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Sixth Form Study Skills

Sixth Form Study Skills

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Research Skills

Find and evaluate information effectively.

When you’re completing a piece of research for your coursework or a project, it’s important to make sure you use sources that are relevant for the work you’re doing.

Finding free resources

If you’re looking for resources to use as part of your research, here are a few places you could start.

Books in a library

You can find books in your local library, school or college library, and even online in the form of eBooks. If you’re local to a university, take a look at their website to see if they offer access to A-Level students. You find out about our Sixth Form Access Scheme on the Library website.

Books in a library are typically ordered according to the Dewey Decimal System. Find out how it works and play our game to test your knowledge.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar provides free access to scholarly research, including peer-reviewed papers and articles. Once you’ve found a text that is useful for your research, you can see where else that text has been cited and explore related articles.

Open Access

Open Access resources are scholarly research articles that are freely available online. You can access these articles from any library – simply filter your results to show Open Access only, or look for the Open Access logo (which looks like an open padlock!).

You can find Open Access resources through the University’s Library Search. Remember to use the Availability filter on the left and select Open Access.

JSTOR

You can create an account with JSTOR and read up to 100 articles for free each month. Visit the JSTOR support page for instructions on how to register.

CORE

You can find Open Access resources on CORE. This is recommended by our Open Access staff here in the library.

Statistics

The Office for National Statistics is the national statistical institute of the UK. Here you can find accurate and up-to-date statistics for things like population, health and government.

Introduction to the Dewey Decimal System

Learn how the Dewey Decimal System works.

Play the Dewey Decimal Game

Test your knowledge of the Dewey Decimal System.

Evaluating resources

Once you’ve found a resource, you need to make sure it’s reliable and relevant for your work.

Types of resources

Learn about different types of resources and how you might use them in your studies.

Resource evaluation checklist

A tool to help you work out whether your resources are relevant and reliable for your purposes.

Choosing appropriate resources

Consider how useful different resources might be for answering these academic questions.

Drag and drop

Drag and drop the statements about different resources into the correct category.

Pros and cons

Consider the pros and cons of the resources available to you.

ResourceProsCons
Academic books
  • Usually written by experts
  • Can be freely accessed via a library
  • Usually informative and reliable
  • Can be outdated
  • Can be time-consuming
  • Sometimes difficult to understand
Journal articles
  • Usually written by experts
  • Often peer-reviewed, which means checked by other experts
  • Some are open access, making them free to read
  • Usually focused and concise
  • Sometimes difficult to understand
  • Many require a paid subscription
  • Can be very specific
Reports
  • Usually focused and concise
  • Can cover a range of fields, from company and legal reports to medical and lab reports
  • Some are open access, making them freely available
  • Can be difficult to find
  • Can be very specific
  • Sometimes difficult to understand
Newspapers
  • Can be both current and historical
  • Gives an indication of what happened at a certain time and how the media responded
  • Can usually be accessed freely via a library or the British Newspaper Archive
  • Can be biased
  • Can be sensationalist
  • Can be limited
Images
  • Widely available online
  • Can help visualise something
  • Usually easy to access
  • Can come in a range of formats, from photographs and film stills to political cartoons and maps
  • Can be easily manipulated or edited
  • Can be limited
  • Can be protected by Copyright
Data and statistics
  • Reliable and factual
  • Supports qualitative research
  • Can come in a range of formats, like graphs and tables
  • Some data is freely available to the public (like Census data for example)
  • Can be difficult to find
  • Can be difficult to understand and digest
  • Can easily be manipulated
Audiovisual resources (videos, podcasts etc)
  • Accessible
  • Usually easy to digest and navigate
  • Can cover a range of content, from documentaries and newsreels to music videos and movies
  • The origin is sometimes unclear (for example, on YouTube or social media platforms like TikTok)
  • Can be biased
  • Easily made by non-experts
Websites
  • Usually easy to access and navigate
  • Provides content on just about anything
  • Can cover specialist subjects reliably (for example, the National Geographic website)

  • Easily made by non-experts

  • Can be biased

  • Can be factually incorrect

  • Constantly changing

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