The University Libraries have designed 8 new workshops to improve student research skills! They are part of the Research Toolkit Series. Workshops are free and will be offered throughout the fall term to Wright State students. Register online. For more information, contact the University Libraries’ Information Desk at 775-2925, or Ask A Librarian.
Research Toolkit Workshops- 3 Simple Steps to Reading a Scholarly Article
- Detecting CRAAP: Evaluating Information Sources
- Finding that “Perfect Source”
- Google Like a Pro
- How Do I Find This Reference?
- Integrating Your Sources
- More Than Books: What the Library Can Do for You
- Stop Searching and Start Finding
The series evolved from the discussion of a research report, Learning the Ropes: How Freshmen Conduct Course Research Once They Enter College, published in December 2013 by Project Information Literary. This report presents findings about the challenges of today’s first-year college students. Transitioning from completing high school assignments to doing college-level research emerges as one of the most formidable challenges that incoming freshmen face.
As we talked about the results, we found that many of the issues students in the study expressed mirrored those we had observed in Wright State students. We were also curious to see how these data compared to the data we collected from English Composition classes that our librarians visited over the 2013-2014 academic year. After working through our results, we saw many intriguing similarities and differences, which led us to create the Research Toolkit series responding to students’ biggest challenges with the research process.