Do first-year students need to be using peer-reviewed journal articles? Should students spend time learning how to use Boolean operators? How important is it for students to be able to create perfect APA or MLA citations? Is plagiarism really theft?

Research and information literacy instruction often centers around teaching students how to conduct research in the same way as disciplinary experts. We encourage students to learn how to use academic databases and peer-reviewed journal articles, utilize Boolean operators and other precision search techniques, and generate complete academic citations. However, after graduation, many (perhaps most) of our students will lose access to academic databases and will never use peer-reviewed articles or need to provide citations.

This presentation will outline several controversial notions related to how we teach research and information literacy. Participants will be encouraged to consider these notions in light of their own teaching practices and consider potential alternative approaches for teaching research and information literacy. This workshop is intended for course instructors, graduate teaching associates, instructional support staff and librarians.

For participants associated with The Ohio State University, participation counts as credit toward the Teaching Information Literacy Endorsement from the Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning. For participants not associated with Ohio State, participation counts as credit for the Teaching Information Literacy Certificate being offered by the Teaching & Learning Department in the Ohio State University Libraries.