Assignment Details

Source Analysis and Reflective Essay

In this assignment, you will apply information literacy and writing skills by researching and reflecting on one of the topics noted below. You will research the topic using library search strategies discussed in our library workshop, summarize the results of your research in a source analysis (using the source analysis framework discussed in class) and write a 750 word (approximately) reflection sharing what you learned about the topic and how it will inform your university experience. 

The research on your selected topic is to be focused on university students (e.g. sleep and university students; loneliness in university students; test anxiety in university students). 

Your topic will normally be chosen from the following options: 

• self-care;

• mental health;

• stress and coping;

• test anxiety;

• sense of belonging;

• loneliness;

• social support;

• sleep;

• nutrition;

• exercise;

• smart phones & social media;

• burnout

Students may choose a topic other than those listed above but must seek approval of their proposed topic from their instructor.

Part 1 - Source Analysis (11%)

Using the source analysis framework discussed in class, you will summarize the information sources you’ve located through library research on your topic. Your source analysis will be documented in the source analysis template uploaded in D2L.

In the source analysis, you are expected to summarize and evaluate three (3) carefully-selected and credible articles, book chapters or web sources pertaining to your topic. The three sources are to be of the following types:

• One that is a scholarly, original research study

• One that is a scholarly review article (e.g. systematic review; literature review)

• One that is non-scholarly but credible

Documentation of your source analysis is to be done using Source Analysis template loaded in D2L.

The sources you select are expected to be specific to university students or the university context (e.g. test anxiety in university students)

Citations and references in the source analysis are to be done in APA format.

Narrative portions of the source analysis are to be completed in your own words with grammatical correctness. Copying and pasting large portions of text from the information source will be penalized.

No video resources or personal communications are to be used as information sources for this assignment.

Part 2 – Reflective Essay (6%)

You will write a 750 word (+/- 100 words) reflection in which you share what you’ve learned about your topic and how that learning will inform your university experience. Your reflection should draw on and integrate the research you did on your topic (i.e.  the research you summarized in your source analysis). In other words, there should be a connection between your source analysis and your reflection and that connection should be apparent to your instructor.  More specifically your reflection will:

• Address why you chose the topic you chose - why it is important, meaningful or relevant for you.

• Summarize in your own words what you learned about your topic through your research. Be sure to cite your sources as appropriate in this section using APA format.

• Discuss how what you’ve learned in your research will influence, inform or impact your university experience. In other words, how will you use or apply what you’ve learned through your research?

Your reflection should be double spaced, 12 font and written in grammatically correct English. In-text citations should be used when you make reference to your information sources. 

A reference list which includes any references you cite should be attached to your reflection. The citations and reference list should adhere to APA format.

Search Strategy Hints

Three parts of the search, though the last part is optional:

1. university students: this part/concept will be common across all of your searches because it is the population that you are focused on for this assignment

2. your topic: for example, test anxiety

3. systematic review or literature review: this is an optional part that you can include to specifically retrieve the scholarly review article, which is the second type of source that you need to use for this assignment

For the first and second parts of your search, try to think of synonyms or near synonyms for your terms to potentially use in your search. For synonyms for your topic, you may want to look at the topic on Wikipedia, in a reference work, or just do a general Google search to get a sense of other terms that are used to refer to the concept:

1. university students: college students, undergraduate students

2. test anxiety: anticipatory anxiety, evaluation anxiety

A few possible searches on this example topic:

• "college students" AND "test anxiety"

• "university students" AND "evaluation anxiety" AND "systematic review"

Conducting Academic Research With Google Scholar

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is another great way to find high quality resources.

Besides providing links to resources in MRU databases, Google Scholar links to online repositories that contain articles the author has been allowed to upload.  Academia.edu and ResearchGate are among the repositories searched by Google Scholar.

By clicking on the Settings icon, you can select library links to show library access for up to 5 libraries (type in Mount Royal and click on save).  If you are logged into MRU library, links should automatically populate if you are running a Google search in another window. 

Google Scholar has a nifty citation chaining function. The Cited by function will forward you to indexed scholarly material that has cited a resource that you may be interested in. The Related articles link will direct you to similar articles that may have the same metadata or keywords. 

Helpful Search Operators to Use in Google Scholar

Google Scholar's Advanced Search is found by clicking the menu icon in the top left.

You can also add search operators to Google Scholar searches to build your own custom advanced searches in similar ways to LibrarySearch:

• Use quotation marks to keep specific phrases together:

  • "test anxiety"

• Avoid using AND to combine search terms with Google Scholar, as the search engine automatically creates ANDs between concepts and sometimes adding an additional AND can confuse the search syntax.

• Use OR to connect two or more similar terms:

  • "social media" OR "social networking"

• Use wild cards to substitute a letter or suffix with a symbol:

  • ethic* (in this example, the search ethic* will search for records that contain strings such as ethics, ethical, and ethically)

Figure 1

Peter Steiner's Famous 1993 New Yorker Cartoon Illustrating an Issue Central to Information Evaluation

Note. From "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" [Cartoon], by P. Steiner, 1993, Wikimedia (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Internet_dog.jpg).

Evaluating Information

It is good to find lots of search results, but, in order to use information skilfully, you need to know how to evaluate that information to determine whether a specific resource is appropriate to use in a specific use case (i.e. for a specific assignment).

The phrase "evaluating information" actually stands in for a wide range of judgments that we make about information in many different contexts, whether those judgments are about relevance, timeliness, quality, etc.

Librarians have developed several different acronyms to help people remember useful criteria to use in information evaluation. One of my personal favourites is RADAR!

RADAR stands for

Relevance

Authority

Date

Accuracy

Reason for Creation

We can ask the following questions to help us assess each criterion:

Relevance:

• Does this source fit my topic?

• What is this source's intended audience?

  • Is that intended audience appropriate for my use case in this assignment?

Authority:

• Is/are the creator(s) of this source clearly identified or known to us?

• How important is it in this use case to trust the source's creator(s)?

  • If it is important, why should we trust the source's creator(s)?

  • Is the source's creator credentialed or an expert in their field?

Date:

• Is the creation or publication date of this source identified or known to us?

• Is this source too old?

Accuracy:

• Do this source's facts "check out"?

• Does the source have references of its own?

Reason for Creation (take your best guess at this question using judgments from earlier criteria):

• Why was this source made?

• Was this source made to sell a product or service, to inform/educate, to entertain, etc?

(Adapted from Mandalios, J. (2013). RADAR: An approach for helping students evaluate Internet sources. Journal of Information Science, 39(4), 470-478. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165551513478889)

Scholarly vs. Popular Sources

A scholarly publication contains articles written by experts in a particular field. The primary audience of these articles is other experts.

Many of these publications are also referred to as "peer-reviewed," academic, or "refereed." They all mean essentially the same thing and refer to the editorial and publication process in which scholars in the same field review the research and findings before the article is published.

Some Helpful Questions for Identifying a Scholarly/Academic Article

1. What are the author’s credentials? Was it written by an expert?

2. Was it published in a journal (is there a DOI?)? (If you are not sure if a source is a journal article, you can enter the title of the publication into Ulrichs Web to check.)

3. Does it use academic or more technical language?

4. Does it includes a reference list of sources that it is citing?

5. How long is it? (Scholarly articles are typically longer than popular or news articles.)

6. Does it have a "Received" and "Accepted" date on it?

7. Is it an actual article? (Sometimes other types of content are included in scholarly publications, such as editorials/opinion pieces and book reviews. Make sure you are looking at an article.)

Activity: Is It Scholarly?

To make sure we are all on the same page, let's put our knowledge to the test.

Skim the following resources available through the links keeping in mind the characteristics we have discussed in class (for example: what is this information and where did it come from? Was it written by an expert? Where was this source published?).

Vote whether you think each source is Scholarly or Not Scholarly by placing a sticky note on this Google Jamboard.

If you are feeling ambitious, write a reason why you think the source is scholarly or not scholarly on your sticky note.

Source 1

Source 2

Source 3

Source 4

Source 5

Source 6

Source 7

Source 8

Source 9

Source 10

Citation Help

• Use the "cite" feature in most search tools to get you started with most resources (you will need to review and correct the citation).

• Cite Sources: Learn the correct way to cite sources by using these guides, tutorials, and videos.

  • MRU Guide to APA Style for Referencing (2024-2025)

  • MRU Guide to APA Style for Formatting a Paper (2024-2025)

• Academic Success Workshops: Academic Success Workshops are 75 minutes long and are offered both in-person and online. Registration is required.

• Appointments: Personalized online or in-person 30-minute appointments with a Learning Strategist at Student Learning Services located on the 2nd floor of the Riddell Library & Learning Centre.

• Use the Service Desk on the 1st floor of the RLLC for assistance as well as the library chat feature on the library website for quick citation questions.