Library Assist: Answers

For many subject disciplines across the University - especially in Health and the Sciences - being able to find and recognise primary research is a key element of what you are being assessed on.

The first point to bear in mind is that primary research usually takes the form of scientific-style papers or studies which are reported through the academic press. This means that in the vast majority of cases you will be looking for journal articles, rather than books, webpages or other types of sources.

The best tools for finding research articles will be LibrarySearch the library catalogue, and any subject databases that the Library subscribes to that offer full-text journal article access.

Use the dropdown menu on our Subject Resources webpage to choose the subject you're studying then read the description for each database to see which ones will give you full-text article access. Bear in mind that, because you're after the whole article, you will need to ignore any search results that are merely journal conference abstracts or poster presentation supplements. 

When doing your searches, there isn't usually a failsafe filter or button you can use that will automatically retrieve only primary research articles, although it can be worth checking whether your chosen database has any specific settings under their Advanced Search options. You will otherwise need to tailor your search to try to target the types of primary research by including relevant keywords. The FAQ 'What keywords should I use when searching for resources?' includes a section on this.