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InfoSkills

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InfoSkills

InfoSkills is the Library's information skills training programme. It offers you a smarter way of working as a student and can help you find the quality information you need for your assignments quickly - giving you time to enjoy the things you really want to do.

How can we help?

There is a huge amount of information available to you - in print and in electronic form. It may seem daunting and can be time consuming to find what you want. InfoSkills from the Library can help you to find the quality information you need for your assignments.

We can provide help in a variety of ways:

  • presentations
  • hands on workshops
  • helpsheets
  • one-to-one at enquiry desks
  • online tutorials

Why do I need information skills?

Having good information skills means having the ability to:

If you are able to do this, you could get better marks for your assignments.

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Step 1: Define a topic and plan a search

Always start off by making sure that you understand your assignment title. If you don't understand a word in the assignment brief, find a definition. The Library has a good selection of dictionaries, subject dictionaries, thesaurus and encyclopedias to help you properly define your topic.

Look at the assignment title and carefully pick out the keywords you need to use to search for information. Can you think of any similar words that you should also search for?

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Step 2: Get hold of information

Always use the Library website as your starting point for finding information for your assignment. Here you can access the Library Catalogue, electronic databases, search engines and subject gateways/hubs.

Journals, also known as periodicals or magazines, are another useful source of information. Journal articles are more up to date than books and often cover topics in greater detail. Printed journals can be found on the library shelves, and electronic journals can be accessed via the Library Catalogue or the Find it! e-journals list.

Along with other sources of information you can find in the Library, such as books, videos, reports and journal articles, the internet can be another good place to find information. It can also be frustrating and time consuming as there is so much information available, especially if you use a search engine such as Google or Yahoo.

You could also try using subject gateways/hubs to help speed up and improve internet searching. A gateway/hub is an organised list of websites in a particular subject area that has been put together by experts. The chosen websites contain good quality and relevant information. Because of this, using gateways/hubs can really speed up your searching and improve the quality of the information you find on the internet.

You can link to subject gateways/hubs from the Library website. Follow these four steps:

  1. Go to the Library website.
  2. Under Electronic Library click on Resources by subject.
  3. Click on the first letter of the name of your subject area, eg E for Economics.
  4. Click on subject gateways/hubs to see what is available.

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Step 3: Evaluate information

Finding information for your assignment is only the first part of the process. You must assess how useful and relevant it is by asking yourself these questions:

  • Is it relevant to my assignment question?
  • Is it objective or is it biased?
  • Is it up to date?
  • Is it written by an authority in the subject?

Being able to evaluate information will help you to improve the quality of your assignment.

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Step 4: Organise and use information

It's important that you keep records of all the information you find. These records should help you to find a book, journal article or website again if you need to, and allow you to reference the information in your assignment.

Keeping good records will save you time when you start to write up your assignment and especially when you write your bibliography. The information you usually need to record is as follows:

  • Author/editor/creator
  • Title
  • Place of publication and publisher
  • Year of publication
  • Volume, issue and page numbers if it is a journal article
  • Website address (URL) if it is a website
  • Date accessed (for electronic information)

Citing references is a way of letting your tutor know where you found your information and you must do it in all your assignments. If you don't cite your references you could be accused of plagiarism. This means using other people's ideas and taking the credit for them. It is a form of theft and is a serious offence.

There are several ways of writing your references. The main styles are the Harvard style and the Numeric style. Ask your tutor, if you don't already know, which referencing style you are expected to use. If you need any help with referencing, see the Citing references section of the Library website.

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Step 5: Communicate and review information

Spend time planning and reviewing your essay, as good structure is one of the keys to a good assignment. The way you present your information is as important as the information you find. If you need help in writing essays or reports or help to prepare for a presentation, use the Learner Development Service website where you will find lots of help and advice.

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Helpsheets and Online Tutorials

For more information about how to search on databases, click on the link to the Helpsheet or Online Tutorial (if available) next to the name of the database on the Library website.

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Contacts

If you are interested in InfoSkills, you should:

  • Ask your tutor or lecturer to organise an InfoSkills session with Library Staff
    or
  • Contact your subject librarian directly, who will contact your tutor and arrange an InfoSkills session.
    or
  • Please complete the form below.

If you are unable to use this request form, please contact us using the following e-mail address: infoskills-lib-enq@mmu.ac.uk

You must fill in the boxes marked with *

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Where did you first hear about InfoSkills?
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Sources of information



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InfoSkills evaluation

To complete an online evaluation for the InfoSkills session you've attended please fill in an InfoSkills Evaluation Questionnaire. This questionnaire should take less than 5 minutes to complete.

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Links

There is a range of high quality materials, produced by other educational organisations, that you can work through online in order to improve your information skills:

Intute Virtual Training Suite
A set of free online tutorials in a whole range of subjects, designed to help students, lecturers and researchers improve their Internet information skills. Simply choose the subject tutorial relevant to you.
Study Skills
The Learner Development Service at MMU provides advice and guidance on time management, note taking, essay writing, presentations etc. Their website gives more information, publications and leaflets. Also look out for their workshops.
Studying online
A wide range of resources and advice to help you to get connected and study successfully online at MMU.
TONIC
A course of instruction on using the Internet. It is an easy-to-understand, structured overview of networking and the Internet which offers step-by-step, practical guidance to using search engines and advanced searching of the Internet.

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