Category Archives: Readings

Notes from today, and reading for Monday, 11/21

Today we talked about the rationale for documentation and citation. Your questions about the Hauptman reading brought up some issues that may never really be answered, which to me is evidence of careful thinking. In some cases, as for the question about common knowledge, any answer depends on the audience and context.

Remember, your research paper draft is due by 10 a.m. on Monday, November 21, either as a print copy handed in at the beginning of class, or as an attachment to an email to me sent by 10 a.m. Monday. You must submit each part of the research paper (proposal, annotated bibliography, outline, draft, final) to get credit for the paper. If you have questions about the assignment, please get in touch, and please do not wait until Sunday night.

On Monday, we’ll continue our discussion on documentation and address standards, methods and styles for citing text and non-text media. Please read chapter 9 of Badke and  browse the Purdue OWL’s APA and MLA Style sections. We will also talk a little bit about the final documentation project & presentation.

Slides from today are available here.

Have a productive weekend!
~Prof. Leonard

Notes from today, and reading for Wednesday, November 16

On Wednesday we’ll begin to discuss the rationale for documentation and citation. Please read Hauptman pp. 7-13; if you missed class get the book on reserve in the library (call number PN171 .F56 H38 2008), as well as Howard, Hot Type: A Modern Scholar’s Ailments: Link Rot and Footnote Flight

The research paper draft is due one week from today, on Monday, November 21 at the beginning of class. Please get in touch early if you have questions or issues about the research paper draft — do not wait until the weekend.

Slides from today are available here.

~Prof. Leonard

Words of Wisdom from William Badke

I am a regular reader of ILI-L, an email list for librarians interested in information literacy and library instruction, and just came across our textbook author Bill Badke’s recent post offering advice to college faculty on teaching students how to research:

The Top 10 Things we All Should Know about Today’s Research Environment.

1.       Sources of information are changing
2.       Search in today’s databases is complex
3.       Students don’t understand the research process
4.       Students don’t know they don’t understand the research process
5.       Faculty are increasingly baffled by research technology, and that can be corrected
6.       Librarians hold the key to the information kingdom
7.       You need librarians, and so do your students
8.       Today’s academic databases offer so much more than keyword searching
9.       Electronic full text is winning the day
10.   Wikipedia is not Public Enemy Number One

Badke, William B. (2011, October 31). RE: faculty instruction. [Msg 9]. Message posted to http://lists.ala.org/sympa/arc/ili-l/2011-10/msg00266.html

Any comments? You know what to do.
~Prof. L.

Notes from today, and assignment for Wednesday October 26

On Wednesday we’ll discuss advanced internet searching. Please read
Reading: Badke Ch. 6 (all) and Ch. 7 pp. 122-124 and watch the Common Craft video on web search strategies.

Your research paper topic proposal is due on Wednesday at the beginning of class. I’ll accept either a word document attached to an email or a printed copy.  Please refer to the guidelines (also distributed in class), and do not hesitate to get in touch by email if you have any questions about the assignment.

Slides from today are available here.
~Prof. Leonard

Notes from today, and reading & blogging for Monday, October 24

I hope the bubbl.us activity helped you begin to organize your thoughts and see relationships among your ideas for the research paper topic.If you want to share your mind map or get feedback, you can post your bubbl in a new post on the blog (see my post below). If you are still generating an idea for the research paper and wish to review class notes, visit the Slides page of the course site.

On Monday, we’ll continue our discussion about the process of research: refining a topic and creating search strategies. Please read Badke, appendix 1 pp. 177-195 and review Badke Ch. 3 pp. 34-41. Your first research journal blog post is due Monday as well. Here is prompt for that post:

You are working on choosing a topic and developing a research question for your paper. What difficulties (if any) have you encountered as you work on your research proposal?
What strategies (if any) have you used successfully during this work?
What questions (if any) do you have about the assignment?

Slides from today are available here.

~Prof. L.

Notes from today, and reading & blogging assignment for Wednesday 10/19

On Wednesday, October 19 we’ll be discussing the research process: needs assessment, preliminary strategies, and topic development. This will be a good way to prepare for the research topic proposal, due next Wednesday, October 26.

Please read Badke chapter 2, “Taking Charge,” and comment on at least one blog post.

Slides from today are available here.

~Prof. Leonard

Notes from today, and readings & blogging for Monday 10/17

On Monday we’ll be discussing the mechanics of searching, including what a database is and how search engines work. Please read the following:

Please write one reading response post and add one comment to another’s post.

Slides from today are available here.

New link to the Harrod story on Flickr and tagging

I updated the link to the Harrod article about Flickr and tagging in my last post, so it should work from off-campus. If you are still not able to get into the full-text of the article try this.
Enjoy the long weekend! As always, I’m looking forward to reading more of your posts and comments.
~Prof. L

Notes from today, and reading/blogging assignments for Wednesday, October 12

Thanks for a robust and animated discussion about information ethics today.
Copyright and fair use is in the news today: a copyright case involving a university’s right to stream videos on its website was recently thrown out of court in California; read more here. I encourage you all to finish watching the videos we started to view in class and explore Creative Commons and the Digital Copyright slider. Links to the videos are in the slides.

For Wednesday, October 12, please read the following chapter from Badke and two articles:

Badke, chapter 4 (there is still time to obtain your own copy; if you do not yet have a copy of the required textbook for this class and cannot find it in a convenient bookstore, you can download the e-book for less than $10 here, or use the library’s copy on reserve; the call number is Z710 .B23 2008.)

Dye, J. (2006). Folksonomy: A game of high-tech (and high-stakes) tag. EContent, 29(3), 38-43.

Harrod, H. (2009, March 28). It’s the playground of narcissistic teenagers and amateur photographers, but 3 billion images (and counting) on flickr could be the greatest social document of the century. The Sunday Telegraph, pp.22.

Your blogging assignment is one reading response blog post and one comment on a classmate’s blog post.

Enjoy the long weekend! ~Prof. Leonard

Notes from today, and your reading and assignment for Monday, September 26

We’ll be moving into discussions about issues in information and media. On Monday, we’ll be discussing access to information — personal and institutional. Over the next few weeks we’ll read and discuss other information issues: privacy, ethics, copyright and fair use. For Monday, please read Martin, The politics of research, from his book Information liberation: Challenging the corruptions of information power and write one reading response blog post.

Classes are cancelled Wednesday, September 28 through Friday, September 30. The college and library are open.

Slides from today are available here.