Session Outline

Here is a plan for what we will cover today:

1. Go over assignment details.

2. Provide an overview of how to search LibrarySearch and Google Scholar for scholarly sources.

3. Learn the difference between scholarly and non-scholarly sources.

4. Practice information evaluation skills.

5. Show a couple of different ways to get help if you have questions.

This work (Question Mark Symbol Icon Character, by Peggy_Marco), identified by Pixabay, is free of known copyright restrictions.

Persuasive Research Essay

Weight: 20%

Length: 1500-2000 words (6-8 pages, Times New Roman 12 pt font, dbl spaced)

Format: MLA Style

For your final essay you will:

• research one of the topics listed below
• narrow the topic by focusing on a specific problem,
• and argue in favour of a specific policy or course of action in response to this problem. 

TOPICS*

1. Privacy and Surveillance
2. Healthcare
3. Food Security
4. Energy Transition
5. The Future of Work

*Note: You are welcome to research a different topic, but some are better suited to this assignment than others.  If you would like to write on a topic other than those listed above, discuss your idea with me first.

DESCRIPTION

This assignment will draw on the many skills you've been developing this semester. You will be required to research and read a number of relevant sources, summarize/paraphrase/quote others' arguments, and contribute to the existing conversation by building your own argument in response. When presenting your argument, consider what prior knowledge your audience is likely to have, and what common assumptions you can safely base your argument upon.

You will also make use of the rhetorical appeals where appropriate. As you will be writing an academic argument, your primary rhetorical appeal will be logos. The support you provide to defend your position must be rooted in facts, evidence and expert opinions as opposed to beliefs. You will establish your ethos or credibility by demonstrating that you are well informed on your chosen topic, have consulted a selection of reliable sources, and have considered opposing points of view. (Use quotations, paraphrases, summaries, statistics, interviews, etc. to back up your claims effectively.) You may use additional strategies where appropriate to engage your reader.

RESEARCH REQUIREMENTS

Thoughtful, skillful research will enable you to establish both your logos and your ethos.

• Your research will consist of accessing resources available through the MRU Library's electronic catalogue.
• You are required to cite four scholarly sources and two supplementary sources that do not need to be scholarly, for a combined total of at least six sources.
  • You may find it helpful, for example, to use some news articles to reference current events; yet, while news articles may be reliable, they are not scholarly.
  • While your scholarly sources must come from the MRU Library collection, your popular sources may not.
• You must include a Works Cited page in MLA format.
• In addition to your Works Cited, you must include a screen shot or PDF of pages you either quoted from or paraphrased. These pages can appear after your Works Cited or may be attached as separate file submissions that you'll upload to D2L when you post your essay. NOTE: Failure to include copies of your sources will result in a significant grade deduction.
• Also include a link to the Google Doc (with the revision history enabled) in the submission notes.
• Your essay must adhere to the MLA guidelines for formatting and referencing.
• Any evidence of plagiarism will be penalized.
• Your assignment must reflect the guidelines listed in the Minimum Standard of Referencing posted on D2L. Failure to adhere to these guidelines will result in a grade deduction.

Note: You will receive instruction on research methods and resources from an MRU librarian. Choose your topic and consider how you will focus it ahead of this class.

When conducting your research:

• discover all the reasonable positions (“sides”) that have been taken on this issue/topic and what these arguments entail
• learn about the history and background of the issue/topic so you know how it has evolved
• uncover the current and relevant facts and information that bear upon your issue/topic.

Your assignment will be graded on how effectively it meets all of the above criteria. Prior to submission, review the below checklist to ensure you've included the required components.

Your Research Question

Clear: It is easily understood by your audience/reader.

Focused: It is narrow enough to allow you to address it in your assignment.

Concise: It is expressed in the fewest possible words (not too wordy).

Complex: It cannot be answered with a yes or no, and it is not a leading question (biased).

Open: It actually can be researched - naturally, it should generate more questions.

Example research topic:

The Future of Work

Example research question:

• How may generative artificial intelligence reshape the future of work in the legal professions?

Potential search terms:

• generative artificial intelligence / GenAI / large language models / ChatGPT / CoPilot / Gemini

• work / labor / labour

• legal professions / law / lawyering

• future

Conducting Academic Research With LibrarySearch 

LibrarySearch is MRU Library's one-stop search interface/catalogue that brings together resources across format, time, and subject. 

We have millions of e-resources and 221,000 physical resources in our collection, and LibrarySearch searches across those.

Things to remember when using LibrarySearch:

1. Sign in to save searches, items, and to request materials.

2. Use the pin icon to save books and articles to your Favorites for future reference.

3. Use the filters on the right. You will use Availability, Resource Type, and Date filters most often. Filter settings can be "locked in" so that you don't have to reapply them to every search that you make.

4. Some items may not be available, however, you can request unavailable items using what is called interlibrary loan.

5. When viewing an item record, scroll down to the Get it (for hardcopy/physical items) or Access options (for electronic items) section to get access to the item.

Helpful Search Operators to Use in LibrarySearch

You can use what are called search operators to search in a way to combine or omit different terms by telling the search engine exactly what you want and this can help you save some time (and frustration!)

• Use quotation marks to keep specific phrases together:

  • "generative artificial intelligence"

• Use AND to combine search terms (LibrarySearch automatically creates an AND when you write terms one after another, but it can be good practice to use an AND to help you understand the searches that you build) (AND narrows your search):

  • "generative artificial intelligence" AND "legal professions"

• Use OR to connect two or more similar terms (OR broadens your search):

  • "generative artificial intelligence" OR GenAI

• 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)

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:

  • "food security"

• 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:

  • "food security " OR "food insecurity"

• Avoid using wild cards to substitute a letter or suffix with a symbol—instead write out the complete words and connect with an OR

  • ethic OR ethics OR ethical OR 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.)

 Add / Reorder 

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 is this source published?).

Vote whether you think this source is Scholarly or Not Scholarly.

Source 1

Source 2

Source 3

Source 4

Source 5

Source 6

Source 7

Source 8

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 MLA style for Academic Work (2025-2026)

  • MRU Guide to Formatting Your MLA Paper (2025-2026)

  • MLA Citation Examples for Images (2025-2026)

• 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.