I found a three month summer job through the careers’ service, and later my first job after university (with a small IT company). Now that I’m freelancing, I wish I’d gone to their small business and self employment workshops, too.

Here are a few of the typical features of your careers service to take advantage of:

In person services

Information on different careers and companies

Your careers service is likely to have books, pamphlets and leaflets on popular career areas (such as accountancy, law, teaching, IT, finance) along with files full of information about different companies.

Investigating broad career categories is really useful when you’re early on in your university studies, as some careers, such as teaching or publishing, will expect you to have undertaken some work experience before you get started. Your university summer breaks (and, to a lesser extent, the Christmas and Easter breaks) are great opportunities for getting this experience.

When you’re in your third year and looking in more detail at specific job opportunities, the information held on specific companies is very useful. My careers service collated everything from newspaper clippings about the company to feedback from students who’d worked there (very useful if you want an honest opinion!)

Advice and support in choosing your career

If you’re not sure what you want to do after university, the folk at your careers service are there to help. Don’t be shy about making an appointment to chat through your ideas and options – that’s what they’re paid for! I always felt that I’d be “wasting someone’s time” because I wasn’t especially interested in big business or “milkround” style careers – but I’ve realised since that getting some advice could have been very helpful.

As well as one-on-one sessions, your careers service might provide group workshops on specific careers or aspects of job hunting. They can also help with writing CVs (resumes) and cover letters – very useful when it comes to applying for jobs.

Aptitude tests

Depending on what you’re studying at university and on the career you’re aiming to go into, you may need to take aptitude tests or selection tests when you apply for jobs. Big companies also employ personality profiling tests.

As with any sort of exam, practice really helps – and your university careers service will offer a number of these. Ask at their reception desk for details: usually, there’ll be tests which you can take away to do in your own time, and sessions on specific dates when you can sit practice tests at the careers centre.

Online services

You may not even need to visit your careers centre in order to access a lot of the services that they offer. Check out the website (you’ll probably need to use your university login to access most of it). You’ll typically find some of these features:

Vacation jobs

If you’re looking for a temporary job during the Christmas, Easter or summer break, the first place to search is your university’s careers service site. Employers looking for students for temporary work will often send their job adverts to universities, and they’re much more likely to be legit and well-paying than adverts on sites like Craigslist and Gumtree.

Full-time jobs

Employers with graduate-level jobs will also send their vacancies to careers services. Usually, you can search these online – and many careers services will offer opt-in lists of the latest jobs in specific areas. (Such as “Publishing and Journalism” or “IT and Technology”.) Even if you’re not currently job-hunting, it can be worth signing up to any of these lists that interest you, or having an occasional search for the opportunities available. It might give you some ideas for the future – or you may even find an amazing position that you want to apply for straight away.

Personality quizzes

You might also find personality quizzes online – where you can run through a series of questions that will help you to figure out what career might be right for you. This can be helpful if you’re at the stage of thinking about what you do want to do after university. Don’t take any suggestions you get as being set in stone – but don’t dismiss ideas that come up out-of-hand.

(One of the quizzes I did with my career service suggested “copywriter” for me – which is pretty much what I do now!)

If you want to make sure you don’t miss out on getting our next posts, don’t forget to grab our RSS feed or pop your email address in the box below, to get posts automatically delivered to your inbox.

And let us know in the comments what you’d like to see us write about on Alpha Student in 2009…

Pack Up Your Stuff BEFORE Your Parents Arrive

If you’re getting chauffeured home by your dad or mum, then make sure you’ve got all your stuff packed up before they arrive to collect you. Trust me, you don’t want to be stumbling around in the cruel early morning to find that lost library book, nor do you want to realise (just as your dad phones to say “I’ll be there in ten minutes”) that there’s no way all your clothes are going to fit into that case…

My tried-and-tested tips on packing up the contents of your room to fit easily into an average sized family car are:

• Use boxes. Strong boxes. (Not cardboard ones which will collapse as you carry them down the staircase.) Books, in particular, pack well in boxes. Invest in half-a-dozen large, sturdy plastic boxes now – you’ll be well glad of it by the end of your time at uni.
• Use bags. If you’ve got stuff that won’t go in boxes (or if you run out of boxes), get some strong, large, shopping bags and use those. They’re good for awkwardly shaped items like computer cables and kitchen utensils.
• Wrap anything breakable in bubble wrap or, failing that, kitchen paper, tissues or plastic bags. Things will get bounced around a lot.
• Start packing early. It’s surprising how long it can take. Allow at least twice as much time as your worst-case-scenario estimate suggests…

Take Flowers, Alcohol or Chocolate

A really nice way to re-enter the family home on a good note is to arrive bearing flowers, a bottle of wine or a box of chocolates. If this is the sort of thing you never do, you’ll get serious bonus brownie points. For the sake of a few quid, you could put yourself in your mum’s good books for the rest of 2008…

Be Prepared for Changes

Don’t expect everything at home to be exactly as you left it. You might find that your room has been tidied, redecorated, and/or given to a younger sibling. I arrived home one time to find that my bed was gone (my teenage bedroom had finally been taken over by the family’s computers, and I was relegated to the cupboard-sized “front room” and forced to sleep on a narrow kiddy bed. Sniff.)

Likewise, the larder may have been reorganised, the garden landscaped, walls repainted. Your proper response to changes is to admire them and praise your parents’ good taste. Saying nothing apart from “where the heck have you hidden the teabags?” in response to the redesigned kitchen is not likely to incur your mother’s goodwill.

Act Like an Adult

You probably want your parents to treat you like the independent adult you are, rather than a child – especially if you have siblings at home. If so, it does help to avoid regressing back to your childhood/teenage behaviour. That means doing your own laundry, making your bed without being told, not sulking, and so on. Yeah, this is all hard when surrounded by the comforts and irritations of home, but life does go more smoothly if you behave as a willing and helpful member of the adult population in the house – rather than dumping a term’s worth of laundry in the hall the minute you get home.

Over to you

Further reading:

• How to Be a Great Guest In Your Parent’s Home – an article I wrote for DLM, aimed at any adults (students or otherwise) in the situation of being a guest at their folk’s place.
• Happy Holiday Visits and Healthy Adult Relationships – advice from Suite101 on how parents and university-aged kids can help the holidays go smoothly on both sides. The key here in to communicate.
• Counselor says Christmas bells and bickering are common companions — news piece from Montana University, which explains that most students and parents struggle to readjust over the Christmas break.

Got any great survival tips on making the return home go smoothly? How do you plan to get through the Christmas break without strangling any siblings? Let us know in the comments…

When you’re on a student budget, Christmas shopping can be a stressful time. These are a few simple ways to keep organised and keep the costs down.

Gifts for friends at uni

You hopefully have a wide circle of friends at uni. Giving presents to all of them is going to see you well into the red by the start of January – but you don’t want to be miserly.

How about organising a “Secret Santa” exchange of gifts? This is great for big groups of friends, as it means that everyone need only buy and give one present. No more agonising over “will s/he be expecting something from me”…

The way it works is very straightforward, though someone does need to take charge:

• Ask who wants to participate
• Agree a spending limit (eg. £5/$10)
• Put all the names into a hat, and (in secret) pull out pairs at random.
• Inform each person on the list who they’re buying a gift for.
• Do not tell people who is buying a gift for them.
• Gifts should be wrapped, with only the name of the recipient on the wrapping.
• Get together for some booze and gift-giving, and have fun trying to guess who gave what!

It’s a great way to enjoy the fun spirit of Christmas and gift-sharing, without anyone needing to spend a lot of money.

Gifts for folk back home

As well as uni friends, you’ll probably have a lot of relatives who you want to (or feel obliged to) buy presents for.

If you’re stuck for ideas, one incredibly easy way to come up with gifts is to look in your university’s shop. My college bar at Cambridge sold bottles of wine, port, sherry etc – both much appreciated by my parents! CDs produced by uni music societies, scarves with your university’s crest on, even mugs, can all make nice presents as they’ll remind the recipient of you whenever they use the gift.

Alternatively, try buying something unique to the town (or even the country) in which you’re studying, for people back home. I love buying tins of biscuits from Harrods (a very famous department store in London) as they’re a great talking point for relatives, and make a nice gift for grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. (They’re also surprisingly good value, compared to most of Harrods’ goods!)

Get organised early

One of the things I’ve learnt during my years as a student is that things are much less stressful (and often cheaper) if you’re organised about them. You’re going to have to do Christmas shopping at some point, so why not get it sorted out well in advance? Dashing out on Christmas eve to buy some overpriced tat from the one shop that’s still open won’t help your stress levels or your wallet.

Being organised with wrapping presents is also a good idea: you might think that you have a huge amount of time at home over Christmas, but it’s surprising how quickly the days can get eaten up. As with essays, don’t try to pull an all-nighter just before the deadline: get everything sorted out well in advance, and you’ll have lots of leeway to cope with last minute panics.

Over to you

Some of my favourite sites to buy Christmas prezzies from:

• Amazon.com / Amazon.co.uk – a recent report by The Guardian newspaper found that almost every product that Amazon sells is cheaper on Amazon than anywhere else. (This is because Amazon has no presence on the high street, so has much lower running costs than other companies.)
• Play.com – free DVD delivery, and some great bargains.
• AllPosters.co.uk – a huge selection of posters and prints, great for hard-to-buy-for friends.

Got a great tip on surviving Christmas on a student budget, or any advice on what to buy for tricky relatives? Let us know in the comments…

And if you’ve got a savings account set up, you can shove any “extra” money that comes your way (Christmas gifts, in particular) straight into that. There’s a definite psychological benefit in separating your spending money in your current account from money that you’re saving up towards your first house, a round-the-world-trip or to ease the eventual transition from uni into the working world. If you put all your money into your current account, it’s very easy to end up splashing out on gadgets and gizmos that you don’t really need.

What savings account should I get?

I am no financial expert, and there’s no one perfect savings account to suit everyone. The best advice I can offer is to shop around. Figure out what you want from a savings account, and talk to some banks and building societies, or have a search online.

Some good points to bear in mind are:

• Make sure you can get money out when you need it. Of course, it’d be great if you never have to dip into savings while you’re a student – but it’s very useful to have the possibility available.
• Try to get an account which you can manage online: it’ll save a lot of time in the long run, especially if you often deposit small sums.
• Look at interest rates, but don’t get too hung up on them. You probably won’t be saving enough for it to make a huge difference. In the long run, ease of access trumps an extra tenner over the course of three years…

Earmarking money for savings

It’s entirely up to you what money you put into your savings account, but it can help if you make a mental (or physical) list of what money you plan to save. For example, you might find your budgeting skills stretched to the limit during term-time, but you know you can put half your summer job’s pay straight into savings.

Other good ways to save include:

• Doing some freelance work related to your degree
• Putting any gifts of money into your savings account
• Giving up a particular vice (alcohol, ciggies) for a period of time, and saving the money that you don’t spend
• Setting aside a small percentage of your student loan (say, £100) at the start of each term.

Over to you

Further reading

• Use your skills: find a job on Student Gems – a post here on Alpha Student which could help you find a bit of extra income to channel into your savings account.
• Savings accounts – an extensive and comprehensive guide from MoneySavingExpert.com
• Save money, log your spending – If you know you’re spending too much, this could help you figure out where it’s all going…

Do you have a savings account? Does it contain precisely 2p, or are you taking active steps to add to it (or at least not take money out)? Are you saving, or would you like to save, towards a particular event – or do you just want money “for the future”?

Many undergrads are in a similar position to that, starting uni without much experience of grocery shopping. I was shocked at how much meat cost, and having little clue on what could be frozen and what couldn’t.

Here are a few tips for grocery shopping that should make life (a) less of a hassle and (b) a bit cheaper.

Check offers online

If you have a choice of supermarkets nearby, it’s worth checking what’s on offer where: sometimes, basic items like bagels, tortilla wraps, and squash (I think that’s what you call “kool-aid” in the US?) are half-price in one shop and full-price in another.

Most big supermarkets here in the UK have offers listed on their sites, so try looking for the shops near you to see what’s cheap where. If you search Sainsbury’s online shop, you can find all their offers – other shops which don’t offer home delivery (like Somerfield and Morrisons) only list a selection of their offers online.

Question whether it’s REALLY a bargain

One advantage to checking offers online is deciding beforehand what’s going on your shopping list and what isn’t. Sure, a giant box of biscuits at half price might sound good value – but unless you were going to buy biscuits anyway, it’s not worth the money. And any items with a short lifespan – fruit and veggies, chilled produce, etc – may go off before you have a chance to eat them all.

Think about freezer space

I admit that the question “will it freeze” is somewhat less exciting than “will it blend“, but it’s a useful one to have in mind. Most fresh meat and fish (mince, chicken, prawns, etc) will freeze just fine, as will bread products (loaves, rolls, bagels, pittas, wraps, etc). Foods with a high water content, including most fresh fruits and veggies, won’t freeze well unless you cook them or treat them in some way first.

Technically, you can freeze most things without them becoming harmful to you in anyway, but as the Food Safety and Inspection Service points out:

Being able to freeze food and being pleased with the quality after defrosting are two different things. Some foods simply don’t freeze well.
- Freezing and Food Safety

Most products will indicate on the label whether or not they can be frozen. If you’re checking the reduced fresh foods section for items with a “use-by” of the current day, see if they can be frozen: it’ll mean you can keep them for up to a month.

Check the date

And on the note of “use-by” dates, make sure you always check the date on fresh produce. One good tip is to reach to the back of the shelf for items with a date further in the future – be careful that you don’t end up buying a huge pack of chicken breasts that all need using before tomorrow.

The different types of date on products shouldn’t be too confusing:

• “Best before” means that you’re perfectly safe to eat the product after the date, but it’s not guarenteed to be in tip-top condition. This often applies to items with a long shelf-life, like crisps (chips to US readers).
• “Use by” means what it says: you should use the product by the date indicated. If you freeze it, make sure you freeze it before the use by date – ideally, on the day you buy it.
• “Display until” is an instruction to the shop staff, not to you. It typically appears on foods larger than a single serving, and prevents the shop from selling foods on the “use by” date. The reduced section often includes foods which have reached the “display until” date, but which don’t need to be used for a few days.

Over to you

Further reading:

• Student food and cooking, from Which magazine – Includes advice on good nutrition, as well as food shopping on a budget.
• Student Survival kit, from BBC webite – Again, tips on nutrition, cheap food and food shopping.
• Freezing advice, from Delia Online – If you’re not sure what you can and can’t freeze, check here first.

Have you got any great tips for making food shopping easier and cheaper? Share them with us in the comments!

There are three portions of the Project Gutenberg Library, basically described as:

• Light Literature; such as Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass, Peter Pan, Aesop’s Fables, etc.
• Heavy Literature; such as the Bible or other religious documents, Shakespeare, Moby Dick, Paradise Lost, etc.
• References; such as Roget’s Thesaurus, almanacs, and a set of encyclopedia, dictionaries, etc.

Who’s Project Gutenberg for?

Historians could find a huge amount of valuable primary sources there, particularly for any sort of social history (I’ve just been browsing through The Child’s Day by Woods Hutchinson, a fascinating insight into the life and times in 1912.)

Literature students, of course, are well catered for. Even if, like most students, you prefer to read novels in paper form than on a screen, ebooks are invaluable when you want to search for a particular quote – no more flipping through pages at random!

If you’re studying social sciences (particularly politics or philosophy), being able to access the works by great thinkers of the past is hugely useful.

And Project Gutenberg could be fun for general interest: I discovered the third volume of the Treasure Seekers series by E. Nesbit (children’s books from the Victorian era), New Treasure Seekers, or, The Bastable Children In Search Of a Fortune a couple of years ago. I’ve read The Treasure Seekers and The Would-be-Goods a couple of times, so was delighted to have a chance to read this lesser-known third volume (though I probably should have been writing an essay at the time…)

Unlike the online resources I mentioned a few days ago, Project Gutenberg is completely free for anyone to access – no login required.

How to find ebooks using Project Gutenberg

To get an idea of the range that Project Gutenberg covers, why not start by looking at their Top 100 list? This tells you the ebooks which have been downloaded most frequently on the previous day. At the time of writing, there’s an amazing breadth of subject matter represented – just look at the different titles here:

1. The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) by J. Arthur Thomson (679)
2. Manners, Customs, and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period by P. L. Jacob (518)
3. Illustrated History of Furniture by Frederick Litchfield (350)
4. Our Day by William Ambrose Spicer (288)
5. History of the United States by Charles A. Beard and Mary Ritter Beard (261)
6. Searchlights on Health by B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols (242)
7. The People’s Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English by Ray Vaughn Pierce (225)
8. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (222)
9. The Practice and Science of Drawing by Harold Speed (204)
10. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (195)

Health warning: The titles of some of these books are so fascinating that you may not want to browse the Top 100 list until you have a few hours to spare…

Searching for a specific author or book is very straightforward: just type the author name or word(s) from the title into the search box on the top left of the page.

There’s also an advanced search where, among other things, you can search the full text of books. This could be extremely handy if you know a great quote but have no idea where it came from or who said it.

Reading ebooks on Project Gutenberg

Once you’ve clicked through on the title of a book, you’ll be presented with a page listing the details of the book and of when it was added to Project Gutenberg. At the bottom of this page, you’ll find a list of different ways to download or read the book itself. These are:

• Plucker – a version compatiable with software for a smart phone or PDA
• HTML: none – normal web page which just displays in your browser (try “main site” first, and the mirrors if the main site is too busy)
• HTML: zip – a zipped version of the HTML file which you download onto your computer (again, try “main site” first)
• Plain text: Both versions operate the same as the HTML, but have no images or formatting of text. For general reading purposes, you probably don’t want to use this version.

Over to you

Try looking up some books using the search, or browse through some of the top 100 – there’s an amazing amount of free information in Project Gutenberg (and they’re adding new books all the time).

Let us know about any real gems you find in the archives!

If you live in the US, though, you might want to check out Student Freelance, which works in a similar way. Here’s the run-down…

Getting Started with Student Freelance

I liked this quote from the registration screen, as it chimes nicely with my own focus on “ventures” (closely linked in my mind to “adventures”) and conveys a great a sense of excitement about starting something new.

User registration is where your new venture begins with our interactive marketplace. Please take a moment to fill in the required information.

Unfortunately, though registration looks nice and straightforward, I was told I couldn’t because I’m not at a university in the US. The site uses the domain part of your email (I tried with my Goldsmiths’ account which ends “.gold.ac.uk”) to check whether you’re a legitimate US student. If you can’t register, text appears to prompt you to contact the site administrators to have your school added.

Registration looked straighforward, however – just a matter of creating a user account (as you would on any website).

Rather to my bemusement, my account registration did seem to have partially gone through; I saw text at the top of the screen saying “Good Morning, aliventures – You are Logged-in”
(aliventures was my chosen username).

Searching for work on Student Freelance

My first search (amongst “service auctions” which are the job listings) was for “writing” and came up with 0 results, which was a bit disappointing – I found some matches when I tried a similar search on Student Gems.

In fact, there only appeared to be two jobs listed on the entire site: when I ran a blank search I got this:

And when I clicked through to look at the details on the first project, I found it had been posted back on 15th September (it’s 23rd November at the time of writing this).

Portfolio listings on Student Freelance

The site did seem much better populated when I clicked on the “Portfolios” tab at the top of the page. It may be the case that, like with Student Gems, many employers using Student Freelance prefer to contact individuals directly rather than posting their job on the site. Even so, there were only 45 portfolios in total – and several users had multiple portfolios (for different projects, as far as I could tell).

At this stage, it appeared that I definitely wasn’t logged in as I couldn’t view the details of portfolios, which were available to “subscribers only”…

Overall impression of Student Freelance

It looks like Student Freelance is a new, and badly underused, site. I couldn’t see much potential for finding work through it – though it might be worth signing up, if you are in the US, in case the site does take off in future.

I’d personally recommend using Student Gems instead (which is also a relatively new site where you have a good chance of getting noticed, but with definitely active employers). If you’re in the US, many employers may be happy to use you for jobs which can be done remotely. Much of my own freelance writing is for US individuals and companies, and I get paid in dollars via Paypal – it works just fine.

Ali’s note: I’m delighted to present a guest post today, from Jeremy Day of Insight Writer (RSS feed). He’s a great guy, and I’m not just saying that because he was the first blogger ever to ask me for an interview … Without further ado, I’ll let you get on with reading his article!

If you are like most students you know that sometimes it is very easy to not do what you are supposed to be doing at university or college. Everything is a distraction from your studies. You have friends that want to party, family that wants you to come home and visit. Clubs, work, and every other extracurricular activity under the sun. How are you ever supposed to concentrate on what is most important. Your studies?

This may be shocking to hear, but your studies may not be the most important thing for you to focus on. Let me explain. As someone who has already graduated with an undergraduate degree and has just graduated with a master’s degree, my studies have not been the most important thing to my career.

Granted, some studies such as medical studies really require you to know your stuff. However, a lot of what you learn in the real world is on the job. Getting good grades is not the end all be all of your education. After all my time in school, here are what I consider to be the keys to graduating well.

1. Be there to learn, not just to get good grades. This is a great time of your life where you don’t need to worry so much about anything besides learning. Just because you can pass a test or write a paper and get an A, doesn’t mean you are necessarily learning anything useful.
2. Learn what you are passionate about. One of my friends in college started out as an information systems major. He liked it, but wasn’t passionate about it. He was getting a lot of bad grades in his classes. A couple of us who were close friends of his convinced him to change his major to graphic arts. We knew he was passionate about it, but he had other things holding him up from making that decision. It took him an extra year to graduate, but he finally made the change. His grades were a whole lot better and he is now a successful web designer and graphic artist. It pays to pursue your passion.
3. Make lots of friends. We all hate to admit it, but oftentimes, its not what you know, it is who you know. Networking is in and you never know who you will meet and how you can help each other get ahead in life. So take time out to meet people who have similar interests as you.
4. Look toward your future. Sometimes it is easy to lose focus when you are bogged down by studying, paper deadlines, and everything else that takes up your time in school. Don’t forget to think about your future when you get out. It is kind of scary to know how many people get close to graduation and have no idea what they are going to do after they graduate. It is like they forgot to plan ahead. Don’t let the same thing happen to you.
5. Participate in extracurricular activities. Get away from your studies every once in awhile. Play some team sports. Join a club. Write for the newspaper. Gain some leadership experience. Employers look at these as an important part of who you are. You may even bond with a hiring manager if you did similar things in school. Practice being a well rounded individual.
6. Get to know your professors. This was a huge one for me. I got to know my professors well enough that they were willing to write references for me to get a job, and to get in grad school. Professors aren’t there to make your life miserable. They are there to help you learn, grow, and get better at your ultimate vocation. Don’t underestimate the power they have to help you along your way.
7. Gain relevant job experience. This is the bridge that helps you in going from school to career. Do a co-op or an internship. Work part-time in your field. Turn down jobs not related to your field. Get to know potential employers. This will help you out immensely.
8. Graduating well means a whole lot more than having a perfect GPA. It means getting to know both your field, and people that can help you in your field better. It means networking the best you can. It means being well rounded. It means being knowledgeable and having practical experience. Most importantly, it is about being prepared for the future.

Remember the end goal of graduating well. It is getting into a career that you love. I hope these key steps will help you in achieving your dream career!

Jeremy writes about personal development @ his blog Insight Writer. If you found his article useful, please consider subscribing to his RSS feed. Thanks!

Why not try using online academic resources instead? Almost all universities and many online colleges have subscriptions to two very useful ones:

• JSTOR, which lets you access journal articles online
• OED (Oxford English Dictionary), where you can search for authoritative word definitions, learn the etymology of a word, and find the first cited usage of it.

(And you’ll no doubt have access to a huge range of other journals, databases and encyclopaedias too – just ask in your university’s library for details.)

JSTOR – Journal articles

JSTOR explains that:

Our overarching aims are to preserve a record of scholarship for posterity and to advance research and teaching in cost–effective ways. We operate a research platform that deploys information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.

The site holds back issues of over a thousand journals, covering humanities, social sciences and sciences. These are kept from the very first issue, and you can search the full text of journal articles for key words or phrases. The more recent issues for each journal, approximately the last three to five years’ worth, aren’t available in full online but will still bring up results in your search – making it a quick way to find articles in these (rather than thumbing through volumes manually in the library).

How to use JSTOR:

You’ll need to login – try going to your university’s library website, and look for a link like “online resources” or “e-resources”, which will usually give instructions. In most cases, you’ll need an Athens login – this is probably sitting somewhere in your start-of-uni emails.

Once logged in, you can either search across all journals (which might be useful if you’re just beginning your research on the topic and don’t know where to look), or you can search by specific discipline (e.g. “Performing arts”, “Biological sciences”) or, by using the Advanced search, you can search within specific journals in each discipline.

You can also register for a “MyJSTOR” account, which allows you to save citations to your “MyJSTOR” area – this is very useful if you want to bookmark articles for future reference.

OED – Dictionary

The OED explains that:

The Oxford English Dictionary is the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language over the last millennium. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words, both present and past. It traces the usage of words through 2.5 million quotations from a wide range of international English language sources, from classic literature and specialist periodicals to film scripts and cookery books.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is considered the serious, academic dictionary worldwide. Your university library will doubtlessly have a full copy, in multiple huge volumes. If you’re looking up several words, though, this is a real pain to use! It’s far quicker to search the OED online, where you can jump around via hyperlinks rather than lug volumes from the shelf to a table and back.

How to use the online OED

You may need to use your Athens login or your library card (often surname and barcode) to access the OED. Note that even if you’re not currently a member of a university, you may be able to get access through public library membership: the London Borough of Southwark, where I live, offers this.

Searching is very straightforward: as soon as you’ve logged in, you’ll see the search box. Just type in the word you’re looking for. If the word can mean several different things (e.g. “read”), then you’ll be offered a choice.

You can view the etymology of a word (the history of the word – how it entered the language), quotations from texts, literary and otherwise, that use the word, and a date chart for the word. And, as with all dictionaries, you get a definition and pronunciation guide.

Look out for part two on “Using online resources”, which will cover finding the full text of books online. To ensure you don’t miss it, get Alpha Student’s updates by RSS or by email (fill in the box below):