Goal:In exercise 25students will gain practice in citation style, annotating and briefly evaluating books as they relate to a specific information need.
Description: The instructor provides instruc- tions and a guide for students to follow. Students will use the library catalog to find five books on a preapproved topic. Students will write citations, annotations, and brief evaluative comments about each of the books selected.
Tips for conducting the research: Show stu- dents how to identify and review the parts of a book used for annotating: table of contents, index, preface or introduction, and book arrangement.
Supply a sample citation, an example annotation, and an evaluative criteria chart.
This exercise addresses ACRL Standard 1, Parts 1, 3, and 4; Standard 2, Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5;
Standard 3, Parts 1 and 2; Standard 4, Parts 2 and 3; and Standard 5, Parts 1 and 3.
Providing students with a variety of hands-on opportunities to explore the library’s catalog allows them to become effective searchers able to find and locate books in the library. Understanding that finding the right books need not be a “needle in a haystack” situation goes a long way to building research confidence in college students.
E X E R C I S E 2 4
Evaluating Books for Value
You have been given three books to evaluate. They are all about the same topic, but there is no guar- antee that all three are quality sources of information. Your job is to use the evaluative criteria listed below and to take notes on how each source answers the evaluation criteria. In fifteen or twenty minutes, your group will report back to the class with your findings on the three information sources.
First—Review the Bibliographic Information:
Author(s): What is their authority or credibility? Do they have the expertise to say or write what they did? What is their educational background? What is their career experience?
Date of Publication: When was the source published? Is the book a recent publication or is the information out-of-date for the topic?
Edition or Revision: Is this book a first edition? If it is a second or multiple edition copy, can you tell how it is different from earlier editions?
Publisher: Who is the publisher? Is it a university press? Do you recognize the publisher?
Next––Do a Content Analysis:
Purpose: Why was this written? What is the intent of the author? Who is the intended audience?
Who is the author trying to inform or influence?
Relevance: Is the material appropriate and useful for your research? Does it answer all or part of your research question? Can it be used for background or to focus on a specific area?
Scope and Coverage of Material: Can you tell if the author intends to provide comprehensive coverage of a subject or topic? What are the limitations of the information? What time period is covered? Where was it published? Does geographical area impact the informational content?
Objectivity: Do you see any evidence of bias, propaganda, or a strong persuasive argument? Is the material viewed from more than one point of view? Does it contain substantiated fact?
Writing Quality: Is it clear to you what the author intends to share and express? Is there evidence of clear organization and writing? Has it been well researched? Are there any obvious pieces of information missing?
E X E R C I S E 2 5
Writing an Annotated Bibliography of Books
This exercise contains many research skills that you will need to be an effective researcher in college: finding books, citing sources, summarizing information, and evaluating materials for your research need. A bibliography is a list of sources that were used as resource mate- rial for the paper or project at hand. For this exercise:
Search the library catalog for your topic.
Find five books on your topic and retrieve them.
Examine the books you found and determine whether or not they are appropriate for your topic.
If they are not appropriate, go back to the library catalog until you have identified five appropriate books.
Print out the full bibliographic record from the catalog for each of the five books.
Next, photocopy the title page of each of the books.
On a separate piece of paper, following the example provided below, type the citation for each book, providing all relevant information. The citation should follow this format:
Lastname-Author, Firstname. The Title of the Book is capitalized and put in italics: The Subtitle is also included. City: Publisher, Year.
Beneath each citation, using your own words, type an annotation. An annotation is a brief descriptive and evaluative note that provides enough information about the book so a person can decide whether or not to consult the book.
To write an annotation, you will comment, in paragraph form, on the following elements:
Content––What’s the book about? Is it relevant to your research?
Purpose––What’s it for? Why was this book written?
Methods used to collect data––Where did the information come from?
Usefulness––What does it do for your research?
Reliability––Is the information accurate?
Authority––Is it written by someone who has the expertise to author the information?
Currency––Is it new? Is it up-to-date for the topic?
Scope/Coverage/Limitations––What does it cover? What does the author state that he or she will cover? What doesn’t the book provide that would be helpful?
(Continued)
Arrangement––How is the book organized? Are there any special “added- value” features?
Ease of use––Can a “real person” use this book? What reading level is the book?
Here is a sample citation and annotation to get you started:
List, Carla J. Information Research. Dubuque, Ia.: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co., 2002.
In this book, Carla List, an award-winning teacher and librarian, defines and describes information and provides step-by-step instruction on doing research.
In seven chapters, she covers the organization of information, information technology, and the presentation, analysis, evaluation, and citation of informa- tion. A bibliography, glossary, and index are included. This book is aimed at the college-level student and is useful to the inexperienced researcher.
Writing an Annotated Bibliography of Books(cont’d)
Teaching students how to work with periodical information is a major part of any program for information literacy. Within the context of a formal course in information literacy, it is often the case that more time will be spent on periodical infor- mation—what a periodical is, what types of peri- odicals exist, how to identify periodical articles on a topic, how indexing and abstracting databases work, how to locate periodicals once a citation is found—than on any other single topic. Using peri- odicals as sources of information seems to be most preferred by students and is often required by their instructors. The exercises in this chapter provide a number of examples that have proved effective in exploring the multifaceted topic of periodical research, but, of course, there are many other similar exercises available, and even more yet to be created.