This assignment was designed to incorporate information literacy concepts into an in depth writing assignment. By only focusing on a total of one outside source at a time, students are required to do deep research to find the one source that they can engage with on the level required for a good essay. Requiring a small number of sources also allows the students to practice incorporating outside material into their own writing and thinking and allows the instructor to see progress in this area.

Exercise One:

Choose a phenomenon, situation, or event that relates to family life in the United States. Examples of this could be gay marriage, international adoption, divorce, immigration, or a phenomenon that has directly impacted your own family. Find one scholarly source written by a sociologist related to your topic and write a 1200 word essay (+/- 10%) that describes the phenomenon as you understand it, identifies how it is connected to family life in the United States, why you are interested in it, the ideas presented by the author of the source, and how those ideas add to your knowledge or understanding of the phenomenon. Cite your source properly in text using ASA style and include a full ASA citation for it at the end or your paper.

Exercise Two:

Find a second scholarly source written by a sociologist on the phenomena you selected. Write a 600 (+/- 10%) word addendum to your original essay that details the ideas presented by the second scholar and how these ideas further enhance or complicate your understanding of the phenomena. Cite your sources properly in text using ASA style and include a full ASA citation for your sources at the end or your paper.

Library Instruction:This exercise would benefit from a library instruction session focused on the first learning outcome – identifying scholarly sources and finding discipline specific information

• Discussion of identifying scholarly sources (ending with the three-point test for scholarly information: peer-reviewed or extensively edited, included citations, written by a scholar from within the discipline)
• Finding scholarly sources using discipline specific tools (for sociology: Sociological Abstracts, Social Science Citation Index)

In this sequence of activities, students will learn how to identify scholarly sources using three pronged test: 1) Is the source written by a researcher or academic 2) Is the source published in a scholarly book or peer reviewed journal, and 3) Does the source have an extensive bibliography. They will then be asked to find one scholarly book and one scholarly article on a general topic.

Learning Activities

Scholarly source pre-test

• Description of activity: Students will complete a three-five question true/false pretest. Each question will present the student with a source and ask them if the source is scholarly (true/false).
• Learning goal: Students will understand what they do and do not know about identifying scholarly sources. The pretest also works as an assessment strategy as well as a strategy for retention of the material.

Short lecture/discussion

• Description of activity: Instructor will lead students in a discussion about the elements that all scholarly sources have. This will lead to the list of the three-pronged test: 1) Is the source written by a researcher or academic 2) Is the source published in a scholarly book or peer reviewed journal, and 3) Does the source have an extensive bibliography. The instructor is leading the discussion should be creating a list on the board. This discussion should also include a specific mention that credible sources and academic sources are not always the same. A source can be credible without being scholarly and scholarly sources have been known to be not credible.
• Learning goal: Students will be able to apply the three pronged test to decide is a source is scholarly or not.
• Assessment: At the end of the discussion the Instructor will present students with a blog written by an academic that discusses a research project they worked on and includes a short list of cited reference at the end. The instructor will ask the class to vote on whether or not it is a scholarly source.

Find two scholarly sources

• Description of activity: Instructor will present students with a general topic (e.g. student debt) and ask them to find one scholarly book or book chapter and one scholarly article on the topic using whatever search tool they want (this can be done in pairs or groups of three). When they have found the sources, they will complete a Google form similar to this: http://libguides.lmu.edu/RHET1000/task (including asking what they used to find the sources – Google, Discovery layer, etc.). When the students are finished, the Instructor will project the results of the Google form and look at the search tools used by the students. If the students are overwhelming using Google or JSTOR, the instructor will discuss more useful places to find sources. Then the Instructor will randomly select some of the books and article the students found and ask they group how they identified them as scholarly.
• Learning goal: Students will be able to find scholarly books and articles.
• Assessment: At the end of the semester, librarian will collect final papers and assess the student bibliographies looking for evidence of scholarly sources. 

The following activity is meant to assist learning the concepts of strategic search. It introduces the idea that sources contribute different perspectives to an argument and that scholarship is a conversation. It can be used for any discipline but is particularly well suited to introductory writing courses.

This assignment is designed to help students develop a thoughtful research topic. Students go through a series of steps, questions, and background reading to help them better understand and refine a research topic.

This assignment is meant to illustrate the differences between scholarly and popular information sources by presenting students with information on the topic of "fracking" from four different resources: a scholarly article, a magazine, a newspaper and a website. It introduces the idea that information can be presented in different formats depending on the context and information need.