Project CORA: Community of Online Research Assignments (Association of College & Research Libraries)
Ideas for Library-Related Assignments (University of Puget Sound)
Alternatives to Research Papers (University of Connecticut)
Creating Information Literacy Assignments (Williams College)
Creating Successful Research Skills Assignments (Penn State)
Integrating Information Literacy into Course Assignments (Gettysburg College)
Notes to Instructors on Writing Good Research Assignments (Colorado State)
In response to faculty and students in both online and face-to-face classes, this guide was created to assist faculty with developing research assignments that foster critical thinking and information literacy, regardless of course content or format. We very much welcome your questions, comments, and suggestions.
Would you like a Librarian to review a research assignment or to help develop one?
We are eager to be of assistance!
Contact Brandy Whitlock, Instruction Librarian, at bmwhitlock@aacc.edu, x2523.
Engage your students’ passions. When research really matters to students personally or professionally, they’re much more likely to understand the importance of finding the best resources (not just any resources) and evaluating those sources carefully.
Make all expectations explicit. Whenever possible, provide to students detailed grading rubrics and examples of successful work. You're welcome to adopt or adapt the rubric used in assessing information literacy as a core competency at AACC, as well as the checklist used for scoring assignment directions. Find links to both documents below.
Assign or allow topics appropriate to assignment's scope. Students often have difficulty narrowing or broadening research topics to fit a particular assignment’s parameters. A topic like “the death penalty” is far too broad for a student to use for a five-page paper or ten-minute presentation. A student would be overwhelmed by the amount of information about a topic that large. A topic as narrow as “the relationship between college students cheating on tests and binge drinking,” on the other hand, might be too narrow and turn up very little information or nothing at all.
Require background research and reflection before students take positions. The research process should be an opportunity for students to discoverwhat they think, not just an occasion to affirm their current beliefs. Requiring that students conduct background research and reflect on their findings before developing theses or committing to positions promotes critical thinking and information literacy.
Grade process as well as product. Students need feedback about the sources they consult and intend to use in their research projects. By the time you receive a student's paper or presentation, it's too late to catch and correct problems with the student's research strategies or findings. By structuring the research assignment into small, gradable parts, the research process can be monitored and directed. You might use the library’s Research Process guide to help structure your students’ assignments.
Require that students submit their research. Require students to provide a photocopy, printout, or photograph of each page they cite in their research projects. If you're concerned about paper or printing costs, students can turn in a research folder or portfolio online. This way, you can assess not only if students are using paraphrasing and quotation correctly, but you can also see if students are accurately representing the ideas expressed in the sources they're citing.
Encourage content over form of sources. A student writing about the newest treatments for autism might find very little quotable information from books, but a wealth from academic journals. A student writing about food celebrations in Asian cultures, however, might find much more usable information from books than from journal articles. It’s frustrating for students to have to shoehorn ineffectual information into a paper or presentation to meet arbitrary quotas (e.g., two book sources, three journal articles, etc.). In order to ensure that students are selecting the best resources for a particular assignment and not just the most convenient ones, you might instead call for students to complete an annotated bibliography--where they can evaluate the usefulness of different sources--prior to writing papers or outlining presentations.
Provide students with resources and strategies for avoiding plagiarism. Dee & Jacob (2010) found that students who receive information about how to avoid plagiarism are much more likely not to plagiarize than students who are only told about the grave consequences of plagiarizing. The old adage is often true: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Visit the library’s page on Avoiding Plagiarism (libguides.aacc.edu/plagiarism) for tutorials and more.
Make assignments unique. Unique assignments make it more difficult for students to plagiarize. When they’re required to research common themes and complete popular kinds of research assignments, students are more likely to find papers for sale and other student papers available online, and they might even be able to recycle their own past papers.
Ask your peers and librarians for assignment reviews. Often your peers and librarians can foresee trouble and recommend alternatives. Librarians regularly see assignments that are too vague and often see handouts that focus heavily on how to format information, rather than how to find information that’s actually relevant and trustworthy. >
Check the library for suitable resources. Pretend that you are a student trying to complete the research assignment. Where would you start? What would you do if you ran into trouble? Contact a Librarian (refdesk@aacc.edu) to get a sense of what resources are available through the library and how those resources can be accessed. >
Schedule library instruction. Don’t assume that students know how to find and use resources appropriately, especially for your particular assignment, even if they insist they’ve already had library instruction. Contact AACC's Instruction Librarian, Prof. Brandy Whitlock (bmwhitlock@aacc.edu, X 2523).
More ways to get help:
MLA-style and APA-style guidelines change over time, especially for citing sources accessed electronically. For the most up-to-date information about how to cite sources correctly, visit these pages:
Using a citation generator from a database or website?
Doublecheck to be sure the generator has used the newest rules.
Library photo courtesy of Barry Halkin Photography