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Access to HE and Foundation Pathways Programme

Useful Library Resources for your Programme

In addition to the resources listed above, the library subscribes to many subject specific journal databases for the pathway you are studying. To find out which journal databases are recommended for your subject take a look at the libguides homepage and navigate to the subject area you need, then click on the Key Subject Resources link.

Google Scholar is a free search engine that searches across a range of academic material including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports.

Google Scholar can be a useful research tool if you like, and are used to using, Google as the interface is very similar. It is also a good tool for seeing what is out there on your topic. However, it is important to bear several things in mind:

  • Not all material will necessarily be peer-reviewed. There is no editorial process within Google Scholar, so you need to be careful what you rely upon.
  • Some articles may not appear as they do in the final published work. Preprints and drafts are all indexed by Google Scholar as well as open-access final articles.
  • You can't access all articles on Google Scholar, sometimes it will ask you to pay.

The library subscribes to lots of subject specific databases which provide credible, high quality academic sources for your assignments. It is recommend that these are your first port of call when searching for information . Have a look at the key resources tab to find out which are the best resources for your programme.   

The following video explains the advantages of using subscription databases.