What is information literacy?
Information literacy is a set of vital life skills that allows you to:
- Recognize when information is needed
- Know where to access information effectively and efficiently
- Be able to evaluate information sources critically
- Incorporate information into your knowledge base.
Why develop this skill?
Becoming information literate provides you with benefits that extend beyond education into your workplace and personal lives. It is a basis for lifelong learning that will help you learn to think critically about the information that is presented to you. These skills are tied strongly to common workplace skills such as critical thinking, analytical processing, and problem-solving abilities. More than just buzzwords, these abilities show potential employers that you are able to process information instead of accepting it at face value.
But I already know how to use a computer...
Fantastic!
But technical literacy and information literacy are not the same thing.
Having technical skills will allow you to research faster, generally providing a greater quantity of information. But having information literacy skills will allow you focus your research, producing a better quality of information. By having information of better quality you will reduce your research time and produce better results on your assignments.
Starting Your Research
Research assignments can be difficult to begin, especially if you are not sure how to get started. This guide is intended to help you learn how to evaluate sources, as well as learn what types of resources are available to you and how to access them.
For more research and writing help, check out the guides below.