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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Introduction to Information Literacy for Students presents a concise, practical guide to navigating information in the digital age.
- Features a unique step-by-step method that can be applied to any research project
- Includes research insights from professionals, along with review exercises, insiders' tips and tools, search screen images utilized by students, and more
- Encourages active inquiry-based learning through the inclusion of various study questions and exercises
- Provides students with effective research strategies to serve them through their academic years and professional careers
- Ensures accessibility and a strong instructional approach due to authorship by a librarian and award-winning English professor
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
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Introduction to Information Literacy for Students
By
Michael C. Alewine and Mark Canada
This edition first published 2017 © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.
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Hardback ISBN: 9781119054696
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover Photo: monkeybusinessimages/Gettyimages
For Aedan and Andrew, who are growing up in this information-driven world Michael
For my parents, Alan and Mary Canada, who taught me early the value of knowledge Mark
CONTENTS
Preface
Research: A Way to Understand
The Method
Types of Sources
The Approach
What This Book Can Do for Students (and You)
Acknowledgments
Flowchart
Part I: The Method
1: Think Like a Detective
Information: The Key to Just about Everything
Join the Information Conversation
Start Detecting
Survey the Research Landscape
Take Research One Step at a Time
Conclusion
Works Cited
2: Ask a Compelling Question
It All Begins with a Research Question
Explore Your Own Interests and Personality
Consider the Assignment
Brainstorm Ideas
Draw a Concept Map
Check an Idea Generator
Explore the News
Test and Refine a Topic
Conclusion
3: Search for Answers
Good News and Bad News
Create a Research Log
Identify Keywords
Truncate Keywords When Necessary
Identify Concept Phrases
Combine Keywords with Boolean Operators
Keep an Open Mind
Conclusion
Works Cited
4: Explore Possible Sources
So Many Sources … So Little Time!
Distinguish among the Three Categories of Sources
Survey the Range of Source Formats
Conclusion
5: Evaluate Sources
Is It Legit—For Real?
Is It Relevant?
Is It Reliable?
Is It Recent?
Critically Evaluate Books
Critically Evaluate Periodicals
Critically Evaluate Webpages
Conclusion
6: Create a Paper Trail
The Case for Documentation
Know Why, What, and How to Cite
Cite As You Go
Compile an Annotated Bibliography
Conclusion
Note
7: Mine Your Sources
Getting the Most from Your Sources
Interrogate Your Sources
Take Effective Notes
Follow Leads
Conclusion
Part II: Types of Sources
8: Reference
Start in the Right Place
Choose the Right Reference Source
Search the Online Catalog
Check the Ready Reference Collection
Search for Online Reference Sources
Find and Study Entries in Reference Sources
Conclusion
9: Books
Books: More Than Mere Life-changers
Search a Library's Online Catalog
Search WorldCat
Use Item Records
Locate Books on Library Shelves
Use Interlibrary Loan
Look for E-books and Online Books
Mine a Book's Contents
Conclusion
10: Periodicals
Periodicals: Something for Everyone
The Basics—Not So Basic
Search Databases
Manage the Results List
Check for Relevance
Locate the Complete Article
Try Advanced Searching
Check Google Scholar and Open Access Journals
Browse Periodicals
Conclusion
11: Statistics
The Numbers Game
Find Statistics Online
Check Government Sources
Explore Specialized Sources
Conclusion
12: Government Sources
The World's Most Prolific Publisher
Types of Government Sources
Beware of Bias
Limit a Catalog Search to Government Sources
Search FDsys
Run Searches in the U.S. Government Portal or on the Internet at Large
Search for Bills and Laws
Check Microforms
Conclusion
13: Webpages
An Old Friend in a New Light
Cyberspace: It's Real—and Manageable
Run Keyword Searches in Search Engines
Capture Webpages
Check Web Directories
Follow Links in Librarians’ Subject Guides
Be Wary of Wikipedia
Conclusion
14: Other Sources
But Wait, There's More!
Take the Broad View
Study Images and Artifacts
Listen to or Watch Recordings
Interrogate Social Media
Interview an Expert
Check Newsletters, Brochures, Etc.
Conclusion
15: Now What?
The Value of Information in
Your
Life
Prepare for Future College Courses
Prepare for Graduate School
Apply Research in the Professional World
Use Research to Improve Your Life and Community
Conclusion
Glossary
Index
EULA
List of Illustrations
Figure 2.1
Concept mapping in mass communication.
Figure 2.2
Idea generator (Old Dominion University Libraries).
Figure 2.3
Internet search for psychology-related research topics.
Figure 3.1
Item record from
PsycINFO
(EBSCO).
Figure 3.2
Title and authors of a source.
Figure 3.3
Title and authors of a source.
Figure 4.1
A few kinds of sources.
Figure 4.2
The information timeline.
Figure 4.3
Sample bibliography contained in a subject guide concerning social work theories.
Figure 8.1
Sample unsigned brief reference entry.
Figure 8.2
Sample index page from a multivolume reference set.
Figure 8.3
Sample signed reference entry.
Figure 9.1
A card catalog. Source: Permission given by Creative Commons, https://www. flickr.com/photos/mamsy/4175783446/sizes/o/in/photostream/ Used under CC-BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/.
Figure 9.2
A student searching a library's online catalog.
Figure 9.3
Basic keyword search.
Figure 9.4
Author search (last name first).
Figure 9.5
Author search (natural language).
Figure 9.6
Title search.
Figure 9.7
Federated search.
Figure 9.8
Advanced search.
Figure 9.9
WorldCat advanced search (Web version).
Figure 9.10
Item record for a book.
Figure 10.1
EBSCO
host
’s Social Work Abstracts (advanced search).
Figure 10.2
ProQuest's Social Services Abstracts (advanced search).
Figure 10.3
EBSCO
host
’s results list (detailed view).
Figure 10.4
Item record for an article from
Academic Search Complete
(EBSCO
host
).
Figure 10.5
EBSCO
host
's A to Z link resolver record for
American Biology Teacher
.
Figure 10.6
EBSCO
host
’s Academic Search Complete (advanced search).
Figure 10.7
EBSCO
host
’s Academic Search Complete (advanced search).
Figure 10.8
Student browsing bound periodicals.
Figure 11.1
Internet search limiting to government sites only.
Figure 11.2
Sample source note from a website.
Figure 12.1
Sample SuDoc call number.
Figure 12.2
FDsys basic search.
Figure 12.3
United States Government Portal (USA.gov).
Figure 12.4
Internet search limiting to government sites.
Figure 13.1
Internet search combining limiting techniques.
Figure 13.2
Internet search for LibGuides about campaign finance reform.
Figure 14.1
Social media links at the bottom of a webpage.
Figure 14.2
Author and affiliation listed on scholarly journal article.
Figure 15.1
Student working with a reference librarian.
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Preface
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Preface
Today, more than ever, progress—even survival—in science, business, criminal justice, and every other field depends on information literacy. People who can find, evaluate, and use this information will make the difference between success and failure, victory and defeat, life and death.
Introduction to Information Literacy for Students will help you transform your students into those successful movers, shakers, designers, explorers, educators, and leaders. A guide to doing every kind of academic research—from research papers to dissertations to multimedia TED talks—it presents a stable, practical, accessible method that students at any level working with any kind of source in any form of assignment can use.
Research: A Way to Understand
This book discusses research in terms familiar to every human being—that is, as a means of understanding. You don't have to be a historian or a chemist to be curious. Indeed, we spend much of our lives, even much of our time on any given day, trying to understand the people, things, and situations around us. In our daily lives, understanding is often slow and haphazard. The individual pixels come to light one at a time until, if we're lucky, a pattern emerges.
Academic research, on the other hand, is—or should be—more methodical. Although they may not realize it because they have internalized the process through their long experience and follow it unconsciously, scholars of all stripes follow a series of steps when they conduct research. For most students, who must face the library stacks or the vast, invisible “Web” without the benefit of this experience, research is often mystifying, chaotic, frustrating, and, in the end, unsuccessful. If only there were a clear, explicit method for finding, evaluating, and using information, students could start to become expert researchers in their own right.
There is, and they can.
The Method
Drawing on our own experiences as researchers and teachers, we have articulated a straightforward, effective method for navigating the information universe, one that any student can use to move successfully, expeditiously, and relatively painlessly through the research process. The method consists of seven discrete steps, from adopting a research mindset to mining sources. Individual chapters in the first half of the book walk students through each of these steps, providing practical strategies for completing each step. The second half of the book features chapters on various types of sources, organized in the order that students may wish to consult them to develop a well-rounded understanding of their topics. The final chapter helps students see how they can apply what they have learned to future research challenges in other courses, graduate school, careers, and personal and civic lives.
1: Think Like a Detective
helps students develop a research mindset. It discusses various literacies, including information literacy, and, through an analogy with detective work, describes both the purpose of research and the central role it plays in the academic world.
2: Ask a Compelling Question
helps students generate research questions that can drive productive research.
3: Search for Answers
covers foundational research strategies, such as crafting keyword searches and setting up a research log.
4: Explore Possible Sources
surveys numerous kinds of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources.
5: Evaluate Sources
prepares students to evaluate sources based on timeliness, relevance, and credibility.
6: Create a Paper Trail
covers ethical uses of information and appropriate forms of attribution and documentation, equipping students to record and cite relevant source material as they encounter it (instead of trying to add documentation later and risking plagiarism, misrepresentation, or simply errors in documentation).
7: Mine Your Sources
introduces students to the crucial skill of mining sources for the right kinds of information.
Types of Sources
8: Reference
covers encyclopedias, subject encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other foundational sources, which students can use to get a bird's-eye view of their topics, along with relevant definitions, common themes and issues, bibliographies, and more.
9: Books
covers both printed and electronic books, as well as call numbers and catalogs.
10: Periodicals
covers databases and various kinds of periodicals, general and discipline-specific scholarly journals, as well as popular magazines, newspapers, and more.
11: Statistics
helps students navigate statistical sources, not only those available online, but also a few hidden gems available in print format.
12: Government Sources
provides an overview of various sources maintained by local, state, and federal agencies, as well as international organizations.
13: Webpages
covers various kinds of Internet sources, as well as search engines and ways to set limits for results and otherwise narrow searches.
14: Other Sources
points to many kinds of new media, such as podcasts and social media sites, as valuable sources of information.
15: Now What?
helps students apply what they have learned to future classes, their careers, and their personal and civic lives.
Like you, we want to help enable students to become people who make a difference. As an English professor who has taught many composition classes (as well as literature, linguistics, and freshman seminar classes), Mark has worked with thousands of students since the 1990s. He also regularly locates and uses information in his own research on American literature, pedagogy, and student success. As an academic librarian, Michael has worked with thousands of students since the 1990s and taught library research, composition, and freshman seminars. We know what works, and we know the obstacles that students often encounter when they are seek information for course assignments. To help students face these challenges, now and later, we have interspersed among these chapters a number of tips, shortcuts, and strategies for using search limits strategically, setting up an interview, taking notes on sources, and more.
By the way, although students will see some screenshots of various item records and search boxes, this book does not take the “Click here” approach to research instruction. (After all, every database is a little bit different from another, and every one seems to change at least a little every month.) Instead, the book teaches students basic principles, common tools, and, most important, ways to think about information and research. What they learn here will help them navigate any database, evaluate any source, integrate any fact or statistic.
The method described here is probably new to most students, but don't worry. We won't let anyone get lost in the stacks (or the cyberstacks). The first page of each chapter features a flowchart showing the entire process with the current step highlighted. While some steps, such as evaluating sources, are essential for any project, other steps may not apply to certain projects. You should feel free to assign or use the steps you feel that your students need.
The Approach
Our goal in this book is the same goal we pursue in our classrooms: to teach in a way that both engages students and equips them to succeed in the world of research. That means including real-life examples, connections to careers and the larger world, “Think Fast” review questions, “Quicktivities,” “Steps to Success,” and conversational language (as well as a few attempts at humor along the way). The chapters cover all the basics—keywords, Boolean operators, periodicals, paraphrasing, and scores of other terms and concepts—but they also teach students how to use hypernyms to broaden a search, how to take notes on sources (and what to include in them), how to use indexes and bibliographies strategically, how to capture online sources before they disappear, and more. We also have included, in boxed “Insider's Tip” features, suggestions from a variety of professionals, including a detective, a professional basketball coach, a university career specialist, and more. By the time they are done, your students just might feel like concertgoers with back-stage passes, enjoying access to all the tricks “behind the scenes” of information literacy. It's a shade less sordid than what they might see with those back-stage concert passes, but it's every bit as interesting—and incalculably valuable.
What This Book Can Do for Students (and You)
You and your students can use this book in one of two ways. If you are teaching a course in information literacy or a course that requires students to conduct a lot of research and share the results in a project, you probably will want to move through the chapters in order. Each chapter gives students exactly what they need when they need it. On the other hand, if you are teaching a content course that includes a research component, you might assign chapters or parts of chapters as appropriate. In either case, you and your students can count on this book for clear, practical strategies, complete with examples, instructions, activities, and more.
Information literacy, as the first chapter explains, is a crucial skill in this Information Age. This book can help you empower your students to become masters of information: the kinds of people who can use facts and interpretations, both the types they find in others’ research and the information they turn up in their own work, to improve the world.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the following for all of their crucial assistance, encouragement, and support.
First, we would like to thank our very patient and supportive family members. Michael thanks Aedan, Andrew, Brian, Cynthia, and Stacey. Mark thanks Lisa, Essie, Will, Alan, and Mary.
A special thanks goes out to Robert J. Arndt, Reference/Instructional Services Librarian at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, for providing technical advice, test-driving our chapters with his students, and providing us with their crucial feedback.
We also wish to thank Christopher Bowyer, University Library Technician for Government Documents/Development & Primary Web Information Coordinator at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, for being our photographer.
Thanks also go to Leighana Campbell for being our student model and to Rob Wolf, Electronic Resources Librarian at Farleigh Dickinson University Libraries, for his valuable technical assistance and for his help with creating a companion site and materials for the text.
Thanks to all of our colleagues and friends at the Mary Livermore Library and the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
Thanks to our editorial and production team, Graeme Leonard and Manish Luthra.
Thanks to Steve O'Dell and Jodi Ezell at EBSCO.
Thanks to Carol Schlatter at OCLC.
Thanks to Corye L. Bradbury at ProQuest.
Thanks to Carolyn Shomaker, Federal Documents Coordinator; Gwendolyn Hope Smith, United Nations and International & State Documents Coordinator; Jacqueline Solis, Director of Research and Instructional Services; and Kimberly N. Vassiliadis, Instructional Design and Technology Librarian, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries.
Thanks to Karen Vaughn, Digital Services Coordinator, Perry Library, Old Dominion University.
Flowchart
Research is not always a totally linear process, but it helps to try to conduct steps in the order listed below. For example, it makes sense to settle on some keyword combinations before you start searching for sources. Also, because reference sources will expose you to basic terms and background, it's a good idea to consult them before moving on to other sources.
The flowchart below shows the various steps of the research process in an order that should prove helpful to you. You will see this same flowchart at the beginning of each chapter, where the current chapter will be highlighted. You may need to return to an earlier step from time to time. That's OK. For example, as you look through sources, you may come up with some new keyword combinations or even a new research question. When you do, use the flowchart to get back in the flow.
Part IThe Method
1Think Like a Detective
Chapter Summary
Prepare to become a master of information, the most powerful tool on earth. In this chapter, we welcome you to the two sides of the “information conversation”: hearing and making yourself heard. We will make the case for both information literacy—the ability to find, evaluate, and use information—and research, a kind of detective work that can be every bit as fascinating and exciting as the investigations we love to watch on television and in movie theaters.
Key Terms: research, information literacy, text, visual literacy, media literacy, academic libraries, librarian
Chapter Objectives
Describe the role of information and research in the “Information Age.”
Identify the various components of information literacy and their connection to academic research.
Describe other literacies that are important for carrying out academic research.
Explain the connection between academic research and libraries.
Information: The Key to Just about Everything
When you hear the word information, what comes to mind? Thrills and chills? Success and failure? Life and death? Consider the following:
The FBI, CIA, and other law-enforcement agencies employ thousands of experts who put their information skills to work to track down missing persons, abducted children, and criminal suspects.
Coaches of college and professional teams depend on information—about their own players’ strengths and weaknesses, as well as the assets and liabilities of their opponents—to win games.
Before a film's release, researchers behind the scenes deploy their information skills to discover details—of explosives, fashion, language, and more—that will make the movie pop on the silver screen.
Every field—including the one you will choose if you pursue a career—thrives on information, and the people who can find, evaluate, and use it are the ones who will make the difference between success and failure, victory and defeat, even life and death.
This book can help you make a difference. By giving you the knowledge, strategies, and tools you need to master information, it will empower you to solve crimes, win games, make movies, whatever you want to do. You will learn the valuable skill (and fascinating endeavor) of research, a process that all of the occupations mentioned above—and hundreds of others—use to find answers to questions. Along the way, you will learn how to mine sources for clues, follow leads, conduct interviews, collect and manage various kinds of intelligence, and turn it into the kind of knowledge that can move people, organizations, and whole nations. In short, you will learn to deploy information, the most powerful tool in the world, to do great things.
In this chapter, we will help you master the first step, which is to adopt a research mindset:
Join the “information conversation.”
Start detecting.
Survey the research landscape, particularly libraries and the online world.
Take research one step at a time.
Now let's begin by bringing you into the information conversation.
Insider's Tip: Winners Use Research
Research is vitally important for any professional coach. I have spent many hours researching opponents’ tendencies so I can give my players the best chance to compete. I study the kind of defenses these opponents play throughout the game or what offensive sets they are going to run, and I use statistics to establish which opposing players are very good shooters and which ones aren't. This kind of research is invaluable for my players. For example, it can assist them during the game if they know the player they are guarding is an effective outside shooter or not. We also watch film of opponents to get a sense of their strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies. Research also helps me set my lineups. For example, if I learn that an opponent tends to use a zone defense, I might favor players who are strong outside shooters.
Research helps me to understand my own players, too. I use statistics to gauge their success in various areas. This research starts at the beginning of the season and continues all the way until the end. By tracking the ebbs and flows of shooting percentage, free throw percentage, rebounds per game, deflections, and more throughout a season, I get a sense of where players need to improve and can, in turn, develop appropriate training regimens. For example, if statistics show that players are shooting poorly at the ends of games, I might incorporate certain kinds of conditioning and shooting drills into practice.
Finally, research is a tool for skill improvement in general. When I coach youth players, I look for challenging, enjoyable drills that develop fundamentals. I often develop my own drills, but I also spend a lot of time researching drills that other coaches have used and found effective.
–Mike Oppland, professional basketball player (Black Star Mersch, Luxembourg) and youth basketball coach
Join the Information Conversation
You probably have heard the expression “There's no sense in reinventing the wheel.” Over the thousands of years humans have been on earth, they have figured out a few things, from how to build a fire to how to put satellites into space and use them to track people on the ground. Thanks to the ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras, we can calculate the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle if we know the lengths of the other two sides. Biologist James Watson and physicist Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA. Others, through their own research, have revolutionized the way we think about economics, education, psychology, and other fields.
Imagine what life would be like if we lost all of this information. We would have to, well, reinvent the wheel—as well as the telephone, the airplane, the computer, and millions of other devices. We also would have to recount, recalculate, reimagine everything humans have ever known. All this re-ing would take a lot of time and energy, and we might not get everything right this time. When people begin to plan a job or design a product or complete any other complex task without first determining what already is known about it, they are putting themselves in a similar position, setting themselves up to waste time and energy and possibly fail because they don't have the information that others already have discovered or developed. They are, essentially, working in an empty room instead of one filled with knowledgeable experts.
Successful people know better. Rather than going it alone, they get in on the exchange of information that goes on every hour of every day. Some people call it the “information conversation.” Imagine a gigantic room filled with people—professors, lab researchers, doctors, engineers, athletes and coaches, journalists, politicians, police officers, parents, people with every kind of degree and job and personal experience—all talking, sharing what they know about history, science, medicine, technology, sports, news, politics, crime, children, and hundreds of other subjects. You could learn a lot in this room, couldn't you? Gatherings like this one—but on a smaller scale and on a narrower group of subjects—actually occur frequently and go by the name of conferences. Thanks to all the forms of communication we have, though, we don't need to be in the same room to exchange facts and ideas. The information conversation can take place around the clock in the form of email, social media posts, Tweets, blogs and vlogs, YouTube videos, podcasts, newspaper and magazine articles, books, radio talk shows, television documentaries, and dozens of other forms of communication.
Science, politics, sports, and all those other subjects are complex. Sometimes the experts in the room can provide clear answers, but sometimes they don't know the answers, and sometimes they don't agree about the answers. Let's face it: information, though crucial, is not always a definite quantity. Ever since Sigmund Freud invented modern psychology, various scientists have offered different theories for human thought and behavior. Interpreters of art, music, sculpture, and literature regularly offer different ways of understanding these forms of expression. Even science and mathematics, sometimes thought of as disciplines where there are “right” and “wrong” answers and less room for interpretation, have any number of ways of approaching or explaining the same phenomena. In all of these fields and others, theories and interpretations abound, sometimes merely existing side by side and other times contradicting one another.
Because the voices in this room are so many and so varied, it often can be difficult to make sense of all the conversation, but the important thing is to be in the room. “The man who does not read good books,” Mark Twain said, “has no advantage over the man who can't read them.” The same is true of all information. When you can and do use information, you have power. It's easy to join the conversation. Anyone with Internet access and a computer can create a blog or a vlog, comment on YouTube videos and news articles, contribute to Wikipedia articles, and create and manage their own websites. You don't have to be a professor or a lab scientist to attend a conference or publish your work: many college students, in fact, present information in conferences and publications designed for undergraduates. In this large and open conversation, you don't have to convince a magazine editor or an acquisitions editor at a publishing company that you have something worthwhile to say (and the ability to say it in a clear, engaging way) to have a voice in the room. You can just start talking!
Of course, having the opportunity to talk does not guarantee that anyone will be listening, especially since some people in the room—because of money, access, or status—always seem to be carrying microphones and amplifiers. For example, a billionaire can buy television or Internet ads that would not be affordable for most of us. Owners of radio stations and other media outlets, people who work in the media, and people who have friends in the media business are likely to have an easier time expressing their views in commentaries or shaping the news and other information going out to the public. Finally, politicians, celebrities, and even less well-known leaders in noteworthy positions, because of their status, have a kind of “bully pulpit” they can use to command attention. (President Theodore Roosevelt famously used this term to express a president's influence in the public sphere: when a president talks, people listen.)
This information conversation has both pros and cons. Access means that everyone, including you, can have a say, but it also means that you have to be careful, since some of the speakers may not be reliable. The system does privilege “insiders,” providing a degree of quality control, but this same feature can be a disadvantage if you are not one of those insiders. In this book, you will learn to make the most of the system. For example, you will learn ways to evaluate the information you encounter so that you will not be easily taken in by unreliable voices. You also will find here dozens of tools and strategies that will help you to think, work, and communicate like an insider. When you're done, you will be able to enter the room, join the information conversation, and feel right at home.
Quicktivity: The Information Conversation Online
Use the metaphor of the information conversation to explain the kind of information exchange that takes place online—via Twitter or Tumblr, for example. Who gets to talk? What kinds of factors shape the conversation?
You can't help but notice this conversation. It's everywhere, from conferences to libraries to little screens on pumps at the gas station. (They don't call it the “Information Age” for nothing.) All of us encounter information on a daily, even an hourly basis, whether we are checking out classes and professors, shopping for a cell phone or a car, considering political candidates, or making any number of other decisions. Even if we are not consciously setting out to make a specific decision, we are using information to broaden and deepen our understanding of current events, as well as timeless questions about free will, our place in the world, and more. If air, food, and water are the keys to basic survival, information is the key to just about everything else: safety, enrichment, entertainment, comfort, progress. Consider war, poverty, hunger, oppression, intolerance, and disease. How many of these problems could be alleviated through better understanding?
Information, though, is only as good as our ability to make sense of it and deploy it to make progress—thus the case for information literacy, which the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) defines as “the set of skills needed to find, retrieve, analyze, and use information.” Information comes in a variety of forms, especially in the digital age. Because language is so important to humans, text—that is, the words and sentences found in books and other documents—has long been the dominant means for storing and conveying information; however, thanks in part to the rise of the Internet since the 1990s, images and sounds now form important parts of the world of stored information. For this reason, information literacy involves the ability to find, evaluate, and use not only books and articles, but also YouTube videos, podcasts, images posted on social media sites, and more. Some people and organizations use different terms, such as visual literacy or media literacy, for the skills involved in working with these various kinds of sources. For example, the ACRL uses the term visual literacy for skills involving working with images, and the National Association for Media Literacy Education explains that media literacy involves the skills of retrieving, analyzing, evaluating, and conveying both printed and digital information. In this book, information literacy is a general term for finding, evaluating, and using all kinds of information, including textual, visual, and audio material, as well as information stored in printed or digital formats.
In any conversation, information flows in two directions. Information-literate people know how to make sense of all the talk around them, but they also can make worthwhile contributions to the conversation. They can use the information they hear, find additional information, and put it all together to say things that will help other people to understand technology, art, politics, education, or another subject. In other words, they know how to do research—which, as you will see, is really a kind of detective work.
Think Fast: Information Literacy
Define information literacy in your own words.
Start Detecting
For many people, research is an ugly word, something that conjures up images of confusing articles and desks littered with paper, as well as feelings of boredom, anger, and frustration. Mention the word investigate or detective, on the other hand, and you often will get a much more enthusiastic response. Millions of people have spent millions of hours watching detective shows such as NCIS, CSI, CSI-Miami, CSI-New York, CSI-Cyber, Forensic Files, The X-Files, The Dresden Files, The Rockford Files, and a few hundred other shows, even some that don't have C, S, I, or Files in their titles. In fact, many college chemistry and criminal justice professors will tell you that the CSI shows alone have inspired many students to study their subjects. Countless people will rush to watch a detective show or movie, play an investigative videogame, read a murder mystery, or earn a degree with the hope of becoming detectives themselves, but many of these same people will move even faster to dodge anything clearly labeled “research.” Investigation is often seen as a form of recreation, one for which people will pay good money, while research is viewed as drudgery, something many would—if they could—pay to avoid.
What's the difference?
In terms of purpose and process, there is no difference. Both detectives (FBI agents, police investigators, forensic scientists) and other kinds of researchers (geologists, historians, psychologists) seek answers to questions, and they study evidence to find those answers. For detectives, the evidence consists of physical objects (traces of DNA, fingerprints, murder weapons), testimony (from eyewitnesses and experts), and paper and electronic documents (financial records, email correspondence, handwritten notes). For other kinds of researchers, the evidence includes—you guessed it—physical objects (artifacts such as paintings and buildings), testimony (from scholars), and documents (books, articles, letters, webpages). In fact, many detectives and other researchers use exactly the same kinds of evidence, particularly manuscripts, government statistics, and scientific reports.
As you can see, investigation and research are the same things. Both involve finding answers, something that appeals to a natural curiosity that all humans have. In fact, every person who has ever lived has been curious about something. The proof is right there in their behavior as children, who are constantly reaching out to touch things and repeatedly asking their parents “Why?” So how did research get such a bad rap? We have a few ideas:
Many people don't see research as investigation and thus don't engage their curiosities.
In school, students often feel forced to explore topics that don't interest them.
Most students don't have a straightforward, logical method for conducting research, so they wind up spending too much time finding too little good information to earn too-low grades, ultimately feeling angry, frustrated, and disappointed.
Are you ready for some good news? Here goes:
This book approaches research as a form of investigation (sometimes using detectives and forensic scientists as examples), often describing it in a way that captures the elements that make detective work so interesting: the captivating questions, the clever strategies, the thrilling car chases—no, scratch the car chases; they were going to take us over budget!
Research is most engaging—and most successful—when people try to answer questions about the things that interest them. The next chapter, in fact, offers several tips for exploring your own interests and either turning them into research questions or finding just the right angles on course assignments so that you can tailor them around your interests or your personality.
This book presents a step-by-step method that makes the research process both manageable and effective.
The goal is to help you become not only an effective researcher, but also an enthusiastic one, someone who sees bits of information as interesting, valuable clues that can help us satisfy our own natural curiosities.
Quicktivity: Compare Research and Investigation
Find the definitions of research and investigate and compare them. What do you notice? Now, reflect on how you found the definition of each word. Does what you did count as research? Explain.
While detectives and other researchers have a lot in common, detectives’ goals tend to be narrow and immediate: the identity of a thief, the location of an abducted child, the time of a criminal plot. Detectives usually are trying to answer the questions that begin with Who, Where, or When. On the other hand, biologists, political scientists, linguists, and other scholars engaged in what we call academic research ask broad questions that don't require an immediate answer. Often their questions begin with Why or How (although some do begin with Who, Where, and When, as well as What and How many). These researchers, you might say, are often concerned with the “big” or “deep” questions, and their answers help to create the information we use to understand our world, from its nature to its politics to its languages and beyond. In doing so, they often pursue answers just because they want to know. They're curious—like you. You wonder about things, don't you? How do people fall in love (and how can I get this incredible person I just met to fall in love with me)? Can we adequately feed everyone in the world? Are we alone in the universe? Why do so many analog watches in advertisements read 10:10? (They really do. See for yourself.)
Academic research is just another way to understand—that is, to use information to get a better grasp on some aspect of our world or our experience. Researchers, whether they are professionals or students, start with an idea, search for information about that idea, and use information they find to expand our understanding of some aspect of the world. Your immediate motivation in college may be to earn a stellar grade on an assignment or to earn a degree, but research also will help you do much more. You will develop skills that will enable you to make meaningful, useful contributions in the information conversation and ultimately to help us all understand the world and ourselves better.
Think Fast: The Purpose of Research
Why do people conduct research?
Now, if you reflect on your own attempts to make sense of things, you probably will agree that understanding can be a messy, chaotic process. When you went on that first date, you probably didn't bring a list of interview questions (and, if you did, you probably didn't have to worry about scheduling a second date). Still, you also may have noticed that some order does help when you are seeking to understand. When you want to make Swedish crepes, you don't start by researching the geography of Sweden or the history of crepes. You start with the basics. You also go to the people who know about cooking, not just the first person you bump into on the street. You buy the ingredients. You try to be careful when you mix them. If you are serious about getting those crepes right, you try again and refine your steps. Maybe you seek out someone else who knows about cooking, or you try some different ingredients. In other words, you follow a rough method for understanding.
Research works the same way—or, at least, it should. In this book, we outline, step by step, a very effective method for understanding things through research. It still will be messy at times, as detective work often is, but following this process will make the entire experience easier, less frustrating, more satisfying, and more productive. In fact, if you have ever tried to conduct research the way a lot of people do—haphazardly and superficially, that is—you may be amazed how manageable research is when you follow this method.
As a student, you often will have the opportunity not only to think like a researcher, but also to work like one. In many of your courses, your instructors will expect you to investigate the same kinds of questions that they themselves—as scientists, historians, management experts, and scholars of everything from art to zoology—do in their work outside the classroom. Sometimes, you may do your research in a laboratory. Other times, you will work in a library environment—either a physical library (with shelves and books) or a virtual library (with digital information you can access from home with your laptop or mobile device). In college, you probably will work in or with academic libraries, the kind of well-stocked libraries found on campuses and used by serious researchers. In still other cases, you may collect information from the world around you through observations and interviews, as well as close studies of social media, images, and other kinds of sources. After finding, interpreting, and assembling your information, you will share your findings with your instructor or classmates in a research paper, presentation, blog, vlog, podcast, or some other form. In short, your success in college depends largely on your ability to find, evaluate, and use information, including the kind found in physical and virtual libraries, as well as the kind that exist all around you—on Twitter and Tumblr, in images and recordings made by both amateurs and professionals, even in objects you can observe and people you can interview.
Sound overwhelming? Relax. Research is challenging, but the process is certainly manageable (as this book will show you), and often it's exhilarating. It's a way to satisfy your curiosity—and help your fellow human beings make a better world. After all, information makes progress possible, and who doesn't want progress?
Insider's Tip: Become an Expert
In colleges and universities across the country, students are exploring topics that interest them, developing expertise, and even presenting and publishing their work. Student research, in fact, is a point of focus for many institutions, including both of the ones where I have worked in recent years. As an English professor who has worked with thousands of students, I have seen some of them become experts in specific areas, such as Thomas Wolfe's drama or Truman Capote's nonfiction novel, and I have sometimes asked them to talk to one of my classes or even just asked them for some information—just as I would ask a professional colleague. Why wouldn't I? In the course of their research, these students have developed their own expertise. In their niche areas, they sometimes know more than I do.
You can be this kind of student, too. After all, there's a lot of ground to cover out there, not only in the study of Wolfe and Capote, but also in countless niches in art history, astronomy, finance, psychology, criminal justice, and other disciplines. There's room enough for every one of us to become an expert in something.
–Mark
Survey the Research Landscape
The Internet has made research much easier than it once was, even to the point where some people may think that finding information is as easy as googling it and reading the first page that comes up on the results page. Want to know the percentage of nitrogen in the earth's atmosphere? Google it. Need some tips on fielding a ground ball? Watch a video on YouTube. Interested in some expert commentary on the effects that the Panic of 1837 had on the book-publishing industry? Hmmm. Try googling that information, and you might not be so lucky. Until now, you may not have worried too much about understanding this kind of thing, but the kinds of information challenges you will face in college, in your job, and in other aspects of your life (as a citizen, as a parent, as a coach) often involve questions not easily answered with a Google search.
Part of the problem is that vast amounts of information are simply not available on the public form of the Internet and thus not accessible through Google or any other public search engine. (Google, through projects such as Google Scholar, is trying to expand the amount of information publicly available on the Internet, but this work may take a while, particularly because of limits imposed by copyright law.) Furthermore, because anyone with Internet access can post information there without submitting it to be checked or edited, much of this information is subject to error or is just plain confusing.
The Internet—along with Google and the many other companies involved with shaping the way we use it—is evolving, and we eventually will be able to find most or even all of the information we need there. Until that time, which may be many years away, true information literacy—the kind that you will need to succeed during and after college—requires that you be able to find, evaluate, and use not only information available on the Internet, but also information stored in and by libraries in the form of books, periodicals, government documents, and other kinds of printed and digital media. Fortunately for you and the rest of the world's researchers, these libraries employ information specialists—called, of course, librarians—who understand the common systems for organizing information and can help you find what you need. In fact, many large academic libraries have librarians who specialize in particular subject areas, or disciplines. Both general and specialist librarians keep on top of new sources of information, changes to databases, and specific Web-based resources. They can suggest useful research strategies such as using descriptors, keywords, and subject headings—although you may need little or no help with such tools after you finish reading this book! In short, librarians can help you with all aspects of the academic research process. Help them help you by setting up appointments for research consultations well in advance of due dates. Bring your syllabus, descriptions of assignments, and notes from meetings with your instructors.
Take Research One Step at a Time
“Where do I start?” Librarians hear this question all the time—not just from anxious first-year college students, but from experienced seniors, graduate students, even professors. Research starts with an idea, ideally one that interests you, and then becomes a process of discovery. Remember, research is a way of understanding. Starting with a topic you want to explore or a question you want to answer, you will gather information from a variety of sources—from webpages to books to interviews with experts—to deepen your understanding. Along the way, as you study the information you find, you will think about how that information relates to your initial thought or start moving in a different direction. In the end, if you are successful, you will have expanded your understanding of your topic and produced something, such as a paper or presentation, that will expand others’ understanding, as well; thus, your product will become a new source of information for others to use.
That's the general direction that research takes. It sounds pretty murky, doesn't it? How exactly are you supposed to come up with that first idea? Where can you find the best information? How do you study the information, draw out the relevant parts, and use them in your own project? Let's face it: if you don't know what you're doing, information can be intimidating, research can be frustrating, and the entire experience of trying to find and use information can be confusing, even maddening.
It doesn't have to be that way. This book describes a step-by-step method for working with information, one that makes the research process manageable, effective, and satisfying. This book will take you through this method one step at a time. By the time you finish this chapter, you will have completed the first step, which is to think like a detective. The next six chapters describe the rest of the seven steps in the method:
2: Ask a Compelling Question
3: Search for Answers
4: Explore Possible Sources
5: Evaluate Sources
6: Create a Paper Trail
7: Mine Your Sources
Each of these chapters describes specific strategies you can use as you work through each step in the method. In the chapter on asking a compelling question, for example, you will learn how to explore your own interests, consider the assignment, brainstorm ideas, draw a concept map, check an idea generator, explore the news, and test and refine a topic.
