Five Colleges of Ohio

Information Literacy Tutorial

January 1999 Committee Retreat Outline

Main Outline

 In Depth Sections

  1. Beginning the Research Process
    • determine the goal of your research project
    • determine the kind of information necessary to meet your goal
      • primary vs. secondary
      • popular vs. scholarly (peer reviewed)
      • current vs. historical (or both)
      • facts, commentary, criticism, report of research
    • find background information on your topic
    • find appropriate types of information resources for your topic
      • books, journal articles, news sources
    • refine your topic (broaden/narrow)
  2. Basic Reference Sources
  3. Library Catalog
  4. Research Databases
  5. Research on the Web
  6. Evaluating Information
    • learn how to question the place, context, and time in which information is produced
    • learn how to recognize the authority, reliability, and potential biases of the original source of information
  7. Credit Where Credit Is Due
    • be aware of intellectual property and basic copyright issues
    • understand when sources should be credited, how to do so properly
    • understand conventions of scholarly research
  1. Information world
  2. Organization of Information
  3. Database Structure
  4. Database Searching
    • basic
    • advanced

last revised for the web - 2/12/1999 - jcg