Rhetoric & Writing: First-Year Composition Program

Information Timeline

Students will learn how information and sources develop over time.  This can help you understand what kind of sources are available for current topics.  Below you will find the activity with video.

 Download the documents your librarian asks you to download. 

Watch the Video Tutorial.

Narrow Your Topic

Students can struggle to develop an advanced search to plug into a database.  This is why the Library has developed two activities that their librarian can guide students through to narrow their topic and then develop their keywords for an advanced search.  Below you will find those activities.

 Download the documents your librarian asks you to download. 

Watch the Video Tutorial.

Once you have selected a topic and narrowed it down to something more specific, how do you transform that into a research question? There are several parts that can go in formulating a Research Question, and this activity will walk you through it!

 Download the documents your librarian asks you to download. 

Research Question Breakdown

Students can struggle to develop an advanced search to plug into a database.  This is why the Library has developed two activities that their librarian can guide students through to narrow their topic and then develop their keywords for an advanced search.  Below you will find those activities.

 Download the documents your librarian asks you to download. 

Watch the Video Tutorial.

Evaluating Web Sources a.k.a. The CRAAP Test

Questions and criteria you need to consider for any source you want to use.  In order to find a credible source you need to dig through the web and review different criteria to ensure it meets quality standards.

 Download the documents your librarian asks you to download. 

Watch the Video Tutorial.

No one else will make sure you find credible/reliable information online except you, so be picky about it!

At the bare minimum, make sure you can identify the following things on a web site:

• the date it was posted/updated
• who wrote it (bonus points if you can Google that person/organization to see if they're a credible source of info)
• why the info on the site was written (is it opinion, persuasion, or just informative? Check the site's "about us" section)

Here are some more in-depth questions you can ask yourself to figure out whether you're looking at a high-quality web site:

Article Anatomy

This will show you the parts of an article so when you are researching, you know what to look for.  You will also learn what parts to read versus reading the whole article to get a quick clear picture before downloading the article to save.

 Download the documents your librarian asks you to download. 

Watch the Video Tutorial.

Covering a few topics? Here you will find all the options for our Extended Sessions.

 Download the documents your librarians asks you to download.