Research Guides: Information Literacy & Library Instruction: Sample Assignment Ideas

Links to Sample Library Research Assignments

Evaluating the Interwebz with Designated Skeptics
Students will examine sources for currency, relevance, accuracy, authority, and purpose. o Students will explain how different elements of a source (author, date, scope, slant, reading level, etc.) effect how the source meets or doesn’t meet their information gathering needs.
Fake News, Lies, and Propaganda: How to Sort Fact from Fiction
An assignment example from CORA, the Community of Online Research Assignments. This particular example is for a multi-week course in identifying "fake news" and learning about journalistic credibility. Parts of this could be pulled out for educating students on how to identify and consume news.
Sample Assignment: Making Sense of Scholarly Journal Abstracts
A brief two page handout on how to read abstracts for scholarly journals for lower division undergraduates in particular. Examples include one from social sciences and one from humanities.
Sample Assignments - Rutgers University
Examples of undergraduate assignments that will get students into searching for materials on a particular topic while learning to use critical thinking skills to evaluate their findings.
- Annotated Bibliographies
- Comparative Analysis
- Research Logs
- Search Analysis
- Topical Search Analysis
Synthesis Assignment
Learning Outcomes:
-Understanding research as a conversation
-Understanding and using synthesis to organize and weave together sources + our own ideas
-Understanding how essays/arguments can be organized by idea, not by source

Crafting a Meaningful Library Scavenger Hunt

This module will provide your students with a hands-on discovery experience in the library. A librarian will assist you in selecting and crafting a list of resources and items to locate in the physical library and/or the online collections.

This module is completely customizable and can incorporate course-specific resources or serve as a general overview of library holdings.

Information Literacy & Library Instruction

A librarian can help you with the wording of your assignment's resources requirements.

Librarians are familiar with the most current sources and formats. Let us help you communicate your assignment requirements clearly and effectively.

Information Literacy instruction is completely customizable.

We partner with faculty to educate students at meaningful points in their scholarly pursuits.

Links to Sample Library Research Assignments

Crafting a Meaningful Library Scavenger Hunt