This learning session, led by a librarian, is for first-year community college students in an academic library setting. The intention of this session is to scaffold onto existing research writing skills acquired in previous education, as well as use of popular video sharing platforms to obtain information, like TikTok. Informative videos produced by everyday people are a growing form of intellectual connection between all audiences and scholarly sources based on relatability, as well as visibility of marginalized issues larger news organizations do not address. When the information messenger is familiar yet dynamic in their presentation and provides information that the public is not informed on, viewers are more inclined to listen than if it were just a research paper or a scholarly representative of a research community. There are, however, citation issues and basic research principles missing in several of these videos, based solely on most video sharing platform’s intention to obtain engagement, not to responsibly inform/educate its users. As researchers, it is crucial to discern engagement-intended, incendiary content with informative, well-researched content that our neighbors are making, even if their intentions are good.

The SIFT* & PICK approach to evaluating sources adapts and builds on Mike Caulfield's SIFT method to help students select quality sources by practicing:

• Lateral Reading (SIFT): fact-checking by examining other sources and internet fact-checking tools; and
• Vertical Reading (PICK): examining the source itself to decide whether it is the best choice for their needs.

*The SIFT method was created by Mike Caulfield under a CC BY 4.0 International License.

To practice thinking about what sources work well together, instead of choosing sources, students will choose who to invite to a small dinner party. The goal is to put together a group of guests that will be able to find enough common ground to have interesting conversations.

Students are asked to identify necessary citation information, place the information in the correct citation order and then identify the source type. Students are first given a set of sources for practice that are not graded. The second series of sources is graded.

In this activity, students are asked to identify necessary citation information, place the information in the correct citation order and then identify the source type. To begin, the student is shown four sources on the topic of Mars exploration, these questions are for practice and are not graded. The second set of four sources on the topic of refugees is graded. (This module was partially adapted with permission from Grand Valley State University Libraries.)

Do students eyes glaze over when you begin to talk about citation formats? Show students the value of learning about citations by having them practice on real content! Students must identify the needed parts of 3 real publications and drag them to the appropriate category, i.e. Journal Title, Volume, Page Number. Upon completion of the activity, students are show the MLA citation for each publication.

This lesson was created to help further discuss issues surrounding plagiarism after a quick introduction at orientation. It was created for pharmacy PhD students but I do believe it could be useful for many learner types. A large focus on this lesson was why it is important not to plagiarize with emphasis on oppression through traditional citation and review practices. Inspiration and/or content obtained from: Conner-Gaten, Aisha. "Politics of Citation Discussion Activity." CORA (Community of Online Research Assignments), 2020. https://www.projectcora.org/assignment/politics-citation-discussion-activity.

This assignment was created to help undergraduate students use research articles to help inform their argument about a "text."  This exercise has been used in library instruction sessions for art history, composition, english literature, women's studies, and history classes. After reflecting on what they know about a text (or image or multimedia), brainstorming search terms, and tracking relevant patterns in search results, students can synthesize information from a variety of sources in an organized, methodological fashion. 

The assignment was created by Librarian Paizha Stoothoff in collaboration with a Professor teaching Literary Los Angeles. In lieu of a physical tour, students worked on a 3-week project to create digital maps (see assignment attached for details about what maps included). 

This assignment was created in lieu of a physical tour of Literary Los Angeles (for a Literary L.A. course). Students worked on a 3-week project to create digital maps (see assignment attached for details about what maps included). The library workshop occured in week 1, after students formed groups and shared to a discussion post in Canvas what author/region/text they would focus on. The Liaison Librarian and Archivist led the library session.