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.

The Assignments

Annotated Bibliography
Value: 10% of your final grade
Due: Tuesday, March 25 by 11:59 p.m.
Word Count: 200 per source (600 total)

The annotated bibliography is in place to aid you in your final paper. This assignment will motivate you to find scholarly source articles for your final paper. As you choose sources, consider how you will join into the scholarly conversation. The library workshop will kickstart your approach to this assignment. Annotated bibliographies summarize, evaluate, and explain the use of secondary sources.

Using the Mount Royal University Library, you will find three reliable scholarly sources in the form of:
1. A scholarly, peer-reviewed journal article
2. A chapter from a scholarly book
3. A scholarly encyclopedia entry

These sources must be useful for your final essay. After actively reading through the three sources, you will construct an annotated bibliography in proper APA format.
The annotations must be in alphabetical order by author last name. You will properly cite each source in APA format. For each source, you must also give:

• A brief summary (50-100 words) of the main point of the source.

• A brief evaluation (50–100 words) of the source using the CRAAP Test.

• A brief explanation (50-100 words) of why this source will be useful to your paper and how you will join into its scholarly conversation.

This assignment will hone your ability to read, analyze, summarize, and paraphrase information from selected articles and essays. You will use your critical thinking skills to assess and critique various readings and use library research strategies to locate appropriate research. All of these skills will not only help in the success of this assignment but also in future courses.

Final Essay

Value: 25% of your final grade
Due: Tuesday, April 8 by 11:59 p.m.
Length: 1200–1300 words

The final argumentative research essay is a longer paper that asks you to form an argument around one of the graphic novels or comics we have studied in class. This paper also asks that you incorporate research to support your argument. You cannot write on the same graphic novel as you did for the close reading assignment; however, you should apply your close reading skills to this paper to several chosen pages.

In addition to the analytical question (how, why, what), a good paper will pay attention to another question: Who cares? This question will help you position your argument (in this paper and in the rest of your undergrad studies!) within a scholarly tradition. If you are addressing a question that other critics have addressed, how is your answer different and important? If you are addressing a new question, who will care and why should they care? This means that the research for your essay should identify a scholarly conversation into which you will be entering. You must use three scholarly sources, as noted on your annotated bibliography.

Submission Requirements
All assignments must:

• Be polished and proofread;

• Be set in 12-point Times New Roman;

• Be double-spaced;

• Have one-inch margins;

• Be submitted as a .doc or docx. file (no PDFs or Pages);

• Be named using this format: Name_NameofAssignment ; 

  • Ex: KaraToews_FinalEssay

• Adhere to APA guidelines, including title formatting and page numbers;

• Include an APA-formatted title page and an APA-formatted references page.

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:

  • "This One Summer"

  • "Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer’s, My Mother, and Me"

• 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):

  • Watchmen AND Moore

  • "This One Summer" AND Tamaki

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

  • "graphic novel" OR comic

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

  • access* (in this example, the search access* will search for records that contain strings such as accessibility and accessible)

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:

  • "Betty: The Helen Betty Osborne Story"

• 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:

  • "graphic novel" OR comic

• 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)

The Dog on the Internet Problem

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 (or Relevance in CRAAP)

Authority (or Authority in CRAAP)

Date (or Currency in CRAAP)

Accuracy (or Accuracy in CRAAP)

Reason for Creation (or Purpose in CRAAP)

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

But seriously...

Remember: 

Use your critical evaluation skills to determine whether your sources are good enough to use in this assignment! Look for references to data, evidence, and citations that point out to other reliable sources.

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)
    • Relevant template examples in the guide for the 3 types of source in the annotated bibliography:
      • Academic journal article - section A, pp. 10-11
      • Book (or chapter in an edited book) - section B, p. 11 (for books) or section C, p. 12 (for book chapters from edited books)
      • Encyclopedia entry - section C, p. 12

  • 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.