Todd Heldt

If there were a list of things I absolutely required all my students to understand before leaving my class, the relationship between mass media, politics, and science would be close to the top of the list. But there are a lot of moving parts in these relationships, so the terrain is difficult to traverse.  As one might expect of a difficult topic, there is much to read and a lot to unpack.    This pathfinder discusses how politics and our mass media system complicate the…

A discussion and overview of the following ideas

• • Why we see things differently.
  • Why we don’t like to be wrong.
  • Why it is dangerous to question authority.
  • Where we got the letter A.
  • The morbidity of Puritan children’s books.
  • How culture and community impact information.
  • The origin of the political parties in America.
  • How information is dangerous and can be used to disrupt or preserve a social order.
  …

This resource discusses alt right propaganda, gives examples, and posts links to further readings.

These .pdfs offer students examples of three different search strategies.  Students can then construct their own on the 2nd page.  These exercises can be used to assess student understnading of keywords and Boolean operators.

An explanation of different kinds of authority that students might recognize in a piece of information accompanied by a list of articles about global warming that appeal to, invoke, or otherwise discuss these authorities.  Students should skim one or more of the articles, answer some questions about them, and discuss their ideas with their peers.

This exercise offers students a list of curated links that they will use to complete an assigned project on green roofs.  Students must evaluate, summarize, annotate, cite, and synthezize the materials in a completed document containing an ultimate recommendation for a course of action. Requires EBSCO access.

A guide to helping student know how to use (or not to use!) the different kinds of information they may find.

This resource introduces students to rubrics for evaluating information, including SCARAB, CRAAP, and Reuters Source Guide. Furthermore, it provides a framework of questions to ask about a piece of information under consideration. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.