The Purpose of this Guide is to provide instructors and students in the LAS 15525 Writing in the Disciplines Course with Information Literacy Resources that can be used by instructors and students at point of need, anytime during their class. There are FIVE Information Literacy Workshops that provide additional information literacy instruction to help students navigate your writing class by understanding how to conduct research and write solid academic/scholarly papers.
LIBRARY CATALOGS, BOOLEAN SEARCHING AND FINDING SOURCES
Information Literacy Framework Applications:
Research as Inquiry: Knowledge Practice 2
Research as Inquiry: Knowledge Practice 3
Research as Inquiry: Knowledge Practice 6
Research as Inquiry: Knowledge Practice 7
Instruction:
Teach your students how to conduct boolean searching, constructing searches by combining keywords and terms with AND and NOT. Demonstrate how to do library catalog and database searches. Help them to understand the major differences between primary, secondary and tertiary sources and finding sources such as books, academic journals and trade periodicals and how these are different.
Students should start out by watching two, three minute videos about searching the library catalog:
Gangwish Library Catalog, Author and Title Search
Gangwish Library Online Advanced Search Tools
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wcmQ-aexjQ
Follow this up with specific information about
Boolean Searching (the Ebsco database searches are emphasized)
and understanding Primary and Secondary Sources and the differences between Sources when they are searching.
ONLINE DATABASE SEARCHING
Information Literacy Framework Applications:
Research as Inquiry: Knowledge Practice 1
Research as Inquiry: Knowledge Practice 2
Instruction:
Teach students how to find and search the library’s databases. Have your students develop a topic (in pairs) using index cards and do some searching using the terms the choose by combining them in a database search box.
Start out by having your students study the Libguide and watch the videos below:
Database Searching
http://ottawa.libguides.com/database
Finding peer-reviewed articles in Google Scholar
Finding scholarly, peer-reviewed articles in Ebscohost
USING GOOGLE SCHOLAR TO LOCATE FULL-TEXT ARTICLES AND OU LIBGUIDES TO DEVELOP A REFERENCE LIST AND CITE SOURCES
Information Literacy Framework Applications:
Research as Inquiry: Knowledge Practice 2
Research as Inquiry: Knowledge Practice 3
Searching as Strategic Exploration: Knowledge Practice 4
Searching as Strategic Exploration: Knowledge Practice 5
Searching as Strategic Exploration: Knowledge Practice 7
Instruction:
Teach your students how Google Scholar is different from Google and to use Google Scholar to find scholarly articles.
Have students watch the video Cite a Source as this video explains why sources are cited and how to do them.
Have your students work in small groups of two or three to search for scholarly articles on topics using Google Scholar. Their assignment is to find three scholarly articles on an assigned/chosen topic and create a reference list using APA, MLA or Chicago format. There are OU Libguides available for each writing style format:
http://ottawa.libguides.com/mla
http://ottawa.libguides.com/apa
http://ottawa.libguides.com/chicago
Students should watch the Google Scholar Youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1ZwgDeX2eQ
EVALUATING YOUR SOURCES
Information Literacy Framework Applications:
Authority Is Constructed and Contextual: Knowledge Practice 2
Information has Value: Knowledge Practice 1
Scholarship as Conversation: Knowledge Practice 1
Scholarship as Conversation: Knowledge Practice 4
Instruction:
Once students identify their sources, and find books, articles and media for a paper, they need to evaluate these sources to determine what they need, how much they need and what does not fit for writing their paper. Have your students use the CRAAP Test to evaluate their sources. The criteria to use for evaluation is well described on this website. These criteria are especially useful to apply to digital sources like websites, but they can also be used with other types of sources. Use this CRAAP Worksheet with each of the sources you choose to use in your bibliography to decide whether they should stay or be changed for a different source.
HOW TO READ A SCHOLARLY ARTICLE
Information Literacy Framework Applications:
Scholarship as Conversation: Knowledge Practice 1
Scholarship as Conversation: Knowledge Practice 5
Information has Value: Knowledge Practice 1
Information has Value: Disposition 1
Information has Value: Disposition 3
Scholarship as Conversation: Disposition 3
Instruction:
Have your students are watch a two minute video Interlibrary Loan Tutorial and read the Libguide " The Ottawa University Interlibrary Loan Guide"
http://ottawa.libguides.com/c.php?g=529260
Objectives for in-class activity
•Describe the purpose and findings of a scholarly research study
•Use evidence from a scholarly source to support a thesis
In-class activity: How to Read a Scholarly Article (25 minutes)
1 .Open this section of the class by telling students that because scholarly articles are so specialized, and written for a field of experts, reading them requires a specific set of skills.
2. Play the “How to read a scholarly article" Video
3. Open an example scholarly article. Highlight the major sections found in most scholarly articles, including abstract, introduction/literature review, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion.
4. Discuss strategies for reading scholarly literature (e.g. starting with the abstract and then moving straight to the conclusion). Share your own reading strategies and invite students to share their own.
5. GROUP ACTIVITY: Students will have a chance to practice these strategies. Break class into small groups. Each group is provided a different scholarly article and answers a set of questions that requires them to identify and understand major purposes and findings of the study. Groups share their findings with the class. Recommended articles and questions have been selected for subject matter that will be of interest to the class.