Joining a Scholarly Conversation Project Instructions
Objective: Learn how to identify relevant information in the peer-reviewed literature.
As members of our university, you are joining an academic community. Universities are not ivory
towers where smart people do research just for the sake of curiosity. Universities are part of a web
of interconnected communities through which we share our research and ideas so that together we
can build knowledge--knowledge that can be used to resolve problems and improve our lives. New
students at the university are often unaware that they are now participating in these scholarly
conversations through their coursework. In this project students will be introduced to existence of
these scholarly conversations in a very concrete manner. You will build a bibliography of all the
readings you have this semester—one that you can continue to build throughout your career at the
university. You will also learn how to use libraries to get information to help you solve problems
that matter to you—a skill that can help you for the rest of your life.
Part 1:
Week 3 Students should report to the library classroom for class. Bring with you your Reading
Preparation materials and your syllabi for ALL of the classes in which you are enrolled.
During the Library session, you will create an EndNote account and learn how to annotate (make
notes) inside Endnote. You are required to create a bibliography of all of your readings this semester
by entering EVERY reading assigned in EVERY class in which you are enrolled into Endnote.
Week 7 Turn in a printout of your semester bibliography at the beginning of class. You may use
whichever citation style you wish for this bibliography but notice how EndNote makes it easy to
switch between citation styles. With the bibliography printout, you must submit a copy of the page
from the syllabus that lists your readings from each of the courses in which you are enrolled this
semester.
As you read your assigned materials for your classes, annotate this bibliography by answering each
of the following questions for each reading:
1) The main purpose of this textbook/article is? (Here you are trying to state as accurately
as possible the author’s purpose for writing the article or textbook. What was the
author trying to accomplish?)
2) The key question(s) that the author is addressing in the textbook/article is? (You are
trying to identify the broadest question the textbook/article answers, along with the
most important sub-questions it focuses on.)
3) The most important kinds of information in this textbook/article are? (You want to
identify the types of information the author uses in the textbook/article to support
his/her main arguments [research results, observations, examples, etc.])
4) The key idea(s) we need to understand in this textbook/article is (are)? (What are the
most important ideas that you would have to understand in order to understand the
textbook/article? The most fundamental ideas can usually be found in the first chapter
of a textbook.)
5) If people take the textbook/article seriously, the implications are? (Here you are to
follow out the logical implications of the information/ideas in the textbook/article.
Include the ones the author argues for but also unstated implications as well).
The annotated bibliography is due Week 15.
Part 2:
Week 7 You should again report to the library classroom for class with your Reading Preparation
materials. At the library, you will learn how to use the research databases and import your results
into EndNote. Use the databases to research the issue related to your service learning project—
especially focus on information that could help you or the organization with which you are be more
effective on this issue. For example, if your team has been volunteering with the Alzheimer’s
Society, you might research different ways that people are working to support Alzheimer’s
sufferers and their families and what research tells us about these different strategies. Review your
search results for relevancy and then choose the 5 peer reviewed articles that seem the most
relevant to you. Add these to your semester bibliography and annotate them using the five
questions in Part 1.
Week 15 After examining the ENTIRE annotated bibliography for relevance; students should
clearly articulate a narrow question that could be pursued in further research. Student will then
write a one-page summary that communicates the relevance or irrelevance of the information in the
bibliography and why the question they have identified for further research is the question-at-issue,
a question which in answering will lead to better information or better services.
Sample Rubric for The Scholarly Conversation
Student
Outcome
Learning
SLO #2 Learn how
to identify
relevant
information in the
peer-reviewed
literature.
Fails to meet
Expectations
Adequate
Excellent
Incomplete annotated
bibliography. Missing
citations. Annotations
are too brief to be
meaningful, do not
answer all five
questions for each
citation or more or less
repeat language from
the article or book.
Summary does not
explain how the
information in the
bibliography is or is not
relevant to the question
at issue.
Annotated bibliography
is complete.
Annotations use all five
questions to apply the
students own evaluation
to the reading content.
Summary generally
demonstrates how the
readings in the
bibliography are or are
not relevant to the
question at issue, with
some minor deviations.
In addition, the
excellent project
focuses on the most
relevant information
associated with the
question at issue and is
able to precisely
articulate the relevance
of this information.