ELISE | Informing your studies tutorial: Understanding your course resources

Your list of course resources has been created online by your lecturer and is accessible on any device. You can comment on readings, make recommendations and build a personal collection of materials.

This list is on a system called Leganto. Using it you can:

Add items

• from your course lists to your personal collection
• from the Library collection
• from the internet when you add the Cite it! button to your browser
• from EndNote or Zotero 

Collaborate

• like your favourite resources
• discuss items with your classmates and lecturers
• make recommendations

Get help

• for help accessing your Moodle course contact the IT Service
  Centre 
• for help with Library resources contact the Library 
   

Find out how to get course resources.

Your lecturer will provide you with a link to your course resources:

• link to online items directly from the list of course resources
• come to the Library to find print items
• use the item number to find the item on Library shelves

  the item number tells you where print copies are located, e.g.

Your courses will usually have lists of course resources that are compiled by your lecturers. They provide you with introductory information required for the course.
Learning to recognise the different types of resources that are included on your list of course resources will make finding them easier:

Books

Academic or scholarly books provide in-depth coverage of a topic. They are:

• written for an academic audience including university students
• can often be recognised by their extensive footnoting and referencing
• may not provide up-to-date information on a topic

For current information on a topic, journal articles may include more recent research.

Book chapters

Some books are made up of a collection of chapter or articles, each written by a different author, and usually compiled by an editor.

Your list of course resources may include a reference to a particular chapter in a book. See the list of course resources below.

Journal articles

Academic journals are important because they publish the results of current research on very specialised topics.

Scholarly journals are published for an academic audience:

• they are often peer-reviewed
• they often contain articles on very specific subjects, and
• may be the primary source of information on new developments

Journals are likely to be more up-to-date and relevant to current issues. Books generally take longer to be published.

Journals are also called magazines, periodicals or serials. They are published on a recurring basis.

Reports

A report may be produced by a government body, a private organisation or it may be a working paper on a topic.

Conference papers

Papers presented at a conference or seminar are collectively known as conference proceedings.

A conference paper could be published in a collection of conference proceedings or as an individual publication. See the list of course resources below.

  Roll your mouse over this example of a list of course resources to see the different elements of each citation:
   (Citations are in APA 6th style)

Text version

Format	Citation example	Identifying features
Books	Barnosky, A. D. (2016). Tipping point for planet Earth: how close are we to the edge? New York, N.Y. : Saint Martin's Press.	place of publication publisher
eBooks	McLeman, R. A. (2016). Environmental migration and social inequality.  doi:10.1007/978-3-319-25796-9	doi or digital object identifier - a unique alphanumeric string which provides a persistent link to the book
Book chapters	McHughen, A. (2016). Fighting Mother Nature with biotechnology. In R. Herring (ed.), The Oxford handbook of food, politics, and society (1st ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.	usually compiled by an editor chapters are written by different authors 'in' indicates a citation for a book chapter
Journal articles	Oosthoek, S. (2016). Murky waters. New Scientist, 229(3055), 34-35.	volume number, issue number or date page numbers of article
eJournal articles	Liston, G., Perham, C. Shideler, R., & Cheuvront, A. (2016). Modeling snowdrift habitat for polar bear dens.  Ecological Modelling, 320,114-134. doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2015.09.010	doi or digital object identifier - a unique alphanumeric string which provides a persistent link to the article
Conference papers	Lach, D., Cushing, J. (2015). Engaging researchers and decision makers to develop usable climate information. Paper presented at the 16th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research, 27-30 May, 2015, (pp. 301-303). doi:10.1145/2757401.2757445	includes words like conference, proceedings, symposium, congress, papers presented at, etc
Technical reports	May, A. (2016).Biological data on cod from the summer fishery on the north shore Strait of Belle Isle. Technical report (Fisheries Research Board of Canada), no. 27. Ottawa: Fisheries and Oceans Canada.	includes report title and report series title and number
	Samoyed, J. (2022). How to get a Dogtorate degree: a survival guide. Sydney, NSW: UNSW Press.	You've stumbled upon the Library’s Online Treasure Hunt!