Hi. I'm Heather, your embedded librarian and I've created this guide to help you with your research for JST110. 

Each section introduces the steps you should take when researching for an assessment. You'll find links to videos and resources that will give you the tools to find great information. Use the activities on the test your knowledge tab to see what you need to revise.

If you would like an introduction to our Library website and services check out:

The first thing is to make sure you clearly understand the task and what topic you are seeking information for, this is called topic analysis. Check your assessment task details in your Subject Outline.

With an understanding of your task you then need to plan how you will search for information. This starts with identifying and brainstorming keywords.

Let's take a look at your assessment task for JST110 assessment item 3, a 700-word Ministerial Briefing on the issue of pill testing.

You need at least six different, high quality, academic or government sources in your paper and these must be referenced.

For guidance in topic analysis check out:

Before you start searching, think about what types of information you need and where you can search to find those types of resources.

Primo Search

Primo Search is a good place to start as it allows you to use one search box to bring back results from most of our Library collection including books, eBooks, journal articles, newspaper articles and more. You may get a large number of results and some of these will be from outside your subject/discipline area. Check the content is relevant to your assessment task before you use it.

Library databases

Databases will help you find academic resources and are often subject specific. You will get fewer results than Primo, but they will be more relevant to your subject/discipline. 

I recommend trying the following database:

The Law & Justice Studies and Emergency Management, Policing & Public Safety lists have more databases you can search.

Learn how to search efficiently in Primo and Library databases:

Legal Research

For JST110 assessment item 3 - Ministerial Briefing, you may need to undertake legal research. 

Our Legal research for non-law students guide will step you through the process of:

• planning your legal research
• searching secondary sources such as legal dictionaries, legal encyclopedias, books and journals
• searching primary sources; which are cases and legislation

Our comprehensive Law Library Guide contains collections, search tools, suggested resources and assistance to help you with advanced research and studies in this field. It includes the links to Law Reform and Legal Commentary that you might find useful in this Assessment.

When you search using Primo Search or a library database use the keywords and limits you identified above to create your search. Combine the keywords with search operators, rather than searching with a whole sentence or question. Search operators tell Primo or the database how to search with your keywords.

For your assessment topic potential search strings could include:

• "pill testing" AND Australia* AND (festivals OR events)
• law reform AND “pill testing”
• "Pill testing" AND policy AND (NSW OR new south wales)

Remember: you will need to try a range of searches. Don't stop after just one.

To understand how search operators work check out:

Most databases will allow you to specify which field you want to search. Common fields include:

• title
• author
• subject
• material type
• date

Once you've searched, you can also limit your results by some of these fields. This is extremely useful if you want articles published within a certain date range, or for them to be peer-reviewed. Look for these in the menus beside your search results. 

Use the following symbols and/or words in your Google searches, to retrieve more relevant results:

However access to your textbook is limited. Follow the best practice in the video below to ensure you have access to what you need without disadvantaging other students in your subject.

The Academic Skills team can help you to build your writing, referencing and reading skills to be successful at Charles Sturt.

Explore resources from the Academic Skills team in the Learning Skills section of the Student Portal.

Here are some pages to get you started:

Have you been asked to use Generative AI Tools (GAITs) in your assessment? Or are you thinking of using GAITs for research and study? 

Make sure you are aware of the risks associated with using GAITs:

• Academic integrity
• Plagiarism
• Inaccurate content
• Intellectual property
• Privacy concerns

For more information see:

If you're interested in finding out more, check out the following: