Creating Effective Research Assignments

Set Objectives And Make Them Clear.

• Objectives are statements of what students should be able to do as a result of the assignment.
  
  
  • Example: Students should be able to discern between scholarly and non-scholarly journals.
    

Teach Research Strategies Where Appropriate.

• A research strategy is a method for organizing a research project, taking into account the kinds of information sought and the sequence in which sources should be consulted.
  
  
• Research strategies often seem obvious to experienced researchers but are generally unknown to students.
  
  
• Example:
  • 1. Define and focus your topic using an encyclopedia article or other reference book for background information.
  • 2. Develop a list of subject headings.
  • 3. Look for books using your subject headings in the library catalog.
  • 4. Use an appropriate periodical index to find more current information in magazines and journals.

Test The Assignment Yourself.

• Come to the library and do the assignment yourself, or ask a librarian if it's doable. Make sure your students have a reasonable expectation of successfully completing the assignment. If you don't find the materials you expected to find, please talk to a librarian and let them know.
  
  
• Show the assignment to a fellow teacher in your department or review it with one of the librarians.
  
  
• Ask your students for feedback on the assignment.

Don't Want All Internet Material In A Student's Bibliography? Require Use Of Printed Materials!

• State in your syllabus and tell students when discussing assignments that all papers must contain a certain number or percentage of print materials. Depending on the assignment, you can also require that no Internet material be used. This is a common academic practice. A short freshman or sophomore paper can most likely be written using only printed materials such as reference books. BE CLEAR, however, that you are not banning the University Libraries' electronic resources.


• If students are doing a lengthy paper, require a working annotated bibliography to be submitted several weeks before the paper is due and make sure print materials are included. You can probably direct them to good materials they may not have found, or tell them to come ask a librarian for help.
  
  
• Don't assume because your students are under the age of 30 that they are good Internet researchers. While some of them may be, most are not aware of the more scholarly resources (print and online) that you may prefer them to use.

Assist The Students: Provide Them With Subject And Reference Guides.

• Subject and reference guides give students something to work with by listing specific information sources or types of sources for a particular assignment.
  
  
• The librarians have produced many such guides already and can create a guide just for your class or for a specific assignment for your class. This is not cheating; students will not usually find reference books by themselves. Knowing the literature of their discipline should be an outcome of their education.

Consult With The Librarians And Use Their Services. Services Include:

• Consultation in designing assignments, determining appropriate research strategies, and ensuring that needed materials are available.
  
  
• Printed or electronic subject guides and bibliographies for a discipline or a specific assignment.
  
  
• Library or class instruction on specific tools and methods. These can be done in the library or in your classroom. If you schedule such a session tell your students why it is important, and be there during the session to contribute and to encourage student participation. Talk with them afterward to see what they learned, and ask them again at the end of the semester for feedback on the session.
  
  
• Course reserve services to ensure access to required materials for all students.

Consider Alternatives To The Typical Research Paper.

• Students keep a research log, analyzing sources and techniques used, what worked and what didn't, and how their research affected their thinking about the topic.
  
  
• Students prepare an annotated bibliography of information sources on their topics.
  
  
• Students choose and define their own topics with faculty guidance.
  
  
• Students write an abstract of a journal article.
  
  
• Students, working in groups, prepare a bibliographic guide (paper or electronic!) that introduces new majors to information sources in the subject field.
  

Avoid These Common Problems:

• The mob scene! An entire class looking for one piece of information or researching one topic. This is seldom a positive library experience for students.
  
  
• The shot-in-dark assignment: Students working from incomplete/incorrect information; materials assigned that the library does not own; inappropriate methods given in instruction; impossibly vague topics assigned.
  
  
• The scavenger hunt: Students given obscure factual questions and told to find the answers without any guidance. The librarian does all the work and the student doesn't really learn anything.

The bulk of the content here was originally written by John Kupersmith, Assistant Reference Librarian at the University of California, Berkeley. See his current page on the same topic. Thank you, John.