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LIS 105: Information Literacy Basics

This guide accompanies LIS 105: Information Literacy Basics at Truman College.

Week 2: Understanding Resources, Citation Basics

This section gives a broad overview of information resources and how to cite them. These are the building blocks of information literacy: the actual informational content and the means by which to effectively and ethically use that content.

"Types of Resources" covers the three categories of resources in the information landscape (primary, secondary, and tertiary), and various types of resources, including scholarly, trade/professional, general interest, popular, and reference sources, and government documents. 

"Citation Basics" provides a quick overview of source citations.

Click on the topics above to access content.

There are 3 categories of information resources: primary, secondary, and tertiary sources.

You'll notice that the descriptions of each of the resource types listed below are broken down according to concepts laid out in the information literacy Framework: authority and credibility; audience, communication style, and purpose; informational content and context; and the contexts in which information is produced and used. The places each type of resource can be found and real-life examples of each are listed as well. Also see PDF linked below.

 

Resource Types © 2023 by Sara Klein is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 

If you want more in-depth information about primary and secondary sources, watch these videos from the University of Illinois:

Who writes and publishes information? Are there biases related to this idea?

ID the main parts of a social media post, meme, or TikTok video; compare the info available to that found in newspapers and research articles. Appraise the value of various information formats. "Autopsy" of each; what can we learn from these types of sources?

Why cite your sources? 

  • To give credit to other scholars and sources, and to demonstrate the quality of sources
  • To participate accountably in the scholarly conversation, providing paths for others to trace
  • To demonstrate that you've done your research, and to show thorough and/or flexible thought processes in your analysis of sources 

(Read the CCC Academic and Student Policy, Student-Focused Policies, Article VIII, Section 8.17: Academic Integrity and Dishonesty)

A citation is a way of giving credit to reference to an outside source of content or ideas included in a document. Citations have 2 main parts: a brief reference within a document, and a detailed reference at the end of the document.

  • In-text citations: brief references, noted in parentheses () within the text of a document, directly following quoted, paraphrased, or summarized content from an outside source
  • Footnotes: brief references, listed at the bottom of a page, within the text of a document
  • Endnotes: brief references, listed at the end of a document
  • Bibliography/Works Cited/Reference List: a collection of complete references, including author, title, and publication information (publisher and date published), generally listed in alphabetic order by author's last name for each source used for or cited within a document
    • Annotated bibliography: A bibliography with additional information including summaries of sources, demonstrated understanding of sources, and usually discussion of the relevance of sources to the research at hand

Citation styles are frameworks that define what information should be included in a citation, and how to format that information, as well as entire documents. Visit Purdue OWL for more in-depth information.

  • MLA (Modern Language Association) is typically used in the humanities
  • APA (American Psychological Association) is typically used in the fields of education, psychology, and the sciences
  • Chicago/Turabian (University of Chicago) is typically used in business, history, and the fine arts 

Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing

According to Purdue OWL:

  • "Quotations must be identical to the original, using a narrow segment of the source. They must match the source document word for word and must be attributed to the original author.
  • Paraphrasing involves putting a passage from source material into your own words. A paraphrase must also be attributed to the original source. Paraphrased material is usually shorter than the original passage, taking a somewhat broader segment of the source and condensing it slightly.
  • Summarizing involves putting the main idea(s) into your own words, including only the main point(s). Once again, it is necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original source. Summaries are significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of the source material."

When do you cite?

  • Cite any time you quote, paraphrase, or summarize a resource, regardless of format, or when you use any part of a source, such as graphs, charts, and other images

"[Citation needed]" by futureatlas.com is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

"Quotation marks" is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication