Foundations for Professional Health Practice
Table of Contents
Introduction
This guide is designed to help you locate information sources for the unit CMHL1000 Foundations for Professional Health Practice. It introduces you to the academic research process and provides tips and tricks for completing your assignments.
What you will learn
- What scholarly sources are and the difference between primary and secondary sources (including the academic credibility checklist)
- How to develop a search strategy and search for books, journal articles, reports and statistics
- Academic writing skills and the importance of referencing
- Tips for creating infographics and reflection
Scholarly sources
What are scholarly sources?
Scholarly sources are publications written by experts in a particular field of study. Their purpose is to share recent research, theories, analyses and insights, or to provide summaries of current thinking in the field. Scholarly sources can include materials such as:
Journal articles
Journal articles are in-depth articles written by experts in a particular field of study, and serve to keep others in the field up to date with the most recent research and findings. They are published in journals, essentially magazines but for an academic audience. Journal articles are usually published multiple times a year and are organised by volumes (and sometimes issues).
Books and book chapters
Scholarly books and book chapters contain authoritative information and can provide an overview on a particular subject or research topic. They are useful if you require background information and related research on a topic.
Example: Hypertension and cardiovascular disease
Reports
A report is a formal document that identifies and discusses the who, what, where, when, why and how of a particular situation, issue, or problem. They may be produced by government departments, research groups, and not-for-profit organisations.
Example: Medicines for cardiovascular disease
What is peer-review?
Some scholarly sources, particularly journal articles, undergo a process known as peer-review, whereby the article is sent to other experts (peers) in the same field as the author/s for review before publication. These peers review the article to ensure the research presented is accurate and reliable, and based on sound research methodologies. The peer reviewers provide feedback on the article and the author revises the article before resubmitting it. For more information watch: What is peer review?
Primary sources (original research)
Primary sources (original research) provide a first-hand account of a topic under investigation. They report original information on which other research is based and enable students and other researchers to get as close as possible to what happened during a particular event or experience. Examples include: Journal articles reporting new research findings, government documents (e.g. reports) and statistical data.
How do I know if an article is primary (original) research?
Journal articles can be primary or secondary sources. Original research articles that provide a detailed account of research activity, written by the scientists/researcher who conducted the research, are considered primary sources. The following points can indicate if an article is original research:
- Original research articles often include the following sections: background/literature review, methods, results, discussion and conclusion.
- The title may include the type of study conducted (e.g. Cohort study, Randomised controlled trial, qualitative study etc.)
- Some articles may be labelled as Original research, Research article, Original article or similar.
Secondary sources
Secondary sources analyse, interpret and summarise evidence from primary sources. The author(s) have not experienced the event first-hand but may include figures, data or quotes from primary sources. Examples include: journal articles providing summaries of previous research, textbooks, dictionaries and encyclopedias.
Note: Please check the assessment details in Blackboard for information on the types of sources you are required to find for your assignment.
Academic credibility checklist
This checklist helps you assess whether a source is scholarly and credible.
- If you need current information, is the source from the last 5 years?
- If no current information is available, is it published within the last 10 years?
- Have journal articles come from a library database?
- Is the book publisher reputable (e.g. a university press, scholarly publisher)?
- Is the website and/or PDF document trustworthy (e.g. a government or unbiased non-government organisation [NGO])?
- Can you find a list of references?
- Is it clear where the ideas came from?
- Are they qualified or experienced in the field?
- Are they affiliated with a credible university, government or NGO (please note some NGOs may be biased)?
- Are there any affiliations with a commercial interest?
- Does the author provide a fair and balanced perspective?
Academic integrity considerations
- I have not misquoted
- I have not misrepresented
Searching for scholarly sources
Search strategy
Once you are ready to start working on your assignment, you can start planning your search. Creating a search strategy will help you target your search and save you valuable time when searching. It is also an important component of your assignment for this unit!
Follow the steps below to create your search strategy.
Identifying the main concepts
Identifying the main concepts from your topic is an excellent starting point for your research as they become the foundation of your keyword search.
Let’s look at the sample topic:
“Discuss the role of artificial intelligence in the treatment of heart disease”
List the main concepts from the topic:
- Artificial intelligence
- treatment
- heart disease
Using the main concepts, try a quick search in the library catalogue or one of the databases and see if the results are relevant to your topic.
Finding alternative terms
Authors may use different keywords to describe the same concept. The keywords you identified from your assignment question may not always return the best results. When this happens, it is a good idea to identify alternative keywords (also known as synonyms or similar terms). This will help broaden your search.
For our sample topic, some possible alternative terms could include:
| Artificial intelligence | Treatment | Heart disease |
|---|---|---|
| Generative AI Machine learning |
Therapy Care |
Cardiovascular disease Coronary disease Congenital heart disease |
Combining search terms
When searching in the library catalogue and databases, you can combine your keywords using boolean operators AND and OR.
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AND is used to combine different search concepts. It narrows your search, instructing the catalogue or database to find only items that contain both of your terms. For example, treatment AND heart disease will only return records containing both the terms.
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OR is used to combine similar keywords. It broadens your search, instructing the catalogue or database to find items that contain either of your terms. For example, treatment OR therapy will locate all records containing either of these terms.
For more information, check out this short video What are boolean operators?
Other search tips
You can also use these tips to enhance your search when searching the catalogue or databases.
Phrase searching
Phrase searching means searching for two or more words as an exact phrase. This helps retrieve items where those words appear together in the text. Phrase searching can help to narrow your search. To search for a phrase, enclose the phrase in double quote marks. For example: “cardiovascular disease”
Truncation
The truncation symbol (denoted by an asterisk * ) is useful for finding different endings of a word. It is added after the last common letter of the variations. For example, the search term treat* will search for treated, treatment, treatments, treating etc.
Recording your search strategy
As part of your assignment for this unit, you need to complete a concept grid and search strategy. The templates for these are available from your Blackboard unit under Assessment Resources.
Searching for specific resources
This provides you with some tips on the best places to look for different types of information, as well as strategies that will improve your searching success.
Searching the Library catalogue
The library catalogue is a good place to start your search. It includes a variety of resources (such as journal articles, books and reports). Use the keywords identified in the creation of your search strategy to begin searching.
Watch the following video for an introduction to searching in the catalogue.
Search tip! For your assignment you need to find recent resources, published in the last 10 years. Once you have performed your search in the library catalogue, you can refine your results using the Creation Date filter in the right menu.
Searching the Library databases
Databases are large, searchable collections of scholarly literature. Databases can cover a range of subject areas (multidisciplinary) or they can concentrate on a specific area (subject specific). They offer more sophisticated search features than the Library Catalogue, which can make it easier to focus your search and find relevant material. A full list of databases is available via the Databases page on the Library website.
We recommend starting with a search in the ProQuest database, using the keywords from your search strategy.
Watch the video below to learn how to search the ProQuest database.
Search tip! If the database you are searching does not provide access to the fulltext of the article, use the red Find it button to see if the fulltext is available in another database.
You may also find the following databases useful for searching on your topic:
CINAHL is a database of nursing and allied health literature.
Provides access to peer-reviewed journal articles and other resources in a range of subject areas with a focus on Australian content.
Searching for government reports on the web
Government departments mainly publish their reports online. It is best to check out the government department or agency website to search for reports.
The following websites are useful sources for reports:
- Australian Institute of Health & Welfare (AIHW)
- Department of Health and Aged Care
- World Health Organization (WHO)
Tips for searching for reports
Search engines such as Google are useful when searching for reports. You can limit your Google search to look for information from specific types of website (e.g. government websites) or specific filetypes (e.g. PDFs):
- health funding site:gov.au will search Australian government websites for health funding information
- health funding filetype:pdf site:gov.au will search Australian government websites for PDFs on health funding
Note: Google searches will often return large numbers of results, so consider using the Advanced Search option and limiting your search by date (e.g. last 5/10 years).
Searching for statistics
For your assignment, you may be required to find and report on relevant statistics related to the health funding system or health issue of Australia and/or another country.
Statistical data is not always easy to locate as there is no one single source for this type of information. Most statistics are published by national or state government agencies. However, they can also be found in scholarly journals, reports, websites, books and databases.
The following websites are useful sources of statistics:
Australian statistics
- Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)
- Australian Institute of Health & Welfare (AIHW)
- Department of Health and Aged Care
International statistics
- United Nations national statistical offices websites
- World Health Organization (WHO)
- OECDiLibrary
- Eurostat
Tips for searching for statistics
- When you are searching for statistics in a database, try adding the term statistics to your search.
Example: heart disease AND Germany AND statistics
- You can also try searching using other keywords related to statistics such as incidence, prevalence or epidemiology.
Example: heart disease AND incidence OR prevalence OR epidemiology AND Germany
- If you are having trouble finding statistics for a particular country, try searching for the broader region.
Example: heart disease AND statistics AND Europe
- It may be difficult to find accurate statistics for some developing countries. International agencies such as the World Health Organization or United Nations may offer statistics for these countries based on their research or projections.
Evaluating sources and lateral reading
It is important that you evaluate the information you discover on the internet to ensure the source you are using is credible. A key consideration when deciding whether to include a source in your assignment is whether the author and the information is credible. As you critically read a text, ask yourself the following questions:
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Who? Perform an assessment of the author or organisation responsible for the information. Are they suitably qualified to be writing on the topic? Is there evidence of any bias or a conflict of interest?
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Why? Why was the content created? Is its purpose to inform, persuade, entertain or sell a product? Only giving one side of the story or using emotive or incendiary language could suggest a goal to persuade or manipulate a reader.
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When? For some research areas, the timeliness of the information will be important and many assignment briefs will note a timeframe of publication that is acceptable. You need to know when the information was published or updated.
When you are evaluating a source you may need to validate the author’s claims and conclusions by looking for confirmation or support elsewhere on the Internet, a technique known as lateral reading. Watch the video below to learn more about using lateral reading to evaluate information.
Writing and referencing
Academic writing skills
The UniSkills platform is designed to help improve your academic assignment, study, numeracy and digital skills.
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Reading and note taking introduces you to reading and note taking techniques, how to read critically and evaluate your sources.
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Writing introduces you to assignment structure, academic style, and the elements involved in essay writing.
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Integrating sources guides you through the basics of paraphrasing, summarising and quoting in your academic work.
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Before submission provides guidance on editing and proofreading your assignment.
Referencing
What is referencing?
Referencing is a standardised method of acknowledging sources of information and ideas that you have used in your assignments, in a way that uniquely identifies their sources. Direct quotations, facts and figures, as well as ideas and theories, from both published and unpublished works, must be referenced.
Why reference?
- Acknowledges the works of other researchers and helps avoid plagiarism
- Provides evidence to support the arguments that you are making in your assignment
- Shows the credibility of your sources and strengthens your arguments
- Allows other readers to be able to find the exact source you have used
APA 7th referencing guide
For this unit you will need to reference your sources using the Library’s APA 7th referencing guide. The guide contains examples of in-text citations and reference list entries.
Learn how to reference tables and figures (any type of illustration or image e.g. graphs, charts, maps, drawings or photographs) in the APA 7th style.
See our handy checklist which highlights some points to pay attention to when editing your in-text citations and reference list.
See an example of a reference list produced in the APA 7th style.
Provides style and grammar guidelines for APA 7th. Includes a blog with tips for using the style.
Provides guidance on referencing Gen-AI content in the APA style
Authors citing other authors (secondary citation)
It can be confusing to know who to give credit to when you are referring to a scholarly source in your assignment. Scholarly sources often include many in-text citations to provide supporting evidence for their research. In most cases, you only need to provide an in-text citation and reference list entry for the source you are using. However, there are some instances where you need to provide credit to the supporting source.
Watch this video for more information: Citing secondary sources
APA referencing quiz
This short interactive tutorial and quiz should take 10-15 minutes to complete.
Infographics and reflection
Tips for creating infographics
Our 23 Things: Visual communication module introduces you to some of the features of infographics and how to use Canva to create infographics.
Reflection
You are required to provide an individual reflection on a specific situation or experience using Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle. This consists of six steps that guide you through the process of reflecting to improve learning and development:
- Description - describe what happened
- Feelings - what were your thoughts and feelings about the situation?
- Evaluation - what was good and bad about the situation?
- Analysis - what sense can you make of the situation?
- Conclusion - what have you learned and what could you have done differently?
- Action plan - how will you apply what you have learned in the future?
You can find more information about the Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle online:
- Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle (University of Edinburgh)
- Reflective practice (Charles Darwin University)<h2 id='about-uniskills'>About UniSkills</h2>
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