Referencing a TV programme.

Several students have contacted me after watching the Future State of Welfare with John Humphreys.

Firstly, I'm glad it was useful. This post addresses how to reference the programme in an essay.

This link here will take you to the referencing guidelines for film and TV programmes. Just copy the format for TV programmes and you'll be fine. Just remember that you need a mixture of references (books, e-books, journals etc) to write a good piece of work.

And if you missed the programme when it was first broadcast remember you can still watch it on BBC's iplayer until November 3rd.

Report highlights high number of ethnic minorities in young offender institutions

This post is aimed at anyone who's studying criminology or issues relating to young people and the criminal justice system.

A new report published jointly by the Chief Inspector of Prisons and the Youth Justice Board has shown that nearly 4 out of every 10 (39%) young offenders are black or minority ethnic. This figure has risen from 23% in 2006 and includes an alarming increase in young Muslim men being incarcerated.

If the full report seems somewhat daunting (ideally my advice would be to read the Foreword, Introduction and Conclusion) at 100+ pages then The Guardian has provided a good summary of the main points.

As always, if you'd like more information on the methodology of the report or any related information, just ask.

Researching the Welfare State question.

Occasionally when you're given assignments and projects to write it happens to coincide with the issue in question being particularly in the public eye. The welfare state is just such a topic at the moment. Whether you're currently studying the welfare state or not, I would like to recommend a couple of things which may help with getting to grips with what can be a tricky concept.

The first is a programme about the future of the welfare state being broadcast on BBC2 this Thursday (27th October) at 9pm. It's presented by John Humphreys, one of our more combative political journalists so it should be interesting TV. You can find a preview of the show on the BBC website.

Whilst you could reference a TV programme in an assignment if you wished, I would recommend reading a few books as well! We have a good selection of e-books that cover different aspects of the welfare state, but one in particular is well suited to an assignment asking you to compare welfare systems of different countries. 'Welfare States and the Future (2005) by Kurian and Vivekanandan is a good starting point for such an undertaking, although do bear in mind that it was written before the coalition government came to power. Click here to access the e-book login screen.

Let me know if you'd like more information on anything to do with getting the best from the e-books or referencing everything from a TV programme to a telephone conversation - I recently had to find out how to reference a Facebook update so now I know for certain that anything is possible!

A milestone worth marking.

Compared to the massive figures that get banded about in relation to huge internet hits (381,000,000 views for a baby biting his brother on YouTube or Gaga and her 15,000,000 followers on Twitter) 500 subscribers on a library blog might not sound like much.

But with your help in the inductions this year I now have comfortably broken the 500 subscribers barrier and I thought it worth celebrating. I consider the sharing of information with you to be a massively important part of what I do at the university and the blog gives me that opportunity. Therefore as a result I decided to reward the 500th subscriber with £10 of extra print credits. It has already been downloaded to their account.

So congratulations Eunice Asimba on being subscriber number 500 and I hope it comes in handy!

Survival Tips for Social Work Students.

As well as blogging myself I also subscribe to a number of other blogs that interest me.

One of these sources is the Joe Public blog, which you can find in the Society section of The Guardian. It covers any number of issues within the broad remit of 'social care'. You can sign up to it using something called an RSS feed. If you'd like to know more about RSS feeds then here's some information.

Anyhoo, I thought this post for new social work students jumped out as something I should really pass on to you.

So I am.

Shelter report highlights 'unaffordable' private rent increases.

You may well have heard about Shelter the housing charity in relation to their campaigns to help the homeless. However, Shelter also carries out research in other areas of the housing market. One such area is the private renting sector and how rent increases are outstripping wages.

The quality and quantity of affordable housing impacts on many other areas of social policy so this is something that I would strongly suggest you take a look at. The report summary gives you a short overview and from there you can access the full report by following the link called 'Private Rent Watch Report 1'.

This will be the first in a series of reports commissioned by Shelter leading up to Christmas.

New report on future household poverty.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), who I've mentioned before, have just released a new report on projected household poverty in the UK. To say their projection is bleak is Olympic standard under-statement.

It makes pretty grim reading but if you're interested in how cutting public finance and wages are likely to affect the so-called 'squeezed middle' then the report is well worth reading. If you can't face the full report then the BBC have a typically well presented summary of the debates complete with video and audio interviews.

And in answer to some of your questions from the last few days -YES this is the kind of academic report you can  reference in an assignment.

A hello to all the new subscribers.

Hello again.

Thanks for paying attention, clicking where I told you to in the training room and subscribing to my blog.

You've done your bit and now it's up to me to do mine.

There'll be plenty of news worth sharing in the next few weeks but for now can I direct you below to a video I made recently with my boss Jo Myhill. It's designed to guide you in the tricky decisions of which books to choose for your assignments.

In the video I play the part of a slightly naive student and Jo has a bit more of an idea than I do.
Which isn't hard.
Please remember I'm acting. Just.