How to identify academic resources

What will I learn in this tutorial?

This tutorial shows how to analyse a resource and decide whether it is appropriate to use as a reference in writing for academic assessment.

Staff and students of Monash University are given access to around 20,000 journal or periodical titles, both print and electronic. Electronic access via the world wide web is provided to the full text contents of about 10,000 titles. This access is provided generally via publishers who aggregate the contents of thousands of journals. Effectively, journal issues are dismembered and reassembled in huge databases. This makes for easier searching and identification of relevant material across a span of years. But, the absence of the customary navigation aids, eg. tables of contents for the issue, layout, fonts (unless .pdf), general look, feel, smell, etc, can make it difficult to guage the 'worthiness' of individual articles.

Academic writing is not confined to journals. Non-textbook academic sources such as monographs and books of edited readings may contribute to the development of your ideas. Occasionally, research literature may be found on the internet. Of course, the same evaluation criteria apply.