Throughout your academic career, you will be asked to research a topic or write an essay on a specific question. Knowing how to find and use academic sources is one of the most important skills you can develop.

This guide is here to help you get started. It will take you through the basics of literature searching and show you how to:

• Understand your question and identify the key concepts
• Find relevant books, journal articles, and other academic sources
• Evaluate the quality and credibility of what you find
• Keep track of your sources so your work is organised and ready to reference

You don’t need any prior experience - just follow the steps and you’ll be able to carry out your own literature search with confidence.

If you are working on a systematic review in nursing/healthcare, education, social sciences, or psychology, and need more detailed support with the searching process, please see our dedicated systematic reviews and systematic literature searching guides, which goes into greater depth than this one.