Information Sharing Project
You may have encountered research projects before where the end product is a formal research paper. A research paper lets you show what you know, and is an opportunity to practice important information literacy skills, such as ethical source use (often by citing your sources), ways of integrating information from sources (through summary, paraphrase, and direct quotes), and source evaluation. However, a formal research paper is not the only way to develop these skills—and, unfortunately, the research paper format often overlooks a very important skill needed for successful writing for college and for on-the-job, which is considering your audience.
We, the course designers, call this project an Information Sharing Project rather than a research paper, because we want you to focus first on developing the critical writing and reading skills demanded by this project—source evaluation, source use, and audience awareness–and then on the form your completed project will take. While working on this project, you will read and write with a purpose, which will be to communicate information about your project with an audience beyond only the course instructor. You will make choices about genre and form that will help you to achieve that purpose—and for many of you, the formal research paper will probably not be the best fit. In fact, as part of several of the low-stakes assignments connected to this module, you will be asked to make a case for your choice of genre, and explain how that choice fits with your project’s audience and purpose.
Learning Objectives
This project has several learning outcomes; meeting all of them, and reflecting upon how you’ve met them, will be necessary to successfully complete this project and to stay in compliance with the course grade contract.
Upon successful completion of this project, you will:
Correctly and clearly reference all sources, including research sources and images
Create a piece of original work that integrates source material smoothly and clearly with your own ideas
Anticipate the needs of your audience, through choices of genre, design, organization, style, and content
Your instructor will use the High Stakes Writing Assignment Feedback Rubric when responding to show how successfully you’ve met these learning outcomes. Use that feedback to revise your Information Sharing Project for the final portfolio.
Minimum Requirements
Regardless of the genre and form you choose, your Information Sharing Project should meet or exceed these minimum requirements:
Include 6 to 8 credible sources; these sources should meet the standards for sources set by the librarians during the Research Bibliography module
Of the sources, at least 4 must be scholarly, and at least 2 must be credible popular
Incorporate some non-alphabetic text elements, such as images, audio, or video; this information must be attributed
Any images used must be Creative Commons, Public Domain, or another recognized free-to-use license, or be your own original work; all images must be attributed appropriately
Any video or audio must include a transcript (for your own video or audio, the transcript will help you to measure the length requirement, below)
Reach a length of at least 1250–1500 words, not including your Works Cited/Sources list, nor large passages of quoted text (sometimes large quotes are needed, but please ignore them when calculating the length)
The project must be share-able electronically as part of your ePortfolio
