In this activity, students review correct in-text citations for a particular format, then practice writing their own examples. These examples are submitted anonymously via a google form, allowing for the collective and collaborative review.

This activity helps students collectively practice summarizing, paraphrasing and quoting. To begin, students have a conversation as a class on any topic of their choosing. The instructor transcribes the conversation and then as a group, the class examines the conversation and write summaries, paraphrases and quotes.

Students will learn how serial publications are presented in databases and how to read them chronologically to determine trends over time using the MLA International Bibliography.

As part of the research process, students need to learn how to organize and synthesize their sources. This short lecture, followed by a matrix outline given to every student, gives students the opportunity to focus their research question even more and to add their own ideas to the conversation of research within their chosen topic.

This activity/assignment was designed for a first year composition course in collaboration with an English/Writing instructor. It could be used in an information literacy credit course, First Year Experience course, or in another discipline-specific context. The purpose of the lesson is to lay the foundation for students to be able to read scholarly work more effectively and critically.

Students will be exposed to various entry points of a sustainability topic in various formats. They will take notes as they experience those expressions on the Elements of Thought evidenced throughout. This in-class, two-part lesson includes an independent guided activity and a Think-Pair-Share activity for further reflection on source/ claimant evaluation.

Prior to this lesson, instructor will have chosen a topic relevant to their subject area or course content – Possible examples: food deserts, clean water in US, bee colony collapse.