Assignment help. How to find references / evidence for your assignment

Duration: 6:28 1022 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

The video provides practical advice on how to effectively gather references and evidence for academic assignments while avoiding plagiarism. The speaker suggests starting by selecting a topic where one already possesses some foundational knowledge, such as sexual health issues like chlamydia in young people. By writing down initial thoughts based on personal understanding first, students can then focus their research efforts specifically on finding credible sources to support those points. This approach not only streamlines the process but also ensures that every claim made in an assignment is backed by verifiable data rather than just general opinion or unverified internet searches. To find reliable evidence, the presenter demonstrates searching for specific terms like "chlamydia in young people" within UK-based resources such as government websites and official guidelines. The speaker emphasizes avoiding Google for citations because it often leads to unreliable sources; instead, students should utilize university libraries and specialized databases that host peer-reviewed research papers and official reports. When navigating these sites, particularly those hosted by the Government or organizations like the UK Health Security Agency, it is crucial to identify the actual authoring body rather than just the website domain name for proper referencing. Accurate citation requires noting the specific department responsible for the content, such as the Department of Health and Social Care, along with the correct publication date found on the page. Beyond simply collecting statistics on prevalence rates across different demographics like age, gender, and sexuality, the video stresses the importance of critical analysis in assignment writing. Students are encouraged to go beyond stating facts by exploring underlying reasons for trends, such as investigating why STI rates might be increasing among older adults. This involves synthesizing information from various research papers and studies to construct a well-rounded argument that explains causes and effects rather than just listing data points. By integrating wider knowledge into their work, students can demonstrate a deeper understanding of the subject matter and provide meaningful insights that add value to their assignments. In conclusion, the guide serves as a reminder that successful assignment writing relies heavily on rigorous research and accurate referencing practices. The speaker reiterates that while personal knowledge is useful for drafting initial ideas, all supporting evidence must come from authoritative sources like academic journals or official health agencies. Properly citing these documents involves carefully extracting details such as the specific agency name and publication year to ensure credibility. Ultimately, following these steps helps students produce high-quality work that avoids plagiarism and showcases a thorough command of their chosen topic through well-supported arguments and critical engagement with existing literature.

Read the full video transcript

Hi everyone. It has been a hot minute since I did a YouTube video, but I thought I would just jump on hopefully do some sort of useful video for your assignments for you. And a while back, somebody asked me to do a video on how to look up the information you need for your assignment. Because something I used to do when I would write my assignments, I would write the information on the stuff that I knew and then I would go and look up the information afterwards. And that just avoids things like plagiarism. you know, when you've read read something, an article or something like that and you're paraphrasing things and stuff like that, it just avoids plagiarism, if that makes sense. So, if you pick a topic that you know about and you're good at. So, if there was any sexual health, for example, topics, I would always pick that because my knowledge is so good on it. I could write it and then go away and find the references and evidence to back up what I was saying. I hope that makes sense. But this is how I did it. Okay, so I'm just screen recording on my laptop so you can see what I'm doing. I've literally just wrote a simple sentence as an example. I don't advise googling anything. Obviously, go to your rain, your libraries, whatever places you've got through your university advice. Go there to look for your evidence and research. So, first I would literally just search chlamydia in young people. Here's what I'm going to search first just to see what is around. You can have a little look. Go UK. So, let's just look at that. Uh, nice guidelines. We definitely love a nice guideline. And then if the statistics even better. So, here just with that simple search, I've found three places that I can look at. So, we've got the statistics. We've got the government website [clears throat] as well which also shows the statistics and then we have our nice guidelines. So three really good sources that we could use. So the first thing I want to look at at each of these is the different trends with this. So when you look at the trends, it shows you the statistics, uh the prevalences, and it goes through sort of years, ages, genders, sexualities, all of those sort of things. Um, so they're really, really good to include in your work. So that is a tick sheet done. The next thing I want to do if I want to give a little bit of critical analysis type of thing with this, I could look at STI increases in older adults because it is on the rise in older people and there is a reason for that. Uh no, I want UK based As you can see, it can take a while to figure out what you're looking for. The biggest section of assignment writing is finding the references. Spoiler alert if you've not done an assignment yet. So, this could be something that you could use. So, I've just found this little article here. Oh, actually, research, that's even better. So research that was done in England from 2014 to 2019. So there you go. You've got I'd say a good little research piece there. There's also the um STI BMJ I think it's called. Yes, there you go. This is a great website if you're looking for anything on um sexual health related and it's got the reports, the research, the studies. Why I didn't just come here, I don't know. Um, but I know that just from knowledge. So, you would have to do if you you weren't knowledgeable on the subject, you would have to do a lot of research first and a lot of reading around and making sure you've got the evidence. Also, be very careful if you're using a Gov UK website. A lot of people get the reference wrong for this and they put Gov UK 2024 25 whatever. When actually, if you look at the page in front of you, although it says go UK, that's just the website kind of host. That is the government website. This here, this little symbol, UK Health Security Agency, that is the author of what you're reading. So, look further down and if there's a symbol here, it'll usually be Department of Health and Social Care, Public Health, it'll be Health Security Agency. Now, use that. That is your author. And then the publish date. So, we are going to add to this. Let me just show you. So then we've got uh UK health security agency C 2025 2020. Can't spell or type today apparently. There you go. 2025. There you go. And then you can add on to that from all of your findings. Um, you could put why why is it more common in young people? What's been done about it? Um, really critically analyze your information by showing that wider knowledge. You're not just making a statement. Oh, it's common in young people and moving on to something else. You're going to explore the reasons how, why this is happening, what does the evidence say, what does the research say on this. I hope that makes sense. Anyway, I hope that was a quick and useful little guide and tip on how to find the information. Um, you're more than welcome to Google. I'd strongly advise never never referencing Google as your point of your evidence because that's not reliable. Always reference the source that you have found it. So, the actual research, the actual research paper, the government websites, the BMJ, whatever you're looking for it, that is what you're going to be referencing. But if there's anything else you want tips on for assignments, assign assignment writing, um exams, anything on nursing related, please let me know and I will do some videos for it. But for now, goodbye everybody. I hope you're getting on okay. Good luck with everything. You have got this.