An inforamus is someone doing bad searches with an inadequate search
engine in a morass of disorganized, incomplete, and sometimes inaccurate information,
and who is perfectly happy with the results.
David Majka, American Libraries
Peer
Review
Library Assignments/Term Paper Alternatives
Resources To Use With Your Students
Preventing Plagiarism
Evaluating Web Resources
Peer-Reviewed Articles @ J. Eugene Smith Library: Academic Search Premier, designed specifically for academic institutions, is the world's largest scholarly, multi-disciplinary full text database containing full text for nearly 4,500 journals publications, including more than 3,600 peer-reviewed publications. In addition to the full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for all 8,144 journals in the collection. This scholarly collection offers information in nearly every area of academic study including: social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, physics, chemistry, language and linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences, ethnic studies, and many more.
10 Reasons Why the Internet Is No Substitute for a Library by Mark Y. Herring, Dean of Library Services, Dacus Library, Winthrop University, Rock Hill, South Carolina.
Differentiate Between Popular Magazines, Trade Magazines, and Scholarly Journals from Thompson Rivers University, British Columbia.
Distinguishing Scholarly Journals from Other Periodicals from Cornell University Libraries. "Shows how to evaluate periodicals by looking at their format, intended audience, and appearance."
Finding Scholarly Articles & Research Studies from Clark State Community College Library, Springfield, Ohio.Chart format; includes very helpful explanation of Empirical Research Articles and Research Studies.
Magazine Or Scholarly Journal Includes trade publications and Gray Literature, California State University, Sacramento.
Professor Promotes Student Use of Peer-Reviewed Papers, Scott Carlson, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/7/2003, Vol. 49 Issue 26, pA34: "Focuses on a report which revealed that Cornell University students in Ithaca, New York used fewer scholarly materials in their library research between 1996 and 2001. Reference to the study; Case of a professor who promotes student use of peer-reviewed materials."
Scholarly vs. Popular Articles from Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah. Great colorful chart!
Types of Periodicals from Ithaca College Library. Chart format; includes research articles/empirical studies and a helpful section: So which ones should I use?
Web-Loving Students Can Be Prodded to Cite Peer-Reviewed Works in Term Papers, Study Suggests, Scott Carlson, The Chronicle of Higher Education: "A report released Wednesday shows that students in a course at Cornell University have generally used fewer and fewer scholarly materials in their library research in the past six years. But the professor who teaches the course reversed the trend by providing a few clear guidelines in term-paper assignments." Effect of the Web on Undergraduate Citation Behavior: Guiding Student Scholarship in a Networked Age" by Philip M. Davis, portal: Libraries and the Academy (the study): " This article provides the last update to a longitudinal study tracking the research behavior of a multi-college undergraduate course in microeconomics from 1996 to 2001. Student term paper bibliographies grew between 1996 and 2000 but included fewer scholarly resources. In 2001, students tended to cite scholarly sources when the professor provided clear and enforceable guidelines in his class assignment. The accuracy and persistency of cited Web documents also increased as a result."
Designing Assignments J. Eugene Smith Library Can Support Effectively
Alternative Research Assignments from Library & Information Access, San Diego State University:"Research papers are a common reason for students to use the library and research tools. However, alternative assignments will also encourage students to utilize knowledge-based resources, think critically, and acquire research knowledge."
Alternatives to the Research Paper from Conant Library, Nichols College includes Learning Research Skills, Learning to Use Access Tools, Understanding the Structure of the Literature, Critical Reading, Using the Web and Presenting Your Results.
Alternatives to Term Papers from Lawrence University, Appleton, WI.
Creating Effective Research Assignments from the University of Maryland:
Purpose of Course-Related Research Assignments
Preparing Your Students
Characteristics of Effective Assignments
Pitfalls to Avoid
Your Students' Use of Library and Web Resources
Role of the Librarian
Plagiarism and Citing.
Creating Successful Library Assignments: A Guide For Faculty (PDF) from Texas A&M University Libraries.
Designing Assignments from University of Washington Libraries: "A well-designed assignment is an excellent teaching tool and can help students develop research skills, critical thinking skills, and subject knowledge. This page provides tips on designing effective assignments, possible pitfalls to avoid, and examples of alternatives to the term paper."
Designing Assignments to Curb Plagiarism, Focus on University Teaching and Learning, Volume 11 Number 3, January/February 2002, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada. "Plagiarism is a growing concern at post-secondary institutions nationwide. On our own campus, the Senate Discipline Committee’s June 2001 report contains several recommendations that directly address the increasing incidence of plagiarism and suggests steps to control it. Both the detection and prevention of plagiarism need to be considered if the problem is to be combatted effectively. In this issue of Focus we are encouraging prevention by presenting measures aimed at stopping plagiarism before it starts."
Prevent Plagiarism with Creative Assignments: Ideas for Faculty from Karen McClaskey, Head of Public Services, Pickler Memorial Library, Truman State University.
Suggestions for Assignments from Folke Bernadotte Memorial Library, Gustavus Adolphus College: Enhancing Developmental Research Skills in the Undergraduate Curriculum: "It isn't necessary to assign a full-fledged research paper to give students experience with finding sources and putting them to use. This chart lays out some alternatives to the standard research paper as well as the concepts and the skills they address. Interpretive Assignments / Synthesis Assignments / Exploring Discourses / Quick and Dirty".
Suggestions for Planning and Creating Effective Library Assignments from the Information Literacy Guide, Pollak Library, California State University, Fullerton.
Term Paper Alternatives: Ideas for Information-Based Assignments "Some faculty members have lost confidence in the learning effectiveness of the traditional research paper for undergraduates. Concerns over “cut-and-paste” plagiarism and term paper purchasing have created a need for different approaches towards information-based assignments. Term papers have been the most commonly used method of evaluating whether students can successfully apply information skills, but there are other ways to incorporate information resources into assignments without requiring a full-scale research paper. Students may actually respond better to alternative assignments that enable them to focus on specific resources, aspects of the research process or aspects of the discipline."
Term Paper Alternatives or... So you'd like your students to use the library but don't want to assign a research paper? from Miriam E. Joseph, Reference Librarian, Pius XII Memorial Library, Saint Louis University.
Tips
for Creating Effective Library Research Assignments from New Mexico State
University Library.
" Effective library research assignments promote students' learning of
subject matter while also fostering lifelong information literacy and critical
thinking skills. Poorly designed library research assignments, though, can turn
students off from a subject or library research forever."
Handouts & Web Pages
Online Tutorials
From the Harvard Writing Center:
How
to Read an Assignment
Moving
from Assignment to Topic
How
to Do a Close Reading
Overview
of the Academic Essay: Thesis, Argument and Counterargument
Essay
Structure
Developing
A Thesis
Beginning the Academic Essay
Outlining
Counter-Argument
Summary
Topic
Sentences and Signposting
Transitioning:
Beware of Velcro
How
to Write a Comparative Analysis
Ending
the Essay: Conclusions
Revising
the Draft
Editing
the Essay, Part One
Editing
the Essay, Part Two
Tips on Grammar,
Punctuation and Style
Harvard also recommends
the online version of The Elements
of Style by William Strunk, Jr.
Critically Analyzing Information Sources from Cornell University Libraries."Lists some of the critical questions you should ask when you consider the appropriateness of a particular book, article, media resource, or Web site for your research."
Elements Of A Research Article from Northern Essex Community College Libraries. A graphic view, good for visual learners.
From Information to Publication from the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library, University of Utah.
How to Read a CS Research Paper? from the University of Regina.
How to Read a Paper from the British Medical Journal:
How to Read a Paper (Medline). "This article is the first in a series that introduces the non-expert to searching the medical literature and assessing the value of medical articles."
Problem 1: You are trying to find a known paper.
Problem 2: You want to answer a specific question.
Problem 3: You want to get general information quickly about a well defined topic.
Problem 4: Your search gives irrelevant articles.
Problem 5: The search gives no articles, or too few.
Problem 6: You don't know where to start searching.
Problem 7: Limiting a set loses important articles but does not exclude those of low methodological quality.
Problem 8: Medline hasn't helped.
How to read a paper: Assessing the methodological quality of published papers.
How
to read a paper: Getting your bearings (deciding what the paper is about).
How
to read a paper: Papers that go beyond numbers (qualitative research).
How
to read a paper: Papers that report diagnostic or screening tests.
How to read a paper: Papers that report drug trials.
How
to read a paper: Papers that summarise other papers (systematic reviews and
meta-analyses).
How
to read a paper: Papers that tell you what things cost (economic analyses).
How to read a paper: Statistics
for the non-statistician:
I:
Different types of data need different statistical tests.
II: "Significant" relations and their pitfalls.
How to
read a research paper from Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,
Harvard University.
How to Read a Scientific Article: Reviewing research articles and interpreting the literature by Bob Millikan, DVM, PhD., Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
How to Read a Scientific Paper from University of Arizona.
How to Read a Scientific Research Paper, a four-step guide for students, Ann McNeal, School of Natural Science, Hampshire College, Amherst MA.
Life Balance — Making Sense of Science: How To Get Beyond Headlines And Hype To Find Answers You Can Use by Eris Weaver, MPH, MLIS, AHIP.
Selecting a Research Topic from Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah. Thorough introduction.
Assignment Calculator from University of Minnesota Libraries.
American University Library’s Information Literacy Tutorial
Gwendolyn J. Reece, Melissa Becher, Mary Evangeliste, Clement Ho, Mary Mintz, Mike Tosko, Tony Loffredo, American University: "Intended to establish a base-line set of information literacy competencies for students, the tutorial is designed to incorporate higher-order critical thinking skills."
Bruin
Success with Less Stress
Pauline Swartz, Information Literacy/Reference Librarian,
UCLA College Library: “Designed as an introduction to academic integrity and intellectual property,
Bruin Success with Less Stress educates students about their role in the academic
community to help them make informed choices. This resource supports the missions
of various campus entities (e.g., the Office of the Dean of Students, the Writing
Programs, the Office of Information Technology, etc.), and strives to educate
students about issues of academic integrity and intellectual property not only
in their academic careers, but also in their daily lives.”
CSU Information
Competence Tutorial from the California State University System:"The Libraries at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Cal Poly Pomona, CSU Monterey
Bay, CSU Fullerton and CSU Los Angeles collaborated on the development of Interactive
Information Competency modules for applications in library credit courses and
other courses within the curriculum. The 9 online tutorials listed below provide
guidance and practical exercises on Information Competence:
Doing Research: An Introduction to the Concepts of Online Searching
Annie Armstrong and Helen Georgas, University of Illinois at Chicago: "An animated, interactive tutorial that introduces undergraduate students to some basic concepts of online searching. These concepts include:
1) Using the search term 'AND'
2) Identifying keywords
3) Thinking of synonyms and related terms
4) Examining a citation
5) Putting it all together.
Concepts are illustrated interactively through a series of highly visual modules/games. Whenever possible, concepts and instructions are explained with a minimum amount of text. The tutorial is not resource or university specific in any way. Rather, any university (or high-school) student could complete it to gain an understanding of basic information literacy skills."
Info Research 101: Surviving Your Essay
Information Literacy Working Group: Olivier Charbonneau, Dubravka Kapa, Patrick Labelle (Chair), Sonia Poulin, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec: "Info Research 101 is a self-paced, interactive tutorial designed to provide mainly undergraduate students in the arts, humanities and social sciences with the necessary foundations and skills to find useful information, to evaluate it critically and to use it wisely for various purposes such as writing research assignments. Helpful examples, practical tips and interactive activities complement the information presented."
InfoSkills Tutorial
Vicki Picasso and Debbie Booth, University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia: "InfoSkills is a self-paced online tutorial designed to introduce University of Newcastle undergraduate students to a range of information and research skills that will assist with finding, using, evaluating and managing information. The tutorial also identifies issues surrounding academic integrity, including plagiarism, and their significance at the University of Newcastle."
NetTrail, The University of California Santa Cruz's Information Literacy Tutorials
Ann Hubble, Deborah Murphy,
Christy Caldwell, Christy Hightower, Ken Lyons, Bryn Kanar, The University of California Santa Cruz: "NetTrail is an online resource for UCSC students, a self-instructional tutorial to teach them basic library and research skills. It covers the research process from initial topic selection to citation styles and the issue of plagiarism. Its content is organized into six modules, which contain text, graphics, and interactive modules. Each of the six sections takes about 10-15 minutes to complete, and students can do this on their own time outside of class. The modules are followed by a short self-administered quiz. NetTrail is designed for students new to the research process, specifically lower-division undergraduates. It is not subject-specific and can be used in a variety of introductory courses. It has been used by instructors teaching across a wide range of disciplines, such as Writing and Computer Sciences."
SBU Library Research Guide
Janet H. Clarke and Godlind Johnson, Stony Brook University Libraries: "This is a tutorial using the ACRL Information Literacy Standards as a theoretical framework. The tutorial is aimed at incoming undergraduate students, but can be used by graduate students, faculty, as well as any independent researcher. We want students to learn the research process while also having fun; and we want them to have access to the tutorial 24/7. Using Western Michigan University’s Searchpath and IUPUI’s Inflite as examples, we added greater navigation (local as well as global) and interaction and adapted it to our needs at SBU. Our tutorial has 6 free-standing modules: Choosing a Topic; Identifying Sources; Using STARS [the online catalog]; Finding Articles; Using the Web; and Citing Sources. We designed the tutorial to be flexible in its uses: as an exercise required before instruction by a librarian; as an assignment by a classroom instructor; as a reference tool to help remote users; or as a tool discovered by inquisitive, proactive students on their own; to be used in its entirety to learn the research process; or to learn or re-learn an aspect of the process at the point of need."
How To Avoid Plagiarism
Paul Robeson Library Reference Department,, Rutgers the State University, Camden, New Jersey: "The pedagogical goals of the 'How to Avoid Plagiarism' tutorial are that students will use information in an ethical manner and will recognize the art of citation as part of the scholarly communication process."
From Monash University Library, Australia:
How
To Develop A Search Strategy
How To Decipher
And Use Your Reading List
How To Identify
Academic Resources
How To Acknowledge
What You've Read (Citing & Referencing): examples from AIP, APA, Chicago,
Harvard, IEEE, Turabian or Vancouver styles.
How To Do Research
On The Internet
Internet Research
with Google Advanced Search
How To Evaluate What
You Find
Paradigm Online Writing Assistant "Paradigm is an interactive, menu-driven, online writer's guide and handbook written in HTML and distributed freely over the WWW. It uses hypertext structure to create a web of links and text frames that you can navigate quickly and easily by clicking your desired choice. Paradigm is intended to be useful for all writers, from inexperienced to advanced." About the Author: "Chuck Guilford has thirty years of experience teaching a variety of university level writing courses. He holds a Ph.D. in English and is emeritus professor of English at Boise State University, where he teaches composition, creative writing, and literature. His textbook, Beginning College Writing, was published by Little, Brown. A longtime member of N.C.T.E. and C.C.C.C., he is a frequent conference participant and is the founder of the Conference on Basic Writing (C.B.W.), a 4C's special interest group."
The Road to Research Research Skills Tutorial from Wesleyan University Library:"An overview of skills and techniques for effectively searching the library and Internet, evaluating what you find, getting things from other libraries, and citing what you use.
* Types of Sources
* Developing a Topic
* Finding Background Info
* Searching Online Databases
* Finding Books
* Interpreting Call Numbers
* Finding Journal Articles
* Finding Audio/Video/Etc
* Finding Primary Sources
* Getting Stuff That Isn't Here
* Finding Internet Sources
* Evaluating Sources Found
* Citing Sources Used"
What Makes A Journal Scholarly
Eileen Stec, Instruction & Outreach Librarian, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ: "The tutorial introduces the peer review process, and uses the definition of peer review to indicate that a journal is scholarly. Interactive questioning is used to further engagement, not for assessment. Users are also presented with two methods to use Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, and a handout may be printed at the end of the tutorial."
The Workshop on the Information Search Process for Research (WISPR) teaches information seeking skills. It is based on Dr. Carol Kuhlthau’s theoretical model for information seeking. The creators have translated Kuhlthau’s model into a colorful and easy to understand graphic which students click through to learn information seeking behavior. Authors: Shauna Rutherford, Culture Librarian; K. Alix Hayden, Nursing & Kinesiology Librarian; Paul R. Pival, Distance Education Librarian Institution: University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada.
"Why Use WISPR?
Research has shown that all people seeking information go through the same process, regardless of their educational level or of the subject or discipline they are researching. The more complex the question, the more distinct the steps or phases in the process will be. For relatively simple questions, the phases may run together and you may not recognize that you've even completed separate ones. In more complicated research, the individual phases will be more apparent. In every case, you must start at Phase One and progress through all six phases in order to effectively find the information you need. If you try to skip a phase, you will run into problems later on and will not be as successful in your search.
About the Workshop
The WISPR workshop will guide you through these phases of the Information search Process. Each of the phases is represented by a different colour in the workshop. Each section will explain the task of the phase, give you some actions and strategies to move you along to the next phase, and outline some of the thoughts and feelings researchers normally experience at that point of the Information Search Process.Although you must start at Phase One and progress to Phase Six, at any point you can go back and revisit a phase if you are struggling along the way. Use the self-assessment at the end of each phase to make sure you're ready to move on.
As you become a more experienced researcher, the phases and the actions and strategies you use to move through them will become second nature. Using the library for research will always be a complex, and somewhat time-consuming task. But understanding the process of finding information and developing strategies for getting through it will result in more efficient, more effective, and more rewarding searching!"
You Quote It, You Note It from Acadia University's Vaughan Memorial Library: "The 'Acadia Advantage' at Acadia University program provides all full-time students and faculty with a laptop. In an effort to reach more students in this technology-rich learning environment, Acadia librarians embarked on an online tutorial project to teach core research and information literacy skills. The five tutorials planned are designed to be cross-disciplinary in nature and focus on first and second year students; broad enough for campus-wide instruction and flexible enough to allow for subject-specific modification. This first module was chosen to be developed early in the project to respond to the growing concern of academic integrity on campus. The learning objectives of You Quote It, You Note It! are that students discover:
1. Why it's essential to start research early
2. The difference between paraphrasing and quoting and how to do both properly
3. When to cite, what to cite and how to cite
4. Where to get help.
The software used to create the tutorials is Macromedia FlashMX. The module is available freely on the internet and users need only a browser and to download a flash plug-in from macromedia in order to view it." Check out this fun, interactive tutorial which will help you to avoid the pitfalls of plagiarism while researching and writing your term papers. The tutorial takes about 10 minutes.
Academic Integrity: Faculty Resources from Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Here are some other ideas for detecting plagiarism:
Look for visual clues:
Look for content cues:
Student knowledge of paper content:
Tracking down originals:
Plagiarism: A Guide for ECSU Students and Faculty Includes Eastern's policy on Academic Misconduct, resources for students and faculty.
Ryerson University has created five short animated films exploring academic integrity issues:
Plagiarized.com: "The purpose of this site is to help instructors and parents better understand
how the internet can facilitate plagiarism. We present strategies to prevent
plagiarism, explain some of the underlying causes, and provide advice on dealing
with cases of confirmed plagiarism." See Dead
Giveaways!
The above cartoon by Peter Steiner has been reproduced from page 61 of July 5, 1993 issue of The New Yorker, (Vol.69 (LXIX) no. 20) only for academic discussion, evaluation, and research and complies with the copyright law of the United States as defined and stipulated under Title 17 U. S. Code.
Feline Reactions to Bearded Men
A list of other Annals of Improbable Research articles.
Last Update: November 18, 2008.