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Information Literacy

“Information literacy is the ability to think critically and make balanced judgements about
any information we find and use. It empowers us as citizens to reach and express informed
views and to engage fully with society.” (CILIP, 2018)

Information Literacy is a key skill taught by your Faculty Librarians. We usually meet you in a lecture
or workshop at least once during your course. Lecture and workshop content is supported by online
learning resources which you can explore in your own time to develop this crucial skill for your
studies and beyond.

What skills do you already have and which do you need to develop? Visit the CILIP Information Literacy website for more information.

Staff members; contact your Faculty Librarian to discuss embedding Information Literacy into your course

Why do I need to learn this?

Planning your assignment

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When planning your assignment you should consider the following:

Why do you need the information? Is it for an essay, a report, a presentation or to inform a design?
- Refer to Moodle for details of your assignment, including how it will be marked.

What do you need to find out about? What is your question asking you to do?
- Applying a Search Strategy, will help you to break down your topic into concepts. You may prefer to approach this with a Mind Map.

How are you going to search for the information? What keywords and phrases are going to help you locate relevant information
- Choosing Keywords explains how to improve the relevance of your search results significantly.

Where are you going to look for the information? For example, do you need up-to-date information from newspapers, academic journal articles, statistical data, an image or a video?
- The Ocean of Information guides you to appropriate sources for different contexts. It also links to guidance on how to reference them correctly.

• Bullet Journalling

(pdf file 394 kb)

Navigating the Library

Starting your information search

Developing your research

Academic reading

Evaluating infomation

Referencing your sources

Using generative AI in coursework or research

Useful links

Academic reading (file)
Academic reading: journal articles (file)
Applying a search strategy (file)
Boolean logic (file)
Choosing keywords (file)
Fruitstall and keywords - selecting keywords for an assignment or dissertation (file)
Mind Maps
The Ocean of Information (file)
Using Generative AI in University Library coursework or research
Choosing keywords