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Information Fluency in Gendered Gothic Senior Seminar: Objectives

Information Fluency Objectives for English Majors

  • Students will follow effective research paths, including 1) the use of subject encyclopedias to narrow and focus their topic, 2) brainstorming and expanding the list of keywords to use in database searches, 3) conducting effective search statements, including the use of Boolean operators, nesting, truncation, and field searching, 4) following a citation trail on a topic or author.
  • Students will be familiar with many of the subject encyclopedias and other subject-specific reference materials in their area of research, including the Dictionary of Literary Biography and The Oxford English Dictionary, as well as more specific resources for various genres, time periods, etc.
  • Students will know how to search the major discipline-specific article databases for English and comparative literary studies, including the MLA Bibliography and Literature Online.
  • Students will understand how Library of Congress classification works for literature and how to use the library catalogs to find literary criticism, biographical information and primary sources.
  • Students will know how to find media related to their topic.
  • Students will understand what and how Google searches, and will be able to hone their searches to yield highly relevant sources.
  • Students will know how to evaluate potential resources, both print and electronic.  Evaluation techniques should include 1) the concept of peer-reviewed, or refereed, journals, 2) determining whether book sources are scholarly and appropriate, 3) understanding the issues of authority, accuracy and objectivity with regard to websites and other sources.
  • Students will understand issues of intellectual property, fair use, and creative commons licensing, and will give proper attribution to their sources.
  • Students will understand, but not be intimidated by, the immensity of the information environment.
  • Students will see librarians as their allies in meeting the challenges of research projects in their major course of study, as well as in their future, lifelong learning.