Critical Thinking & Information Literacy Across the Curriculum

Assignment for Engineering 210 and Engineering 220

Objective:

Students will find an engineering related topic of their choice and prepare a report summarizing their findings from: texts, periodicals, and web based information.

Report will detail sources and compare information gleaned, in regards to: content, conflicting information, and errors or unsubstantiated conclusions.
A brief presentation may be required (unsure of class time logistics).

How to prepare students for the project:

• Will provide instruction on database searching for texts and periodicals.
  1. EBSCO Host
  2. Other Libraries: UW, KCLS
• Refinements: Boolean, wildcard *, following threads.
• Will provide tips and strategies for web-based searching.
• Will discuss evaluating validity of information.

Searching Tips:

        EBSCO Host   www.metacrawler.com    www.altavista.com 

Must       AND       all; (can also use +)          + 

Include     OR          any (default) 

Exclude    NOT              -                       - 

Grouping   " "          phrase; " "                 " " 

Wildcard    *               *                       * 

Exercise:

1. Find info about optical character recognition.
2. Find info about hydraulic/pneumatic cylinders.

Practice:

1. Using EBSCO Host, find information from periodicals about metal matrix material.
2. Using EBSCO Host, find information from a text about global warming.
3. On the WEB, look for information about the topics 1) and 2) above.
4. On the WEB, find out how to put together a bibliographical reference to an article in a periodical.

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Updated August 25, 2003