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Resources

 

Collection of our favourite tools, resources, inspiration and communities

Select a Category Below:

Templates & Guides Databases Guidelines Referencing Publications
Writing Help Data Visualisation & Illustrations Statistics
Student Journals Student Conferences Research Opportunities & Scholarships

Templates

Available below are our templates and guides to help you make the most out of your research

Submitting a Manuscript

  • Click here to see the template

Writing a Search Strategy

  • Click here to see the template

Writing a Literature Review

  • Click here to see the template

CV Writing

  • Click here to see the guide

Contacting a Supervisor

  • Click here to see the guide

Navigating EndNote

  • Click here to access the guide

Databases

Literature databases aren’t Google; they don’t know everything. What you did last summer is safe here. This does mean you need to be aware of what you’re searching through, though. We’ve lovingly arranged common open access and subscription databases below.

ScienceDirect

  • A really good free source to scope literature in many fields
  • Discipline: Multidisciplinary with a focus on physical sciences and engineering, life sciences, health sciences, social sciences and humanities
  • Coverage: ~ 16 million items

DOAJ

  • An independent database that accepts research in all languages and from all countries
  • Discipline: Multidisciplinary with a focus on science, technology, medicine, social sciences, arts and humanities
  • Coverage: ~ 4.3 million items

JSTOR

  • Values open access and works with libraries to use this database. Offers low-cost scholarship to researchers
  • Discipline: Multidisciplinary with a focus on arts and humanities, science and technology, social sciences
  • Coverage: ~ 12 million items

Google Scholar

  • This is NOT a human-curated database, which means that articles are selected based upon machine automated criteria, rather than scholarly criteria created by literature review committees. Includes a greater variety of resources such as conference proceedings, books and reports. Article content is not tagged, which means that all variations of words should be searched. Since content retrieval can vary, the results are not reproducible/reportable for something like a systematic review.
  • Discipline: Anything and everything
  • Coverage: Exact coverage unknown, but several papers are added per week

PubMed

  • Interface used to search Medline and additional biomedical content. Medline can also be searched by a paid interface such as Ovid. Keyword searching and automatic mapping to MeSH terms gives you a more tailored search
  • Discipline: Medicine, biological sciences and epidemiology
  • Coverage: Wide coverage, but varies according to subgroups within the disciplines mentioned above. For example, a 2019 paper showed that PubMed covered approximately 71% of publications and 83% of all included studies in Cochrane reviews from 2012-2016.

PEDro

  • This is a valuable resource for research concerning physiotherapy
  • Discipline: Medicine and physiotherapy
  • Coverage: 49000+ randomized controlled trials, systematic reviews and clinical practice guidelines

OTseeker

  • This is a valuable resource for research concerning occupational therapy. Also contains resources pertinent to knowledge translation, and gaps concerning transition to practice
  • Discipline: Medicine and occupational therapy
  • Coverage: Scopes over 1000 different journals in the field

Scopus

  • There is also a limited free preview available. One of the most popular databases used. Allows you to view an author’s profile, track their research, view h-index and more.
  • Discipline: Multidisciplinary with a focus in physical sciences, health sciences, life sciences, social sciences
  • Coverage: Approximately 71 million items

Web of Science

  • Another popular database. Can get a subscription to either Web of Science Collection or Platform. Offers many tools, including finding papers that share similar references to your paper of interest.
  • Discipline: Multidisciplinary with a focus in science, technology, social sciences, arts and humanities
  • Coverage: Approximately 174 million items

Proquest Central

  • Covers many databases in many subjects, so the scope is large
  • Discipline: Multidisciplinary with a focus in business, health sciences, science and technology, arts and humanities, social sciences
  • Coverage: Exact number not reported, but millions. Access to 47 of ProQuest's complete databases, with a variety of content types across over 175 subjects.

Medline (Ovid)

  • Ovid is an interface, like PubMed, used to solely search Medline. Allows for a more focused search with guided mapping to MeSH terms. Has an advanced mapping tool that will suggest different terms for the words you’re searching. Has many other features and tools.
  • Discipline: Medicine, biological sciences and epidemiology
  • Coverage: Coverage dating back to 1946. Over 23 million citations and abstracts in over 40 languages.

Embase

  • Ovid is also an interface for Embase. Allows for a more focused search with guided mapping to Emtree (MeSH and synonyms) terms. Very good limits to narrow a search.
  • Discipline: Medicine, biological sciences and epidemiology
  • Coverage: Over 37 million records

Cochrane Library

  • Collection of databases that contain research to inform healthcare decision-making - a very valuable and highly utilized database. Separate databases for systematic reviews, controlled trials, and cohesive summaries that guide clinical decision-making.
  • Discipline: Medicine, biological sciences and epidemiology
  • Coverage: The database for systematic reviews now publishes 12 issues per year, and started publishing in 1995

CINAHL

  • Amazing resource specifically for allied health. Also has continuing education modules and full-text quick lesson overviews of disease and conditions.
  • Discipline: Allied health with a focus on nursing, biomedicine, health sciences librarianship, alternative/complementary medicine, consumer health, and 17 allied health disciplines
  • Coverage: Over 7000 records. Covers 1937 - present.

Guidelines

Feeling lost? It’s no surprise if you are - every journal is frustratingly different. To pull you out of this rut, we have collected submission and reporting guidelines from some of academic medicine’s most respected journals.

The Lancet


The New England Journal of Medicine


PLOS Medicine


CONSORT

  • Randomised Controlled Trials

STROBE

  • Observational Studies

PRISMA

  • Systematic Reviews

SPIRIT

  • Study Protocols

STARD

  • Diagnostic/Prognostic Studies

CARE

  • Case Reports

AGREE

  • Clinical Practice Guidelines

SRQR

  • Qualitative Research

ARRIVE

  • Animal Models

SQUIRE

  • Quality Improvement Studies

CHEERS

  • Economic Evaluations

Referencing

The human brain can remember 7 things at once. Keep some of that brain space free with these handy referencing systems to store literature and automate some of that writing.

Endnote

  • The industry standard software for publishing and managing bibliographies, citations and references. Supported by Windows and Macintosh operating systems.
  • Cost: There are two versions: EndNote Basic (Free) and EndNote X9 (one-time license fee but usually free if you have institutional affiliation)
  • Pros: It is fully cloud-based. Paid version allows for full library sharing with 100 individuals. iPad application available, but not for Android.
  • Cons: Requires internet connection at all times. Not available for Linux.

Mendeley

  • It has 3 main features: reference manager, citation-add on (to seamlessly insert references into your document on Microsoft Word) and web importer (to import papers directly into your reference library). Reference management software differentiated by an academic social networking feature . It is available for Windows, Macintosh and Linux.
  • Cost: Free
  • Pros: Extensive PDF integration. Citations can be shared with up to 2 other users. Social networking component allows you to see what others in your field are reading and commenting on. Has a mobile app for iOS and Android.
  • Cons: Citations are stored locally. This means that syncing with a web account is required to work from different locations

Zotero

  • Open-source reference management system with advanced functionality such as creating collections through tagging with keywords and save auto-updating collections and fills with new references as they get published. Compatible with Windows, Macintosh and Linux operating systems.
  • Cost: Free
  • Pros: Accommodates collaborative work with one-click integration, web-based publications and the ability to tag individual articles with keywords
  • Cons: Like Mendeley, citations are stored locally. No in-built PDF annotation. No mobile app.

ZoteroBib


Citethisforme


NLM Vancouver Style

  • Commonly used for biomedical research
  • Guide is available from the book "Citing Medicine (2nd edition)"
  • Monash University provides a tutorial

American Medical Association (AMA) Style (11th Edition)

  • Originally designed by the American Medical Association for use in their publications
  • The official Manual of Style can be accessed online but requires a personal or institutional subscription.

American Psychological Association (APA) Style (7th Edition)

  • A widely used system for bibliographic citations or author-date referencing.
  • APA has also recently made 13 new tutorials and quick guides freely accessible to help students learn from home during the Covid-19 pandemic. https://apastyle.apa.org/instructional-aids/tutorials-webinars

Harvard Style

  • An author-date system of referencing

Publications

The rise of digital publishing has contributed immensely to current day research. Unfortunately, without a subscription access to the journals, it can be tedious to navigate online systems. Paywalls, logins and redirects through academic institutions are a few of the barriers. Here are a few (legal) options to get around these obstacles.

Endnote Click (Formerly Koperino)

  • Access millions of research paper PDFs with one click on Web of Science, Meta, PubMed, arXiv, Scopus and thousands more academic websites.

Unpaywall

  • Open source and non-for-profit software. Functions as a chrome extension to automatically search for an open access version of the research paper.

The Open Access Button

  • You can search for articles directly on their website or download a browser extension which will automate the open access search when you are viewing an article

ORCID

  • ORCID is an independent, not-for-profit organisation that provides you with a unique researcher number that works as a persistent digital ID, distinguishing you from other researchers. You can use your ID to share your information with other systems such as journals. It ensures you get recognition for all your contributions and saves record keeping time and errors.

Publons

  • Allows you to track publications, citation metrics, peer review and journal editing work in a single, easy-to-maintain profile

Writing Help

Where to look for academic resources than your very own university that you have paid good money for? Unbeknownst to most, universities often offer academic writing workshops or one-to-one personalised help. Whilst some of these services can be limited to their students, there are some free online resources that can be accessed by non-students.

Monash University

  • Provides a variety of free how-to guides eg. working with your supervisor to publishing research

University of Melbourne

  • Provide academic skills support through online learning modules, one-to-one workshops and practical workshops. Also includes programs to improve reading, writing and speaking.

Deakin University

  • Range of online guides from managing your research to more specific guides such as structures of various assignment formats

University of New South Wales

  • Provide academic skill workshops and individual consultations. Smarthinking Tutor allows students to submit drafts online and receive comprehensive feedback. Free-to-access self-help guides on referencing, writing reports and grammar.

University of Sydney

  • Provide face-to-face support, workshops and individual consultations

Australian National University

  • Range of online guides from managing your research to learning how to construct presentations and posters

Data Visualisation & Illustrations

Powerpoint often does the job, however, there will eventually come a time where you become fed up with drawing boxes manually. Here are some softwares that are specifically designed for efficient drawing. Think about all that time saved by not having to align the boxes and arrows!

Diagrams.net (Previously Draw.io)

  • A free and open source diagram software for making flowcharts, process diagrams, org charts, UML, ER and network diagrams
  • Works with G Suite/Google Drive and Dropbox
  • Deeply integrated and audit-friendly in Atlassian's Confluence and Jira products
  • Users can work on diagrams offline and save locally using draw.io’s desktop app for macOS,Windows and Linux

Microsoft Visio

  • Diagram and flowchart maker
  • All editions share functionality with MS Office Word and Excel and allow data feeds directly from MS Excel and Access
  • Paid subscription with two main plans - Plan 1 (Basic, $6.90/month) and Plan 2 (Professional, $20.60/month)

LucidChart

  • Free, cloud-based diagram software that allows for real-time collaboration
  • Integration with other productivity platforms such as G Suite, Atlassian, Slack, Salesforce, and Microsoft Office
  • A popular alternative to Microsoft Visio

Omnigraffle

  • Popular, simple and easy-to-use software to create flowchart diagrams
  • Only available for Macs and iOS systems
  • There is the basic free version and paid version ($250 USD). The paid version also allows for shared layers and additional drawing functionality

Mindthegraph

  • Online platform to create graphical abstracts, presentations and infographics
  • Thousands of illustrations available and you can request new ones if you don't find what you need

Canva

  • Free service that uses easy drag-and-drop features to create professional layouts
  • Best known for its vectorized logos & marketing applications

SMART – Servier Medical Art

  • Developed by a pharmaceutical company that provides free biomedical illustrations for posters, presentations and figures
  • Provide multipurpose slide sets with images ranging from human anatomy and cellular biology to specific medical specialities

Biorender

  • Offers a wide range of graphics that can be used to build scientific figures
  • Think Clipart for scientists
  • Free to access but a subscription is needed to access the full platform

InnovativeGenomics

  • Icons to illustrate gene-related items

ChemDraw

  • Gold standard for chemical drawings and research publications

EDrawSoft

  • Vector drawing software
  • Includes lots of scientific illustration templates which make it easy to draw physical mechanics diagrams, optics illustrations, chemistry equation diagrams, laboratory equipmentdiagrams and molecular model diagrams.

Statistics

Step 1: copy in data. Step 2: press analyse. Step 3: groundbreaking result.
As simple as that right? Unfortunately not. Below we have included links that cover the basic concepts underlying why we use statistics the way we do and more importantly what they mean when you use them.

Clinicians’ Guide to Statistics for Medical Practice and Research

Prism

  • An analysis and graphing software that has an easy-to-use user interface
  • Known for its highly customisable graphs
  • It is a subscription-based service but offers a 30-day free trial
  • Website provides detailed ‘Statistics Guide’, ‘Curve Fitting Guide’ and ‘Prism Guide’ and has a newly developed online training centre

IBM Knowledge Centre (for SPSS)

  • Both hands-on and self-guided tutorials

PennState Eberly College of Science STAT 500 Applied Sciences

  • Online and free-to-access course by PennState University
  • Step-by-step modules and works through the concepts with examples

StatisticsbyJim

  • Blog run by a statistician Jim Frost who also a regular columnist for the American Society of Quality’ Statistics Digest
  • Focuses on using plain english and graphs to explain statistics in an intuitive way

Student Journals

All the world’s a stage but there are some stages that are specifically made for you. These following journals aim to give students a platform to publish their work. However, do remember that there are no restrictions on which journals students can publish in and you should research which is the most appropriate journal for your article.

Australia Medical Students Journal

  • Provides a medium for Australian medical students to publish their work and share ideas with their peers.

Glocality

  • Open access academic journal which offers a platform to undergraduate students to share their work with the scholar community and practitioners worldwide. They admit articles that explore the relationship between local and global on any of the dimensions of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Reinvention

  • An online, peer-reviewed journal, dedicated to the publication of high-quality undergraduate student research. The journal welcomes academic articles from all disciplinary areas and all universities.

Fine Focus

  • An international journal dedicated to showcasing undergraduate research in all fields of microbiology

Ochsner Journal

  • Peer-reviewed quarterly medical journal, published in March, June, September, and December

British Medical Journal Case Reports

  • Publishes cases with valuable clinical lessons. Includes common cases that present a diagnostic, ethical or management challenge, or that highlight aspects of mechanisms of injury, pharmacology or histopathology are deemed of particular educational value.

The Australiasian Conference of Undergraduate Research

    The International Conference of Undergraduate Research

      The Online Conference for Undergraduate Research

        The Global Undergraduate Summit

          Research Opportunities & Scholarships

          Universities offer students a range of research opportunities from summer placements to more long-term ongoing projects. Most universities offer a summer research program so make sure to keep an eye out for your local universities. We have listed some of the programs we are familiar with below. Ask around your faculty as there are sure to be more ways of getting involved.

          Better research starts here