How should a librarian conduct an instruction session to guide students in critically evaluating academic and non-academic sources?
Nov 15, 2024 | UVic Scenarios
- Understanding the different information literacy sources and conventional academic sources such as peer reviewed journals, books, book chapters, non-academic sources such as oral histories, social media, blogs, etc.
- Introduction to Evaluation Frameworks: Introduce students to established frameworks such as SIFT (Stop, Investigate the source, Find better coverage, Trace claims, quotes, and media to the original context) for assessing the credibility of information.
- Teach students how to look at authority and authorship. What are the author’s credentials or lived experience? Is the author affiliated with an institution? Are they an expert in the field?
- Ask students to check if the resources are peer-reviewed or not. In the case of non-academic sources, who has published the information? Are the publishers a recognized knowledge body and if not, are they an independent publisher, Knowledge Keeper or organization?
- Explain to students the peer review process, but that not all sources are evaluated by experts before publication and non-academic sources like , making them generally more trustworthy.
- Engaging students to decipher representation in resources, whose voices exist and which voices are absent from the resources
- Incorporate Indigenous teachings and knowledge written by Indigenous peoples. Ask students to use, The Elements of Indigenous Style: A Guide for Writing By and About Indigenous Peoples by Gregory Younging
- Remind users that if something is published, it is not necessarily true. Hence it is up to the user to create a robust search strategy to find information and then use various tools to determine whether the source is diverse or not. Some resources to support critical research methods include Citation justice guide that can give students a detailed account of the current state of publications, and help scaffold diverse practices for inclusive citations. Additionally, use the Diversify your sources guide to find diverse research articles and the library guide to spot Fake News.
- Lesser known voices are harder to find, however many publishers have created lists of diverse resources. Depending on the discipline, encourage students to search individual publisher databases to find and evaluate diverse sources.
- Emphasize to students the importance of understanding the cultural and historical context of the resources together with the author’s identity and the community(ies) they represent.
- Introduce students to critical cataloging practices that aim to address and rectify biases in library classification systems.
