Using References Effectively

2 Nov 2023

My name is Anna, and I am currently doing a master’s in education. My undergraduate degree was a B.A in English and German. There are a couple of tips and resources I wish I had known about at the start of my undergraduate degree that would have made the transition into university much smoother! 

1. The resources available in on the UCC Library website! 

About half-way through my undergrad, I discovered how useful the library website, ‘Booleweb’ https://libguides.ucc.ie/library  was for finding sources for essay writing.  You can access a wealth of academic journals and books available with the full text online through this website. The filters you can apply to the Booleweb ‘One-Search’ search engine can allow you to search for specific authors, work written in specific years, and it also allows you to exclude irrelevant materials in your search. Furthermore, if Booleweb does not have access to a book chapter or journal you require for your research, you can request a scan of a book chapter or article and the library will email it to you! You can do so through this link: https://libguides.ucc.ie/scananddeliver 

1. Working Consistently  

I found that assignment deadlines became much more manageable when I consistently did the readings before the assignment questions were released. This might seem counter-intuitive to reading with focus and an assignment question in mind. However, it is often articles and chapters from the recommended readings that professors want to see in your bibliography. These are always reliable sources you do not have to spend time sourcing. In making a habit of doing this, I found that I no longer had absolutely no idea where to go with the assignment question once it was released. Doing this allowed me to start the brainstorming process for essays much sooner as that I already had a sense of o the academic discourse going on around the subject and what I could contribute to it. Another helpful tip for finding reliable sources quickly is to look in the bibliographies of recommend readings! 

1. Making and Organizing Research notes! 

Perhaps THE most helpful habit I developed to tackle essay assignments during my undergrad was the way I took notes as I did research for my essays.  When I would read an article, I would open up a fresh word document specifically for researching my assignment. If I thought the reading was valuable for my argument, I would straight away cite it correctly at the top of research document so that if I do end up quoting it in my essay, I can copy and paste the citation straight into my bibliography. Next, I would read the article, copying and pasting quotes and their page numbers into the document in black, as well as paraphrasing any valuable points in shorthand in blue italics. The most valuable part of this process was to jot down in the document any ideas of my own on the topic that the article had inspired me to have. I would do this in another colour or font, so I knew this was my own personal, original idea. Often, these quick ideas of my own turned into chunks of paragraphs that could be edited and copied and pasted directly into my essay!  

Below is an example of a research document, with the article cited at the top of the page, quotes written in black with page numbers underneath and paraphrase in blue italics! 

Hope these tips help! Best of luck with your studies. You can do it!