Self Assessment Essay

This course in information literacy has taught me many things so far this year. For the topic of "recognize and articulate an information need," i am much more cabable of doing this than before. I used to get kind of lost when it came to needing information and especially articulating it. I am also very adept at formulating research questions now thanks to the slew of assignments and in class exercises used for practice. I used to just start blankly and try to think of a question. Now, i start with a broad catagory and narrow it until i am satisfied with my research question. The part i still struggle with is picking a topic with no guidance but that just takes practice. Another key step that i am starting to get good at is applying the appropriate search strategies once i have my topic or whatever else i may be searching for. I used to try and search for phrases and sentences without much luck, but have since been using keywords with better results as well as databases instead of search engines all the time. In doing so i have become more farmiliar with how and when to refine my search. I used to just keep scrolling pages when i couldn't find what i wanted, but i have learned to change my keywords or the way I search if it's not successful. I still struggle with databases because of the options for wording and phrasing. Of all the topics i feel that I have come the farthest with my use of the library tools. I never even knew they were there until we reviewed them in class. They have proven to be helpful many times since discovering them. I probably noticed the least change in being able to describe my techniques for research. The main change is what i'm describing not how i am able to describe it. My judgement of ethics for sources has also been broadened widely with taking the course. I have realized many more things besides just date or author that must be considered when using a source.
There are many examples of my progress in the subjects of the course objective list. It is most evident in the viewing of my blog and the progress i have made in the few months i have been editing it. When i started i just used yahoo and google to search for things. By the end i was incorporating many of the things I have learned into one well rounded complete search. I was able to use the databases successfully and cite my results fairly well. Another example of my success is evident in my progress of the topic. I started out very narrow with limited results and by the end i knew what search terms to use and i was getting much more useful results. I also came a long way with my searching for books and titles. I honestly didn't know about the feature before so my progress is both easy and hard to show.
My biggest success was learning how to compile information from multiple sources. Prior ro the class i was limited to the internet and it's search engines for information. I have now learned how to look in databases and search for in print books, and then even jow to go out and find them. My biggest struggle still remains to be the databases but it is subsiding with each use. It is slow going simply because i find the search engines more fitting most of the time for my day to day searches. The class has overall proven to be very informative and helpful in a subject that it turns out i knew a lot less about than i thought. I especially found the books that were brought in and the discussions of how each one might be used for different types of research helpful.