Research: The Accumulation of Knowledge
My first experience with college-level research was in my Introduction to Honors course. This class went through all three of the Honors’ competencies, including leadership and global citizenship along with the research competency. Our goal as a class in regards to research, was to begin to look at the meaning of information literacy and information synthesis. This was done by participating a special class held in the library and then taking everything we learned and completing a paper on the idea of research.
One day my Introduction to Honors course took a field trip to the library for a special class on research. The class was held in the basement of the library, and a librarian lectured all about the idea of information literacy. Information literacy has to do with how to access and use information effectively. We were taught how to access all the different databases on the library website, and how to efficiently search for the information we were looking for. We were also taught how to ethically use the information that we found this way. Being ethical with information means giving credit where credit is due, and citing your sources to not pass information off as your own. The last thing we were taught about information literacy was how to evaluate the information we were finding, and to incorporate it into our knowledge base. This just means that we developed the ability to differentiate between relevant and irrelevant information for use in our projects.
To demonstrate that we could use everything we had learned from our class at the library, we were challenged with writing a paper on the topic of research. Not only did we get this chance to use all the skills we were just taught, we were also able to develop our information synthesis skill. Information synthesis is the ability to synthesize and integrate ideas. So, after we found all the different information we needed, we showed our ability to organize it into one coherent paper.
My Introduction to Honors course was an excellent start to my experience with research. This class allowed me to develop the skills of information literacy and synthesis which have been the base from which my research competency has continued to develop. It taught me all the basics of research that I have continued to use in my classes and my own original research. Below is the paper that I wrote for the class.
One day my Introduction to Honors course took a field trip to the library for a special class on research. The class was held in the basement of the library, and a librarian lectured all about the idea of information literacy. Information literacy has to do with how to access and use information effectively. We were taught how to access all the different databases on the library website, and how to efficiently search for the information we were looking for. We were also taught how to ethically use the information that we found this way. Being ethical with information means giving credit where credit is due, and citing your sources to not pass information off as your own. The last thing we were taught about information literacy was how to evaluate the information we were finding, and to incorporate it into our knowledge base. This just means that we developed the ability to differentiate between relevant and irrelevant information for use in our projects.
To demonstrate that we could use everything we had learned from our class at the library, we were challenged with writing a paper on the topic of research. Not only did we get this chance to use all the skills we were just taught, we were also able to develop our information synthesis skill. Information synthesis is the ability to synthesize and integrate ideas. So, after we found all the different information we needed, we showed our ability to organize it into one coherent paper.
My Introduction to Honors course was an excellent start to my experience with research. This class allowed me to develop the skills of information literacy and synthesis which have been the base from which my research competency has continued to develop. It taught me all the basics of research that I have continued to use in my classes and my own original research. Below is the paper that I wrote for the class.