Finding and thinking critically about your sources
LAWS70311 R19–0622
90 minute interactive workshop
Group: Up to 50 students
Room: Lecture theatre or other suitable space
Discipline: Any, can be tailored
Level: 3rd year UG, PGT (dissertation focus)
Materials: slides, Mentimeter (LAWS70311: Thinking critically about your sources)
General information:
The purpose of this lecture is to introduce attendees to finding and evaluating sources. This session is the first of a 2 workshops covering finding and thinking critically about sources and conducting a literature review.
By the end of this session you will:
* Identify relevant sources from a list of search results
* Develop strategies for assessing the appropriateness of sources to use in your assignments
* Evaluate the strengths of online user-generated content as sources of information
Suggested Online resources
- Planning ahead: making your search work
- Knowing where to look: your search toolkit
- Finding the good stuff: evaluating your sources
Session content
Introduction (3 minutes):
Introduce the session as the first of 2. In this class we will cover the
Throughout this class the topic used is — “Race and the criminal justice system”.
Creating a research question (10 minutes)
The purpose of this section is to help students to distinguish between their topic and the research questions they might ask on that topic. The searching and evaluating activities will rely on these student-formed research questions.
Mentimeter activity (free-text) — in groups discuss the research questions you might ask on this topic. Submit one or more suggestion.
The facilitator should share that these student-generated research questions will be used throughout the session.
Finding information (40 minutes):
Having a research question is just the start to frame a response then students should construct a search strategy. In the first instance it is vital for students to document what they are looking for. The strategy What Where Why. The initial stage for students to consider is what they are looking for and where they might look for it?
What data — Talk in groups of 3 about the types of information you might find on this topic (again, referring to the possible research questions students/groups identified previously). The students should draw a mindmap on the flip chart paper to reflect what they discuss.
Take feedback from the groups on what they identified and complete the slide on the fly with the types of information that they listed. Then discuss the types of information the group suggested, asking the students how they might utilise different types of information as evidence in their own work (Slides 8–9)
Introduce the ‘Know your sources’ online resource and how it can help students to find out more about different types of information. (Slide 10)
Where are going to look for — a brief demonstration of a number of search tools: Library Search (good for scholarly articles and books), subject resources (particularly things such as Westlaw for case law etc.), Google Scholar (great for ease of use) and Google Advanced Search (for finding reports from some of the agencies students may have identified previously, such as government reports). Students are also directed to the data & stats and newspaper guides — the purpose here is to stress the range of information sources available to students. (Slides
Specific to this brief, students are asked to think about non-traditional, user-generated sources and how they might use them. Examples are the tweets of police forces and public responses to them, and viewer comments on YouTube videos showing crime/police brutality etc. The key message is that you can use all types of information relevant to your subject — the important thing is how you use them.
Padlet activity — find information relevant to your research. ‘In small groups, use each of the search tools to find information on your research question to do with ‘race and the criminal justice system’’ Examples can be found here: www.padlet.com/TandL/laws70311
Ask the group to talk about what sources they have found, their range, and how they might use them. The students can capture their discussions on flip chart paper.
Evaluating information (17 minutes)
Introduce students to the concepts of ‘reliability, objectivity and relevance’. Students should be asking 6 questions about their sources:
What type of information is presented?
Why was the source produced?
When was it published or updated?
How was the information produced?
Where was it published?
Who produced the information?
Group activity — for each source, use the six questions to evaluate whether the source is reliable, objective and relevant. Ask students to volunteer some of their critical thoughts on different sources.
Support and questions (4 minutes)
Stress that students can gain support from the Library in a number of ways. Menti SCONUL question. Leave 5–10 minutes for questions.
R19–0622
