CI 5475 Week 3 - Librar-what?

SEARCH STRATEGIES

I have a confession... A confession that has the potential to boil the blood of many, many teachers... Throughout completing countless assignments across my combined undergraduate and graduate coursework, I have NEVER checked out a single library book. In fact, other than visiting a University of Minnesota library on REQUIRED trips for this or that class (visits which I can literally count on one hand), I have never set foot in any one of the the University of Minnesota's dozens of discipline-specific libraries on my own accord!

All humor aside, I truthfully didn't feel the NEED to visit a library (in the flesh at least...) following one of the few required visits to the University of Minnesota's Walter Library during my taking of a freshman-only study skills class. I recall the experience as if it were yesterday...


After taking us on a brief tour of Wilson Library, as well as informing us that Wilson was only ONE of MANY discipline specific libraries on campus, our tour guide took us into a small conference room filled with nothing more than an LCD projector, a screen to project on, and a bunch of chairs. "I can't believe there aren't any books in here," I remember thinking to myself after gazing at the stacks, and stacks, AND stacks, of print material. Our tour guide then led the group through a short presentation about where to find and how to use the University of Minnesota's many virtual databases that we have free access to as paying students. In just a few brief moments, I learned that just as there are numerous discipline specific, physical libraries that I had access to as a student, there were also a countless number of discipline specific, virtual sources that I also had access to... but from the comfort of my own chair.... that I could "visit" on my own time... without the need to pay for and make copies of what I found... That night, I remember going back to my dorm, poking around the index of countless data bases at my absolute leisure, and utilizing several articles from the humanities specific JSTOR database for an upcoming English paper.


I guess you might say that I'm lucky to have had this crash course on using professional research databases so early on in my college experience. If I had not, it's entirely possible that I would have never discovered that these types of resources exist for students. While my classmates were relying on general Google searches in my freshman composition and literature courses (and constantly receiving comments about how they needed to learn to be more critical of the sources they've found, I might add), I immediately got into the practice of ALWAYS referring to a professional database that "fit" the specific discipline I was researching and writing for. That's not to say that I wouldn't use a general Google search to help me define my topic and thinking, but it has been my practice to END UP at one of these professional sources. And, I have been refining the practice ever since. For example, if I am writing for a humanities class, I've gotten into the practice of frequently utilizing JSTOR. When I need to learn more about and integrate theories on literary criticism into my writing, I frequently utilize The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. And finally, but certainly not the last example that I've used (or that's out there for that matter), I now frequently utilize Academic Search Premier when looking for sources with a educational / psychological bent to them (NOTE: to view these links, you must first sign in to the U's system with your x500).

When critically examining material I gather from these professional databases, I generally assume that they have a high degree of validity and credibility. After all, each source needed to pass through a great number of "filters" before being approved for upload on the particular database. But, to strive for an even higher degree of validity and credibility, I frequently restrict my searches to "only display full articles" (so I can examine the entire source on the spot vs. expending more time and energy to track it down), as well as "only display peer reviewed sources (so I have the extra assurance that a community of a particular author's peers who are also experts on the given material have read, reviewed, and approved the source for upload).

However, there are of course times when I go outside the "security" of these academic databases. After all, there are of course some very useful, valid, credible, and accurate sources found on the general internet that are NOT published in the aforementioned professional databases. When doing such a search, I am generally more willing to accept .gov and .edu domains over .org and especially .com domains. After all, because schools and government agencies have reputations to maintain, I am more likely to trust that the quality of the information they publish reflects said reputation. But, I keep a more critical eye of general internet sources via a number of strategies including:

-Crosschecking data, facts, and information when I can (often crosschecking with the aforementioned professional databases).

-Contacting the original author with further questions if such contact information is available.

-Consulting another expert in the field (e.g., course professor, professional colleague, and so on).

-Checking for source subjectivity and bias (e.g., looking for potential subjectivity and bias as a result of a particular source's ideological motives).

-And above all, using my common sense. After all, if it looks to good to be true / too convenient, it probably is! I'm not that lucky!

But, as I've learned from my student teaching experience, many students do not share my story. Whether the study skills class was an absolutely magical coincidence and / or some combination of my habits as a student helped me "figure out" how to find credible and valid sources for my research and writing, many students do not give a source's validity, credibility, accuracy, and so on a second thought. For example, during a research paper I assigned to my class of seniors last spring, a paper was returned to me that cited the Onion as a piece of academic research! Now, I'm all for reading and citing the Onion, but in an academic paper?!? Come on!

Although potentially a valid, credible, and overall appropriate source for a paper focusing on the mechanisms of satire and parody, this type of source simply did not "fit" the intended purpose of what this particular student was focusing on; a formal exploration of global warming.

With this example in mind, I would begin teaching effective search strategies by having students use the following approach - using the purpose of what they intend to write about as a frame for screening / filtering search material for validity, credibility, and overall appropriateness given said purpose. Beach et. al. describes this approach as they state:

"Equally important in engaging in online searches is students' ability to frame a specific purpose, topic, or question that will guide their search" (26).

Students must be taught that the more specific and realized their purpose is, the easier time they will have finding sources that "fit" their purpose. Furthermore, students must be taught where, specifically, they can look to find a purpose-specific response. Just as I was taught where specifically to look via active modeling during my tour of Williamson Library, students need to literally be shown through similar modeling that there are many places that "fit" the purpose they have defined, as well as many places that do not (e.g., the Onion in a formal report on global warming). As an ideal result, students would then learn to practice a very intentional strategy of using their defined purpose to guide them to and help them self-assess appropriate, discipline specific material that "fits" their source as does Rachel:

"...and I go to lot of university websites. There was one at Cornell - I use that for government: I have to write a paper on a Supreme Court case and I use that for a lot of law" (29).

RSS SUBSCRIPTION

I have already subscribed to a variety of sources including everyone's blog from our class, my other friends' and colleagues' blogs, various news feeds including The New York Times and The AP, various technology feeds including PC Mag, various gaming feeds including Gamespot, and my favorite morning show program, the KQ Morning Show. Basically, a mix of what I would term professional / academic and fun feeds.

From there, I will use these feeds to quickly keep up on the specific information that is tailored to me including technologies that have both professional AND fun implications, and news sources that may yield valuable textual examples for future use in the classroom (e.g., the bellow video fed to me from KQ Morning Show Website that "catches" a news reporter making covert, racially charged observations about the actions of residents of North Minneapolis following a sever thunderstorm), but satisfy my curiosity about a wide variety of topics that interest me.

In short, if I could have more of these types of texts fed directly to me vs. myself having to expend the time and energy to find them, my life as a teacher would be a WHOLE lot easier...