More employers are clamoring for researchers, but do you have the skills? How you can really boost your professional skills game. (Originally given at Biola University)

1. The #1 Professional
Skill...
...And No One Does It Well

2. This is Your
Brain on the
Internet
The Memory Problem
Shrinking Short Term Memory
Information Overload
Reducing Memory

3. The Need
Internet is a shallow information pool that people are struggling to make sense of
Creates an urgent professional need for people who can make sense of it
Necessary skill set: Information Literacy and Research

4. 3 Things
Today
Define information literacy
Give you a resource to help you
develop it
A strategy to do it well

5. What is
Information
Literacy?

6. Information Literacy
Information literacy is the set of skills needed to navigate research, but it's also an
approach to a broader understanding of the information in our world. If you have an
understanding of how information is created, the relative value of the information
that you find, and the ability to synthesize what you find into something useful for
you, you have attained a precious fluency that will help you in all avenues of your
life.
- Karen Loftis, University of Oregon

7. Two Types of Research
Reactive, or Rapid, Research
Starts with an argument
Support for existing arguments
The faster, the better
Selective
Lower quality
Doesn’t prove anything beyond the shared
argument
Proactive, or Methodological Research
Starts with a question
Seeks to establish an answer (hypothesis)
Builds an argument from a knowledge base
Quality of information is key
Requires time commitment

8. How do we
improve
research?
Ask your question
Define your key terms
Find your information sources
Find your information
Where do you start?

9. Lynda.com
The best kept secret at Biola

10. How to get on Lynda
Go to Biola Library homepage
Click on ‘Research’ drop down menu
Click on ‘Articles & Databases’
Click on ‘Lynda.com’
Search ‘Information Literacy’
Add the ‘Information Literacy’ course to your playlist

11. A Simple Research Strategy
Go through the course on Lynda.com
Utilize the tools and skills you learn in the course by accessing the Biola Library
Research Guides and databases
Catalog your research using Diigo.com, or bookmarking sites

12. In practice
The Paper Process
1. Develop your research question
2. Identify key terms
3. Build your bibliography (annotate it)
4. Write your draft
The Skills Process
1. ‘Information Literacy’ course
2. Go to Library Research Guides and look up
key terms
3. Go to the library databases and start
finding articles and books related to your
question and terms.
4. Use research to write your draft

13. Sources
Gregoire, Carolyn. “How Technology is Warping Your Memory.”
HuffingtonPost.com, December 11, 2013.
“How the Internet is Changing Your Brain.” AcademicEarth.org.
Wegner, Daniel and Adrian War. “The Internet Has Become the External Hard
Drive for Our Memories.” ScientificAmerican.com, December, 1, 2013.