College

Writing a Summary in Three Steps

This example of an article summary, as one might find in a literature review of annotated bibliography,  enumerates the steps to ethically and accurately complete a typical research task.

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Information Literacy Frame(s) Addressed:

Discipline(s): 
Multidisciplinary
License Assigned: 
CC Attribution-NonCommercial License CC-BY-NC

Discussion Activity for Visual Literacy

This exercise asks students to respond to two videos, sharing with their classmates what feelings and ideas the images and music evoke in them.  The first video is an ExxonMobil commercial and the other is a humorous critique of advertising stock footage.  Be warned that the critique does contain one mild swear word.

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Information Literacy Frame(s) Addressed:

Discipline(s): 
Not Discipline Specific
License Assigned: 
CC Attribution License CC-BY

Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Sources: a Brief Introduction

This libguide will help students distinguoish between primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. It includes examples and links to other libraries that provide clear instruction on the matter.

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Discipline(s): 
Not Discipline Specific
License Assigned: 
CC Attribution-NonCommercial License CC-BY-NC

Introduction to Tackling Complex Research Tasks

Because most research tasks are complex, they require more than one search strategy. Additionally, such tasks require students to organize and synthesize the results of those searchers into one cohesive document.  This handout intends to introduce students to that process.

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Discipline(s): 
Not Discipline Specific
License Assigned: 
CC Attribution-NonCommercial License CC-BY-NC

The Information Life Cycle

This handout informs students about the life cycle of information, directing them where to look based on when the even under research happened.  Additionally, a sample research plan is presented.

Information Literacy Frame(s) Addressed:

Discipline(s): 
Interdisciplinary
License Assigned: 
CC Attribution-NonCommercial License CC-BY-NC

Fake News, Bias, Framed News, False Balance and What to Do about It

This reading provides a broad overview of the topic of "fake news" and discusses the inherent difficulty of "fixing" the problem.

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Discipline(s): 
Interdisciplinary
License Assigned: 
All Rights Reserved

Avoiding Information Malpractice

This handout lists different ways that information may be incorrectly or unethically presented to audiences and offers suggestions for correctly using information.

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Information Literacy Frame(s) Addressed:

Discipline(s): 
Interdisciplinary
License Assigned: 
CC Attribution-ShareAlike License CC-BY-SA

Directed Research Scavenger Hunt

This exercise gives students a model for approaching a research task, beginning with general information and ending with more in-depth sources. Discussion can focus on research as inquiry, research as strategic exploration, and the context and construction of authority. Students are required to cite their sources using both MLA and APA.

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License Assigned: 
CC Attribution-ShareAlike License CC-BY-SA

Scholarly Article Autopsy

This lesson is intended as a single session within a major’s research methods course. Rather than using a shorter “scholarly vs. non-scholarly” comparison worksheet, this activity asks students to work in groups to systematically examine a scholarly article in depth, identify and evaluate its various components visually and in writing, and then compare it to a non-scholarly article on the same topic. Groups then report back to the entire class. Discussion is guided so as to touch on the processes by which sources are created, what these methods say about their authority, and to consider contextually appropriate uses for them. Although the activity was developed for students taking two social science majors' research methods courses (SOC 323 and ANTH 305), it could be adapted to any setting that lends itself to in-depth examination of information creation processes, the construction of authority, and the contextual appropriateness of sources.
Discipline(s): 
Not Discipline Specific

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License Assigned: 
All Rights Reserved

Scholarship as Conversation Case Study: Is Coffee a Super Food or Health Threat?

Frame: Scholarship as Conversation Context: Lesson presented in the context of a one-shot, 50-minute library instruction session, with course libguide containing the multimedia presentations used for the lesson, organized in either boxes or tabs. Appropriate supplementary instructional content can be added to the libguide as needed.Lesson:Librarian overview of the frame of “Scholarship as Conversation” and why it is relevant to the students and their academic work. Focus on regarding scholarship as not a static “truth” frozen in time, but a process whereby researchers are in a continuum of inquiry and within which variation in research results comprises a “scholarly conversation.”Present Youtube video produced by librarian Anna Eisen entitled “Research 101: Scholarship as Conversation” accessible at https://youtu.be/YGia3gNyHDM to introduce the threshold concept.Next, present an NPR episode of the podcast “The Hidden Brain: A Conversation about Life’s Unseen Patterns” hosted by Shankar Vedantam, entitled “Scientific Findings Often Fail To Be Replicated, Researchers Say” aired on NPR on August 28, 2015 (access at: http://www.npr.org/2015/08/28/435416046/research-results-often-fail-to-be-replicated-researchers-say) Vedantam described a project headed by Dr. Brian Nosek at the University of Virginia in which researchers tried to replicate a hundred psychology experiments that were published in three leading journals. The results of the project were disappointing—nearly two thirds of the results of the experiments could not be replicated. Replication of results is a gold standard to measure quality of scientific research. An anecdotal topic referred to in the podcast was the research related to the health effects of coffee on the human body. Coffee and its health benefits (or lack thereof) are frequently discussed in the news media and was adopted as an example to utilize for an active learning component during the library instruction session.Distribute copies of the article “Health Effects of Coffee: Where Do We Stand?” at http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/14/health/coffee-health/index.html by Sandee LaMotte and published on the CNN website on August 14, 2015.  This article presents a chronology of “conventional wisdom,” popular beliefs, and research findings regarding the health effects of coffee intake from the 1500s to the present.Request that students break up into pairs, and review and discuss the article on coffee in light of the information they have just taken in via the the Youtube video and the NPR story.After 10 minutes, prompt and encourage the students to share their thoughts, analyses, conclusions, and insights regarding the content presented.Circle back to course purview and research assignments, and emphasize to students that they are “emerging researchers and emerging scholars” and they are the next participants in the conversation. They may be the contributors of new research knowledge in the future. 

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Information Literacy Frame(s) Addressed:

License Assigned: 
CC Attribution-ShareAlike License CC-BY-SA

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