Information Competency

Overview of Information Competencies

Note: Links from each to modular webpage

9. Critical Thinking in the Age of Information

Vartan Gregorian, President of Brown University, speaking of the awesome prospect of visiting a library for the first time:

In the British Museum, sitting there and seeing those millions of books--suddenly you feel humble. The whole of humanity is in front of you. What are you trying to do? Is it worth doing? What are you going to say or add or write that has not been said and written about? It gives you a sense of cosmic relation to the totality of humanity, but at the same time a sense of isolation. You have a sense of both pride and insignificance. Here it is, the human endeavor, human inspiration, human agony, human ecstacy, human bravura, human failures--all before you. You look around and say, "Oh my God! I am not going to be able to know it all." One gets thrilled and frightened at the same time in the presence of a library because it reminds one about one's past, present, and, most, of the possibilities of the future.

Betty Sue Flowers, ed., Bill Moyers: World of Ideas (NY: Doubleday, 1989), p. 181.

Use, evaluate, and treat critically information received from the mass media

Constructive attitudes

Management to time and tasks in research and writing

8. Ethics & rules

Understand the ethical, legal, and socio-political issues surrounding information and information technology.

Using and citing sources

Ownership and Intellectual property

Information competency literacy: reading, computers, information, culture

Exigency: Need to Know and Communicate

What is the rhetoric need?

Nothing will happen if you’re not motivated to do research and then communicate the results.

Motivation grows out of circumstances, your own needs and interests, the needs of your audience, time, and your information competency.

1. Define the research topic.

What do you need to know and do?

Focus on the central problem, issue, or need

SPIRE

Stasis: fact, value, and policy

Consider your "research topic" to be tentative and dynamic as you enter into the process of discovering information.

2. Information requirements needed

Determine the information requirements for the research question, problem, or issue.

Popular vs. scholarly vs. proprietary vs. government information

Primary vs. secondary sources

Information must serve you, your audience, the subject, and the occasion

3. Locate and retrieve relevant information.

Locate and retrieve relevant information

Lecture notes and textbooks

Library resources: books, periodicals, government documents, indexes, bibliographies, reference books

Technical vocabulary: database, record, field

Information Gathering Behaviors: How to do it

Students

Faculty

4. Technological tools

Use the technological tools for accessing information

The Internet and Search engines

Library:

ALIS

Expanded Academic Index

5. Evaluate information.

Critical judgment

Common standards to assess information

Credibility

Authoritativeness

Audience attitude

Recognizing bias

Timeliness

Pertinence and appropriateness to assignment, subject focus, speaker/writer, audience

Information as a commodity

6. Organize and synthesize information.

General considerations and strategies

Mapping information and structuring

Adaptation to discipline

Adaptation to assignment requirements

Interaction of research and organizing stages

Prewriting

Use prewriting to explore, discover, and develop ideas

brainstorm lists

focused freewriting

clustering

thinking

Synthesize a THESIS

State WHAT you want to say in the essay in a single sentence.

The central idea of the paper is called a thesis.

Remember that the thesis should be appropriate to the scope and purpose of the course.

Select and apportion DEVELOPMENTAL points and materials

Development is the expansion of the thesis, identifying the main lines of development, the major arguments proving your point, and so forth.

Types of developmental material include definitions, facts, quotations, statistics, comparisons, contrasts, examples, illustrations, and so forth.

Cicero: exordium, narratio, partitio, confirmatio, confutatio, and conclusio

ORGANIZATION PRINCIPLES

INTRODUCTION

BODY (Confirmatio)

CONCLUSION (Conclusio)

INTRODUCTION

Exordium: Secure attention and interest.

Narratio: Give needed background on topic (what does reader need to understand to appreciate your point?)

Partitio: State the purpose of paper and preview the major parts

Partitio

Orient reader to the thesis or purpose of paper: scholars usually state the thesis directly

"The purpose of this paper is to. . . ."

"Preview" the major developmental parts of the paper: scholars usually state this directly

"First, the history of the problem will be explored; second, the consequences. . . ."

BODY (Confirmatio)

Body of essay contains the main ideas of the essay and appropriate developmental material.

Arrangement of the main ideas/developmental material should be determined by the subject matter and purpose.

CONCLUSION (Conclusio)

Summarize thesis and main points

Show relevance to the course (or reason you wrote essay)

Stimulate reader to want to know more, do something, think of the implications of your essay, etc.)

TRANSITIONAL MATERIAL

Throughout essay, thesis should be abundantly clear.

Relate each main idea to thesis and to other ideas.

Use transitional words (therefore, however, first, etc.)

Technological tools for organizing & synthesizing

Note cards and pen

Outlines

Thinktank models

Excel

Word

Graphics

7. Communicating Results of Research

Communicate using a variety of information technologies.

Writing:

Essay vs. Report

Technical vs. Persuasive

Paper with MLA, APA, etc.: Using and citing sources

Webpage essay/report

Powerpoint

Writing Stages

Prewriting

Invention and Disposition: finding, selection, and arrangement of materials

Elocution: Putting ideas and information into words: Write the first draft

Revising

Check spelling.

Check punctuation.

Check for word appropriateness (meaning, etc.)

Check for sentence construction: complete sentences? fragments? dangling sentences? missing verbs? missing words? run-together sentences? subject-verb & pronoun-antecedent agreement errors?

Check for paragraph adequacy.

Check for transitions--are there enough? (probably not)

Check for overall structure, be sure introduction and conclusion are effective

Check for content: logically sound? points well developed? details sufficient? enough illustrations & examples? support?

Read essay as you think your reader will.

Rewriting

Based on your revising, write a new draft of the essay.

Proofreading

Proofreading of final draft involves the same factors as revision.

There is no excuse for errors in your papers which you could have caught by proofreading.

Typing errors are still errors.

Make changes neatly in ink. Never turn in a paper unless it has been proofread.

If necessary, rewrite again

Repeat revision and rewriting steps until paper meets objectives and rhetorical needs

Additional research may been needed if new questions arise and/or you find points that need further development as you revise and rewrite

Technological tools to facilitate writing

Word

Templates

Outlines

Headers

Spell and grammar checking

MLA, APA, etc. templates for publication style/format

Excel: generating tables and graphs

Graphics: to visually reinforce ideas

10. Judge the product and the process.

Does product meet the essential rhetorical need?

Product: audience, style, tone

Process:

metacognitive

circular and dynamic

Adaptation to discipline

Information Competency Reconsidered

What happens next?