Sociology 101
Dr. Gianna Durso-Finley
Information Literacy Assignment
Mercer County Community College has a General Education Policy that provides opportunities
for you to master the two types of learning – competencies (or skills) and goals (or knowledge of
subject areas). All your courses at Mercer will be helping you to master the competencies on the
left side of the chart. In addition, your general education courses will be helping you to acquire
knowledge of the academic disciplines on the right side of the chart. This course will provide
learning opportunities for all the competencies A-G, and for knowledge goals 1, 5, and 10.
General Education Core Competencies and Goals
General Education CORE COMPETENCIES
* Core competencies should be embedded – to the
greatest extent possible – in all courses.
A. Written and Oral Communication in English
B. Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving
C. Ethical Decision-Making
D. Information Literacy
E. Computer Literacy
F. Collaboration and Cooperation
G. Intra-Cultural and Inter-Cultural Responsibility
General Education GOALS.
Knowledge goals are associated with specific courses.
Goal 1: Written and Oral Communication in English
Goal 2: Mathematics
Goal 3: Natural Science
Goal 4: Technology
Goal 5: Social Science
Goal 6: Historical Perspective
Goal 7: Humanities
Goal 8: Visual and Performing Arts
Goal 9: Foreign Language
Goal 10: Diversity and Global Perspective
The workshop and assignment you are beginning today (which we will continue to use
throughout the semester) focus on Competency D – Information Literacy. You will also be
developing some skills in E. Computer Literacy. The full description of what Information
Literacy means at Mercer is listed below:
D. Information Literacy: Students will recognize when information is needed and have the knowledge and skills to locate,
evaluate, and effectively use information for college level work.
D.1.
Students will recognize the value of using information to strengthen arguments and articulate a research question.
D.2.
Students will identify resources needed and develop and modify appropriate search strategies to obtain the information
required to answer a research question.
D.3.
Students will recognize the factors that affect the quality of information and extract the pertinent information needed
for the specific research question.
D.4.
Students will integrate the information located in a cohesive manner that addresses the research question and
communicate the information to the appropriate audience.
D.5.
Students will respect the privacy, security, and ownership of the information they locate and use. Students will identify
the ethical considerations relevant to the use of information, with a particular focus on how to prevent plagiarism.
Mercer’s library staff will guide you through the goals and steps of effective information
searching, and help you to select a scholarly article from a sociological journal. You will also
learn proper APA citation format so that you can use the article correctly in your work, without
plagiarism. You should have your article for the assignment chosen, printed (if possible) and
emailed to your account before you leave the workshop. The assignment follows:
Article Dissection
You may submit this assignment up to three times (electronically – to finleyg@mccc.edu or inclass) for feedback and a chance to correct it.
This assignment is worth 9 points.
Purpose: To investigate sociological resources and to practice summarizing scientific
information in your own words so that you can apply findings to your research needs
Procedure: Using the skills and criteria from the Information Literacy Workshop provided by
Library staff, select a scholarly sociological article on a topic which interests you. It may be
helpful to choose an article that relates to the material we will discuss in class: culture;
socialization; social structure; social interaction; social networks; deviance; social control;
stratification; gender; race and ethnicity; and marriage and the family.
The article must conform to the following specifications:
1) It must be at least 5 pages in length. There is no upper limit on length, but it is easier to
work with articles shorter than 15 pages.
2) The article must represent original research, NOT secondary research (which provides
only a review of existing research).
3) The article must be no more than 10 years old
Your article dissection to be typed and submitted under your name includes NINE components:
1) Proper APA format citation for the article
2) Why do we care? – summarize in your own words why someone would even do a study
of the topic, why is it interesting?
3) Two background findings – NOT the results of the research in your article. Rather, what
research findings from PRIOR research informed the author of your article?
4) Research Question – what is the central question (in your own words) that the researchers
are trying to investigate?
5) Primary methodology – which of the 6 main research methods are used in the study?
WHY?
6) Two major findings of the study – use your own words to describe what the author(s)
learned from the research
7) Take home message – What is the major point that anyone reading the article should
walk away with?
8) Critique – what problems are there with the research? The presentation? Questions you
had about the issues that the research failed to address?
9) Tie-In – using your own life experience and class material, relate the article and findings
to the issues you raised in #2 (why do we care?), so that students who didn’t read the
article can understand what the researchers learned and why it matters. Also, identify
which sociological perspective you think the article relates most to (conflict, functional or
interactionist) and give clear reasons why you think that perspective is most relevant to
the author’s thinking and to the topic.