College Writing Faculty Workshop

September 2013 – Information Literacy, Part 1: Methods

Wednesday, September 11Lindner 206

Some of the things we struggle with in ENG 110 are findingengaging ways to teach students how to access and navigate scholarly databases, look for appropriate information once they find materials in the databases (i.e., reading strategically), and understand how to use information as evidence. What tools we can use or provide to help students (and us) engage in the inquiry process?Belk librarians Patrick Rudd and Lynne Bisko join us to discuss this topic.

Selected Textbook and Other StudentResources

  1. From Purdue OWL: “Conducting Research,”

  1. Everything’s an Argument, 6th ed. (Lunsford and Ruszkiewicz, 2013, Bedford/St. Martin’s) –Research and Arguments:

The last section of Everything’s an Argument includes information about academic arguments, finding evidence (primary and secondary), evaluating and using sources (print, electronic, and field research), plagiarism and academic integrity, and documenting sources.

  1. Finding Evidence activity:

Lunsford and Ruszkiewicz provide a list of 20 general topic areas form the Yahoo! Directory’s “Issues and Causes” page: age discrimination, climate change, poverty, etc. They ask students to do the following: “Narrow one or two of the items down to a more specific subject by using research tools in the library or online such as scholarly books, journal articles, encyclopedias, magazine pieces, and/or informational websites. Be prepared to explain how the particular research resources influenced your choice of a more specific subject within the general subject area. Also consider what you might have to do to turn your specific subject into a full-blown topic proposal for a research paper assignment” (407-8.)

  1. Evaluating Sources activities (see attached PDF. If you’re reading this online, double-click the scanned page and it will open in Acrobat Reader for easier viewing.)
  1. Everyone’s an Author (Lunsford et. al, 2013, Norton) – Research

A full section of this textbook includes information about starting research (referred to as “joining the conversation”), finding sources and considering research methods, keeping track of sources/managing information overload, evaluating sources, synthesizing ideas, quoting/paraphrasing/summarizing, and giving credit/avoiding plagiarism.. A particularly useful feature of this section is its inclusion of projects—annotating a bibliography and writing a project proposal—that help students organize and use these newly acquired research skills.

  1. Reflection activity: “Think about activities that you have engaged in during the past couple of weeks [note: years would work, too] that called for research of some kind. List the different kinds of information you’ve sought and the different ways you went about that process. How did you use the information or data that you gathered?” (327).
  1. Thinking about the usefulness of research resources, from the Everyone’s an Author Tumblr site: :

“Most of the time, we use a dictionary to find information that we don’t already have, and because we trust the dictionary to provide reliable and correct information, we don’t test or question it. But perhaps we should confirm that the dictionary accurately matches our own world knowledge. Make a list of four or five words that you and your friends use frequently and look them up in a large dictionary (print or online). Is each word there in the dictionary? Does it give the meaning that you and your friends intend? Evaluate the dictionary for its preciseness in defining and describing words the way thatyouuse them. Write a report that shows the words that you looked up, the meanings that you intended, and whether the dictionary captures your intended meaning. How adequate is the dictionary? End your report by evaluating the dictionary, providing support for your conclusions.”

  1. Writing: A Manual for the Digital Age (Blakesley and Hoogeveen, 2013, Cengage):

Section III of this textbook includes information about conducting research, from conceptualizing the project, to conducting online, library, and field research, to using sources ethically. This textbook includes the following advice to help students manage and think critically about the project, as well as to hold them accountable for work in a way that doesn’t require you to grade a lot:

  • Make research a habit by building it into your daily schedule.
  • Keep a research journal and use it for the duration of the process. Begin by stating your intent, making to-do lists, and listing and focusing possible subjects. Later, students can use the journal to track keywords, databases searched, and notes on resources.

Selected Scholarly Resources:

  • “Helping Students Read Difficult Texts,” from John C. Bean’s Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom:

This book was used by First Flight and other participants in the summer writing workshop sponsored by the Writing Excellence Initiative. One advantage of using some of the strategies in this chapter is that faculty across the university know about them, too. This shared knowledge of strategies and vocabulary could facilitate the transfer of knowledge from ENG 110 to other classes.

  • Margy MacMillan and Allison MacKenzie, “Strategies for Integrating Information Literacy and Academic Literacy: Helping Undergraduate Students Make the Most of Scholarly Articles,” Library Management 33.8/9 (July 2012): 525-35. Find it here:

The authors describe a workshop designed to address challenges students have when reading scholarly articles. Long description appears on the next page.

“In preparing for the reading class in research methods, the authors (one is a content professor, the other is a librarian) focused onaddressing students’ understanding of the structure of articles, jargon, and statistics.We also wanted to reduce affect- and authority-related barriers to show students thatarticles were not perfect examples of scholarship that could not be criticized. For theactivity, the instructor chose a brief article that included statistics and was open toquestion on some aspects of sample and conclusions. Students were provided with thecitation and the link to the article in advance, and while some read it in advance, webuilt in time to read the article within the class.

The class started with a brief introduction to academic articles in the discipline ofcommunications, including their intended audience, the basic structure, and thepurpose of each part of the article. Students were also given a brief list of tips for moreeffective reading. We alsodiscussed different ways of annotating, and showed our heavily-annotated copies ofthe article which contrasted with the near-inviolate printouts some students broughtwith them.

Students were asked to read the abstract of the article and develop questions basedon it. The librarian wrote the questions on the whiteboard. As a group, we readthrough the article, summarizing and discussing the roles of different sections. Whenanswers to the students’ questions emerged, we added to them on the board, buildingthe group’s understanding of the article. We discussed the statistics in more detail,including which ones were or were not important to understanding the article, and thedrawbacks of the sample and methodology. Essentially, the authors modeled how they,as scholars would read the article, what they would check, inquire into, or let pass. Wealso modeled discussing the article, and dealing with differing interpretations.To encourage students to question authority, we werequite forthright about the impenetrability of scholarly writing in general, andshortcomings of the article we were using in particular. We concluded with a broaderdiscussion of the article, its aims and successes, and questions we would ask theauthors.”

Announcements

  • Please email your ENG 110 syllabus to Pat as soon as possible.
  • Wednesday, Oct. 10, 12:15-1:15, Lindner 206: College Writing Faculty Lunch Workshop – Information Literacy, Part 2: Approaches to teaching “the research paper”
  • Full workshop schedule is on the College Writing website.

Materials Prepared by Paula Patch, College Writing Coordinator, September 2013 1