In high school, my interpretation of using sources meant using what texts I found in the school library or on Google that either helped me validate my point or adjust my original train of thought. There is a broad range of places where information can be gathered in college- through texts, journals, books, articles, film, music, and even pictures. Granted such sources existed while I was in high school, but my teachers didn’t expect students to utilize them. This is where I see a huge difference in college sources compared to high school sources.
I recently started a research project for my Intermediate Ballet class which required the use of databases, online journals, and other sources I was unfamiliar with. Keith Hjortshoj notes that college professors encourage and expect the use of such sources to enhance discourse and writing quality (139-140). Luckily, the university library home page is easy to navigate and gather information from. It has already proven itself to be very useful during the process of researching for the ballet paper I am currently working on. The web page also had easy steps and guidelines for formatting and citing a wide variety of sources properly. Thanks to the library web page and Hjortshoj's advice, the huge world of sources beyond Google seems much more promising and less intimidating to me.
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Thanks for the clear description of what you did in high school. This is why we do our "smackdown" of Wikipedia. It's much better than a Google search for general fact-checking, but even then one needs to understand how it self-polices content (and does not, at times).
ReplyDeleteAt least you know to "adjust your original train of thought" when evidence does not support a claim. Too many writers try to cling to a thesis because it's too much work to change it. That can lead to disaster with a Rhetorician like me, as well as many other faculty members. We question every claim!
Our librarians will be SO pleased to hear that you find the new pages easy to follow. So do I; the databases to which we subscribe can be daunting with their Boolean search-terms and more, but at least our library portal is easy to follow.