Walter Stiern Library

Information Literacy:
Learning To Do Research

Information Literacy Courses | Faculty Services | Student Services

What is information literacy?

Information literacy forms the basis for lifelong learning. It is common to all disciplines, to all learning environments, and to all levels of education. It enables learners to master content and extend their investigations, become more self-directed, and assume greater control over their own learning. Information literacy is the set of skills needed to find, retrieve, analyze, and use information.

An information literate student should be able to:

• choose and narrow a topic.
• develop a thesis and/or hypothesis.
• construct effective search strategies.
• distinguish different information types (e.g, books, newspapers, scholarly & popular articles, government documents, etc.).
• evaluate websites, books, and periodical articles.
• communicate information in an appropriate format (e.g., research paper, oral presentation, Website, PowerPoint, or poster).
• document information ethically (i.e. quoting and paraphrasing).
• ascertain how information is produced and disseminated in the scholarly process
• identify and evaluate social and political dimensions of information produced and consumed