Biomedical Science Workshop 1: Introduction

Very Short Introductions are a great way to find out about a new subject, consider study options, or revise a topic. The University of Birmingham now offers full access online to all 579 titles covering a broad range of subjects across many disciplines.

• If you are looking for a specific title, you can search for it on Findit@Bham as you would any other book eg African Politics: Very Short Introduction
• If you want to explore the whole collection, or a subject area, you can enter the search 'Very Short Introductions' on Findit@Bham

Using the Very Short Introductions website you can:

• Browse by subject area to find books and chapters
• Search across the whole range of titles to find books and chapters
• Set up an free personalized account so that you can save a list of your favourite books and chapters and notes on your reading

• Library
• About Us
• Discover our collections
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• Skills and training
• Copyright
• Referencing and Plagiarism
• News and events
• Help and contacts

This guide will take you through the basics of literature searching in Medical and related topics, using resources subscribed by the University and available through the Library's resource discovery tool FindIt. 

The activities are divided into sections as follows:

• Activity 1: FindIt article searches
• Activity 2: Wikipedia search
• Activity 3: Database searching (Medline)
• Activity 4: Using RefWorks
  • NB: this may be for a later workshop

For general information about literature searching, see the Library Guide to Effective Search Techniques. 

For general help with using FindIt, see the Library FindIt Guide. 

For short Canvas courses on a range of topics, see the Academic Skills Gateway.  In Research Skills, see the section on Finding and using information (including "Doing a quality literature review", and "Systematic literature searching"). 

Academic Skills Advisors

Academic Skills Advisors are available to provide help, advice, training, support and documentation to  undergraduate and masters students undertaking research, project work, essays and/or dissertations. Support is provided for all subjects in the form of one-to-one appointments or virtual online help via Skype. To arrange an appointment at a mutually convenient time, simply complete our online form . 

Research Skills Advisors

Research Skills Advisors are available to provide help, advice, training, support and documentation to research postgraduate students and academic staff undertaking research and project work. Support is provided for all subjects in the form of one-to-one appointments or virtual online help via Skype. To arrange an appointment at a mutually convenient time, simply contact the Research Skills Team and complete our online form.

Engagement Advisors

Engagement Advisors are available to provide help, advice, training, support and documentation to academic staff.To arrange an appointment at a mutually convenient time, simply contact the Library Engagement Team via libraryengagement@contacts.bham.ac.uk