Defining Information

We are truly living in the information age. The instant coverage of news through radio, television and the Internet have significantly increased the amount of information that comes at us everyday. Handling large amounts of information and being adept in the application of information are essential in today's world. Those who can access and use information are more likely to be successful in school, at work and in life.

Principal learning skills consist of being able to formulate a question, accessing resources of information, evaluating the information, organizing the information and applying the information to answer the question. This last competency could be considered the most important step in the learning process because it is not simply the finding of information, but the use of it that motivates the learner. A number of national reports emphasize the centrality of information literacy in the learning process. (Doyle, Christina. Information Literacy in an Information Society: A Concept for the Information Age. Syracuse, New York: ERIC Clearinghouse on Information & Technology, 1994.)

Students need to know how to arrange and document their research appropriately. For example, stress the need for consistency in citing sources and specify a style manual (APA, MLA, Turabian, etc) to be used. Discussion of copyright and plagiarism is also desirable.

Students need to know how to critically assess the results of their research to determine appropriateness of their methods and findings for their class assignment. After their assessment, the student can make needed corrections to their research. For example, if the class assignment is a term paper, break it into manageable parts by constructing a series of assignments with due dates. This helps students structure the term paper process and learn from each step:

• Identifying a topic from a list of choices
• After discussion of criteria (resources to use), gathering of sources
• Preparing an annotated bibliography
• Developing an outline of paper (title and major points)
• Writing a first draft including citing of sources
• Rewriting
• Turning in term paper