LIB 101: Academic Research Skills

Class Program
Credits 2 Lecture Hours 22

This course is designed to prepare students with academic level research skills necessary to create search strategies, locate resources, identify formats, evaluate search results, understand APA and other citation styles, and avoid plagiarism.

Prerequisites

Placement into ENGL 099 or successful completion of ENGL 098 with a 2.0 or higher.

Quarters Offered
Summer
Course Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the course, students should be able to demonstrate the following knowledge or skills:

  1. Analyze and select appropriate resources from a variety of information systems, including the library catalog, library databases, and internet sources.
  2. Identify and create search strategies using keywords, truncation, Boolean Logic on various information platforms.
  3. Recognize relationships with library professionals as guidance, assistance, and support for ongoing academic success.
  4. Critically evaluate information for currency, relevancy, accuracy, authority, and purpose in context of research inquiry.
  5. Demonstrate the ability to understand and formally respond to research writing with critical analysis and understanding.
  6. Synthesize research results from a variety of sources, formats, and viewpoints into an annotated research evaluation
Institutional Outcomes

IO1: Students will be able to communicate clearly and effectively.
PO5: Students will be able to solve problems by gathering, interpreting, combining and/or applying information from multiple sources

Course Content Outline
  • Introduction to libraries and information resources
  • Discuss academic integrity and plagiarism
  • Introduce citation and documentation with an emphasis on APA Style 7th Edition
  • Formulate a research question
  • Create search strategies, broaden keywords, and narrow topics
  • Discuss information formats and evaluation
  • Overview of Internet research
  • Demonstration and evaluation of databases
  • Select, locate, and retrieve resources
  • Create an annotated bibliography that incorporates academic level research methodology
Department Guidelines

The syllabus must contain evaluation/grading guidelines, class environment/expectations/rules, course learning outcomes, and a disability services statement. A schedule must be provided to students that contains content covered (text chapters, topics, etc.), tentative test dates (to include final date/time). If an LMS or similar site is used for the course, it must be created following the Quality Matters (QM) principals outlined in the QM workbook questions.