Research and Referencing Journal
Written by David Andrew Marchant

Upon choosing a topic of research from the list provided in the Foundation Studies Handbook, I sat down and with a piece of paper and a pen started to write down some brainstorming ideas on what I thought keywords for the subject were. (This was also done in class to a lesser degree).
This proved to be an immense help a little further into my research as a lot of what I thought were going to be “key” words to get excellent and useful documents only returned ambiguous results that seemed to give me no greater insight to the topic than I had before.
I found that following the Foundation Studies handbooks guide on using “Truncation and Wildcard Searching” started giving me much better results that what I was achieving using the simple “Word” searching that one tends to use with Google. Excellent initiative.
Through many hours of what seemed like aimless searching around the internet I finally come across some useful information relating to the subject matter.
With the use of the Flinders University online Library I was able to find some very useful journal topics that not only proved interesting but also changed my perception on whether or not the “Nuclear Family” unit is breaking down or evolving into a family unit that is more suited to today’s lifestyles and mode of living.
My first thoughts were based wholly on my personal experiences and having never had to do any research before I have found that until now I have never truly had the opportunity or the need to challenge my own thoughts or beliefs on a subject. A breakthrough – good work.
It is these writings and that of library research that I will be calling upon to aid the completion of my final essay, and enable a paper that is of a high standard in both terms of Academic language and researched content.
Searching Google (the standard non Scholar site) turned up results as was to be expected. Most, if not all results were articles written in general terms and seemingly based on the writers’ personal reflections and experiences rather than being based on their research into the subject. Based on these findings I have abandoned the use of google for all but the most basic brainstorming and tentative research tasks. 
Google Scholar gave me some interesting readings but these later turned out to be the same as the University offered on their online library through the “Foundation Studies” link. Interesting.
Unfortunately I did not make it to the University’s Library to do some research, however I do plan to use this facility to help complete my final Essay for this topic.
This being a research journal I feel it prudent to mention that previously I have only ever had to research on a very basic level. Now as I progress further into this course I am starting to see that there are many ways one can research a subject and am learning that there is a great difference in “Personal Vs Academic” writings.