Find quality information

You may need to find different types of information for different purposes. Different disciplines may require different information types e.g. financial and company data might be useful for business, while journal articles are a key resource in health disciplines.

Generally, the types of information appropriate for assignments are:

• journal articles (sometimes peer-reviewed journal articles are preferred or required)
• academic books
• specialised information sources for your discipline, e.g. news items for media studies, company reports for business, cases and legislation for law etc.

If you are unsure, check your course profile or with your course coordinator for any restrictions or recommendations on the types of information you should use for your assignments.

The type of information you need will govern where you choose to search.

Journal articles are a key academic source and in many cases are preferable to non-academic sources such as webpages.

What is a journal?

A journal is a regularly published collection of scholarly articles, research findings, or professional insights within a specific academic or professional field. The issues of a journal are published regularly (e.g. weekly, monthly, quarterly).

These sections of this guide cover how to find journal articles on a particular topic:

Peer review (also known as refereeing) is a process where other scholars in the same field (peers) evaluate the quality of a research paper before it's published.