Lakeland Community College Library

Research Process: Scenarios Assignment

Information Literacy GEO this assignment addresses:

This assignment is designed to implement all the performance indicators in a three part comprehensive exercise. It requires students to work their way through the entire research process without writing a paper.

Objectives of assignment:

Create a thesis statement from a scenario
Extract searchable keywords, synonyms and phrases from the thesis statement
Devise a search strategy and apply Boolean operators
Select appropriate subject areas, databases and print resources
Use critical thinking in evaluating selected sources
Cite selected sources in proper MLA format

Part I - Thesis Statement

This section requires students to read a scenario of a controversial issue and decide which viewpoint to defend. They may be encouraged to find an alternate solutions the issue besides the two presented. Students may be divided into teams or work individually. Students will then create a thesis statement that summarizes the position they have chosen on the worksheet provided. Once the students have created a workable thesis statement, they should underline keywords that could be used to research their topic.

Thesis Statement Worksheet plus one of the following for each team or individual:

Part II - Research Diary

In this section, students will create search strategies based on keywords from their thesis statement. An instruction sheet and a research diary are provided to guide them through this part of the research process. Students will be asked to access the databases via the subject menu to determine which subject areas might apply to their topic.

After defining the subject areas, they are asked to select several databases that would be the best sources of pertinent information. Finally, they will use a Boolean Operator table to isolate keywords, synonyms and phrases to develop their search strategy. For websites, they will use an evaluation form to rate the websites they have found.

Using these tools they will select 2 articles and 2 websites that are most relevant to the position they have chosen to defend. They will print the articles and keep the website evaluations out to be used in Part III.

Part III Evaluation and Citation

For Part III, students will be asked to select the most pertinent website and article. They will be asked to state why these sources most closely suited their research topic. Using the Works Cited page provided, or using their textbook, they will cite their article and their website in correct MLA format. A discussion of plagiarism and intellectual property fits well here.

Some instructors choose to have their students do a presentation to the class using their sources to defend their position. The class as a whole decides which team has defended their position the best.

Important summation/review points:

Research is a process that often does not run smoothly. Students need to start early, be willing to make mistakes, modify their criteria for better results.

Students need to expand their concept of the topic to include synonyms and phrases. Often these appear in subject headings and keywords in articles that are close but not perfect.

Students may need to pull from several sources and several types of information to build a cogent argument.

Students should be extremely selective when deciding which information is the best suited to their issue.

Students need to honor the concept of intellectual property by correctly citing their sources. Students should avoid paraphrasing if they are unsure about doing it correctly. To omit citations, incompletely cite or incorrectly cite constitutes plagiarism which is in violation of the Lakeland Academic Integrity policy and may cause disciplinary action by Lakeland instructors.