This is an assignment developed in collaboration with Jim Gorman, which he used in his INST 1502 course "Reading and Writing the Road." Basically, in addition to finding an external source, the assignment is asking the students to "scratch" the surface and go in depth into questions such as: what is the intended audience? Is the information contained in the article original research? Is the evidence quantitative or qualitative? Why did the author choose this type of evidence? How credible is the author? How about the publication? A brief reflection piece is appended to the work sheet in order to offer the student the possibility to synthesize his/her thoughts. This assignment makes the students aware about the complex criteria that need to be taken into consideration when choosing a source, thus going beyond the mechanical criteria embedded in the database metadata.
This is similar to "Vet the Article" in how the assignment asks the students to dig further into an article. In this case, they are looking at a source used in an existing article within the library resource CQ Researcher. Here we are getting students to think about the credibility of sources and how information is used. This gets to the frames "Authority is Constructed and Contextual" as well as "Information Creation as a Process." Students are asked to unpack and determine the sources used and to evaluate where the article comes from and how it was constructed.
This assignment has been used in various courses and can be tweaked in multiple ways, but this example is from the FYS 1068 course taught by Meredith Frey. Basically, it is aimed at making the students aware about the fact that not all scholarly sources have the same scholarly impact. Some are cited in other sources, entering into a kind of conversation, while others are not. The reasons why a scholarly article, let's say, is cited more often than another can vary: some are cited as positive instances, others as negative examples, and many fall in-between. Citation analysis is a way to establish some kind of hierarchy, albeit not a perfect one. Students can be asked to investigate not only which articles have a bigger impact, but in what way and for what reason. Thus, they realize that time is a factor along with professional and social interest in the issue, etc.
Another variant of this assignment is to ask students to find a research paper on a topic and then analyze how the external sources are used. Are they cited as positive, negative or mixed/neutral examples? A possible chart could go along, in which students place the instances of positive/negative citation, and also speculate on what place in the exiting scholarship the author would like to see his/her research. See below for example.
This modified worksheet from the University of Connecticut allows the students to reflect on their sources and to think about the relationship among them and with the research assignment. It is a step-by-step variation on the self-evaluation criteria for selecting sources.
Checking the verity of statements, facts, and data is an important step in developing the critical thinking skills of students. This verification can be done in various ways, by using tools for statistics, by looking at the logical consistency of arguments or by using fact-checking web sites. The examples included below could be easily incorporated into existing assignments. The sample itself was used in the FYS 1068 course taught by Meredith Frey.
This is designed to get students looking in multiple locations for information on their topic. In this case, the assignment concerns a Modern artist between 1860-1960s, but it could be applied to other types of research.
An easily adaptable form from Polytechnique Montreal to accompany the research process, from keyword searching to final results. You can modify this to fit your needs.
This rubric by Claudia McGivney is a variation on the "vet the source" assignment, with a slant toward evaluating empirical research
This worksheet from Heather Beirne accompanies a student during a search in a catalog or database. The questions asked guide him/her through understanding how searching leads to discoveries, which lead in turn to further searching, refining, etc. It can be tweaked for any assignment.