Learning at Work

This page will help you get more out of your Library resources for your assignments, projects and dissertations in Learning at Work.

Use the University VPN to access to these resources, any time, anywhere.

New students might like to take a Virtual Tour of the Library.

For the briefest of introductions, see this slide set.

For an introduction to these Subject Pages see this video.

You may also wish to look at our Information Literacy pages which help guide you through the research process.  We have also created a suite of AI Literacy pages which may be of interest and a short Library Guide on using Generative AI in your work which you may find helpful.

(pdf file 127 kb)

A short guide on how might legitimately use generative AI such as Chat GPT in your coursework, dissertations or research.

Sometimes it can be difficult to get started with your research for an assignment, as there are so many sources and so much you could read!
Remember to check your reading lists in Moodle as the best starting points, and then explore our Library resources.

For general reference sources and for study help, try Credo.

Can I use ChatGPT?
See under Plagiarism below for comments on the use of generative AI such as ChatGPT.  See also our small suite of AI Literacy pages.

Google
You can of course start searching Google for a topic and you may well find useful information.  (Here are some short cheat sheets to some of their less well known search commands.)  However, it can be time consuming to sort the wheat from the chaff particularly if you're under pressure of deadlines.  Use Library resources detailed on these pages to quickly find good quality information.  Or use Google Scholar to begin to find academic information.

Searching
To get the best from any database search, watch these short videos: Improving search results with keywords part 1 and Improving search results with keywords part 2 to improve your results using keywords and advanced searching, or see this Library Guide on Choosing Keywords.

fully searchable in EBSCO Discovery

A variety of reference works, including dictionaries, which tutors may well prefer to Wikipedia, and it even tells you how to set out a reference to what you find. Try out the 'Mind Map' feature to see how your keyword links to others - useful for essay planning and dissertation work.

These short videos show you how Credo can speed up your research:

  1. Search tips
  2. Using the automated mind map

Additional access instructions:

For off campus access use this link


What

  • A variant of Google that searches for academic literature

Why

  • Provides access to articles, books, conference papers and preprints
  • Links to Full-text @ Portsmouth where available when settings are applied

How

  • Simple or advanced searching allowing refinement by date, author etc
  • A Library Guide to this resource is available

 

• Videos to get you going

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Short videos on how to get started with Library resources.

• Academic Reading

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Links to two Library Guides and an ebook on the subject.

Books

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Options for finding book material.

Referencing

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Support for plagiarism and referencing

Your Subject Team

 Timothy Collinson

Faculty Librarian

email timothy.collinson@port.ac.uk

 Marie Smith

Assistant Faculty Librarian

email Marie.smith@port.ac.uk