah. Uh-huh.

Winterburn, Jennifer

But…. And again with different subjects; for example, if you're, if you're doing a business subject, you might only have two or three core textbooks on your reading list, whereas possibly, if you're doing, say, a literature course, you might have 20 or 30 because it might be options that you'll be invited to choose from. So, it's great that you'll get a starting point, but then you're tutors really expect and would be really disappointed if all you used was their reading recommendations. They're really expecting you to go away and find your own information – and don't feel like you have to go and get 20 books out and read them cover to cover. This is really about being focused and finding something that's really appropriate for your, for your topic. So even if you think, ‘Oh, I've, I've really only used books from my reading list, if you find four or five other items that you yourself have found that you can use, your tutor will be really impressed with that and, and again, it's a skill that you're expected to build while you're at uni. So, the, your second and third years and as you develop through your studies, the expectation will increase that you'll be looking for more resources yourself. And so it's, yeah, it's certainly something that you'll be building upon and again something that you're tutors and the Library will… are always here to help guide you through and so once you've really looked at that reading list and had a look on Discover, there are other subjects that will find everything they need in Discover. So for example, probably literature, certain media courses, but if you're doing some subjects for example like business and especially law, then you absolutely you actually need to just check your specialist databases.

Key, Laura

Of course.

Winterburn, Jennifer

Now check with your tutor. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Check with your tutor and see if they have any recommendations. But really, these are the kinds of tools that, and the, the, the sort of the tools of your trade, your subject area. So, for example, specialist business databases with business reports, things like SWAT analysis ready made for you, our legal databases with the primary case cases and legislation, we wouldn't want students to just go and find a free report on the Internet when we've got something that's really actually used in the sector. So it's about speaking to your tutor and being guided by the subject pages and really as a little bit of a menu for what, what you have access to and what you should consider using, but really don't feel overwhelmed even if you pick just one of your own. One of your subject databases and have a play around with it, you're doing brilliant.

Key, Laura

So it's really about knowing them what the recommendations are within your school for looking for information, isn't it? And whether or not you need to go beyond Discover to some of these more specialist databases.

Winterburn, Jennifer

Absolutely. Yeah. It's not something that you're expected to just know exactly what you're doing, know exactly where to go, but sometimes, you know, I might get an email from a student saying I just need some information on this and I'll just be able to say, well, you can use this database. This should have the information and that will be all the student would need. You know, they just go in, they type their normal keywords they've been using in Discover into one of our databases and they've got all the stuff. So these databases…

Key, Laura

Right. Yeah, yeah.

Winterburn, Jennifer

…And I, as I say, they, they, they might be split very specifically by subject, but there are other ones in our collections that are really useful for all students. So, for example, one of our, our statistics package, Statista, it is a really top-level product. It's… Google subscribes to Statista for their staff to use. So, it's not just universities that are using this. It's a lot of big companies that are using these. Some of these databases and statistics are really can be useful for anything. I've had a look at… and for students, we've been looking at…

Key, Laura

Wow.

Winterburn, Jennifer

Volumes of cement production, sales of smartphones to different age groups… you name it, really, Statista’s likely to have it. It's a bit… it's quite broad. Yeah. So yeah, there are those ones where your tutor will probably say, right, you've got to go and look at this database. There are other ones that you might just want to have a little explore if you're struggling, especially to think about what the information is. This is always when you can get in touch with theLlibrary.

Key, Laura

Absolutely yes. I think that, sort of, is a really important point: that students aren't expected to do all this work on their own. There’s support out there, you know, via the Library, the Library Academic Support Team and the various colleagues that are available to help. So what ways can students get in touch with our services if they're struggling with finding information?

Winterburn, Jennifer

There are numerous ways and, as there are with everything these days… so you can, of course, you can chat, email or you can book an appointment, as well – in addition to signing up to a workshop, listening to a podcast… and there's an awful lot of support available. I think the thing that I really stress to students is that at university it's very much an adult learning environment and the support is there. You just need to ask, so whoever you ask at university, there will be able to point you in the right direction. If you ask the wrong person, I'm sure, I'm sure they'll just say, ‘Oh! I know exactly who you need to speak to!’. But the great thing about the Library is that you can make contact with any of the points of contact and we will make sure that you get to the right bit of support that you need. So, one of my things, the… almost one of the main reasons that I am actually a librarian, is that I get the biggest sense of satisfaction when a student struggling to find information for their assignment, you know… and I just think they just need to get the information and then they're gonna work with it in their assignment and they're going to explore it and they're gonna critique it. They don't want to waste too much time looking for the stuff. So yeah – and it really is about giving the students the confidence and the skills to just know that these databases work really similarly. Bob in your keyword terms; have a search. There might be nothing in that database. Don't panic! It's probably not you; it's probably that there isn't anything in that database… and move on and have a look at that one. But the best bit, you know that my favourite bit really is that, when I, when I give them some tricks about how the databases work and then I just get, get really seeing how happy, relieved and quite excited they are that they've found the content they need, they can go off and start writing that assignment… is just the best feeling ever. So just to get in touch, really!

Key, Laura

I think that's a brilliant final top tip, Jennie, to just ask if you're not sure – and I think it's true with so many things, uh, within university study, that you know the, the support is there – if you come and look for it, you know everything is there. It's all there for you to access. So, thanks very much for chatting with us today. Hopefully this has been helpful to the people who are listening out there – and please tune in for another podcast coming soon.