Key Course Concepts
This term “means having a disposition toward behaving intelligently when confronted with problems” (Costa)
What is a habit of mind?
Aristotle describes this as discerning the available means of persuasion in any given situation.
What is rhetoric?
This concept shows authors and audiences negotiate credibility; we understand that expertise is contextual–so authority in one area does not necessarily mean authority in another (ALA).
What is "Authority Is Constructed and Contextual" (ALA)?
This concept describes information layer one: “When you scroll through Instagram, you see posts. The platform sees something different: time spent on each post measured in milliseconds, scroll velocity, tap patterns, pause duration, which posts you linger on, which you skip immediately. You experience content. The platform collects data about your experience of that content” (Goldin).
What is raw data?
These sources are written for experts, by experts.
What are scholarly sources?
This strategy uses precise, specific, sparing–uses language from the text and requires a citation.
What is quoting?
This is the rhetorical appeal based on the credibility of the author.
What is ethos?
This concept shows authors are always making choices about how to produce and distribute information (ALA).
What is "Information Creation as a Process" (ALA)?
This concept describes “the way that a given story is packaged and presented to consumers of news. It is strongly impacted by the language that is used to describe given events or ascribed to actors who are identified as critical features of a given story. Language is critical in these presentations because it serves as the cognitive framework in which we understand the world around us and in the case of exposure to news make sense of a given event or story” (Aalai).
What is media framing?
This concept describes "the process through which information is produced, circulated, used, and changed in stages over time. Understanding the information cycle can be useful when selecting a topic to research" (STL).
What is the information cycle?
This strategy sums up a main idea in your own words and requires a citation.
What is paraphrasing?
This is the rhetorical appeal based on the values and emotions of the audience.
What is pathos?
This concept shows what we and others produce is meaningful in terms of education, access, and intellectual property (ALA)
What is "Information Has Value" (ALA)?
This concept describes information layer two: “A credit score takes payment histories, debt ratios, account ages, and credit inquiries, then runs them through proprietary formulas to produce a three-digit number. A social media feed filters billions of posts through engagement algorithms to show you a particular sequence. A search engine takes the entire indexed web and returns ten results on the first page, ranked in a specific order” (Goldin).
What is processed information?
These sources provide overviews of topics, with keywords and bibliographic resources; they help audiences define critical terms, understand a timeline, and know where to look for further research.
What are reference works?
This strategy gives a general overview in your own words and requires a citation.
What is summarizing?
This is the rhetorical appeal based on the logic of the text.
What is logos?
This concept asks us to think of think of research as a non-linear process (ALA. If we approach research looking for sources that confirm what we already think, we’re shortchanging ourselves of our learning. Instead, the research process often means refining our questions, asking new questions, circling back, and listening–processes that require us to be flexible and persistent.
What is "Research as Inquiry" (ALA)?
This concept describes information layer three: “everything into something consumable. They provide characters, causation, sequence, meaning. A narrative takes the complexity of the world and makes it legible” (Goldin).
What are narratives?
This term describes a searchable collection of resources, most of which are already vetted as high-quality sources, accessed through the library.
What is a database?
This concept explains we participate with communities in all of our literacy practices (ALA); we are not researching, reading, writing, or speaking in a vacuum but negotiating and responding to the ideas of others who come before and after us, and who challenge and extend our ideas
What is "Scholarship as Conversation" (ALA)?
Quintillian describes this character as the good person speaking well.
Who is the rhetorician?
This concept asks us to continually assess our findings and our thinking so that we can refine our research practices as well as our ideas (ALA)
What is "Searching as Strategic Exploration" (ALA)?
This concept describes information layer four: “where narratives go to become invisible. A belief is a narrative that has been absorbed so completely it no longer feels like something learned. It feels like something known, something obvious, something that doesn’t require justification because it simply is” (Goldin).
What are beliefs?
This policy asserts that "Students are expected to maintain the highest standards of honesty in their college work" (SUNY New Paltz).
What is academic integrity?