Library guides

Create and manage your academic researcher profile to increase the visibility and impact of your work.

Set up search alerts and table of content notifications to stay updated with the latest research in your field.

Understand Altmetrics and how to track the online attention and social impact of your research outputs.

Explore how to use generative AI tools responsibly in your studies while maintaining academic integrity and critical thinking.

Navigate the ARC Research Management System (RMS) for submitting and managing Australian Research Council grants.

Locate masters and doctoral theses from Australian and international universities to support your research.

While Google is a tool we use daily, using it for academic research requires specific techniques to ensure quality. This guide explains how to use Google Scholar to find peer-reviewed literature and, crucially, how to link it to the Library’s holdings to access full-text articles for free. It also covers advanced search operators (like 'site:' or 'filetype:') to refine standard Google searches, helping you find reliable reports, government documents and statistics. You will learn about the limitations of Google, how to evaluate the credibility of web sources using critical frameworks and when to move to specialised library databases for more comprehensive results.

Discover how to locate and use grey literature – such as government reports and guidelines – for health research.

Learn strategies to measure, demonstrate and increase the academic and societal impact of your research.

Master Microsoft Word features for formatting long documents like theses and research reports.

News media is a valuable primary source for history, politics and social science research. This guide connects you with databases that provide full-text access to thousands of newspapers from around the world. You can find today’s headlines from major dailies or search historical archives dating back centuries to understand past events. The guide explains how to access major papers that are usually behind paywalls (like the Financial Times, The Age or New York Times) through library subscriptions. Whether you are tracking a current event, analysing media coverage or studying a historical moment, these resources offer comprehensive news access.

Learn how to store, manage, share and selectively publish your data in Open @ La Trobe (OPAL), our institutional repository.

Manage your online researcher identity and profiles to improve networking, visibility and citation metrics.

Understand the rigorous process of conducting a systematic review, from protocol registration to data synthesis.

Starting a research degree can be a daunting process, involving multiple administrative and academic challenges. This guide offers some tips and strategies for those commencing their graduate studies, including ideas for setting up systems, links to important contacts and resources to get your thesis writing off to a good start.