What I learned about the Library

This past week, our class had the opportunity to have a class in the library computer lab, which was different and unique. I guess you would say we had a guest speaker, a librarian, who knew the ins and outs of all there was to the library. I believe her name was Laura Cameron. In CARD writing, we had just begun working on Rational Argument papers, and part of this assignment is the requirement to have a few academic journals. The problem is that finding these things using Google or Safari is extremely difficult. Therefore, the goal of the library lesson was to help us learn how to use the tools that the Oesterle library had made available to us as students.

First, I learned much about media types and how they differ in areas like their academic style. A few of these resource types include things like Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles, which are original research. There are Encyclopedia Articles that fit into the analysis and trends category, which you would consider slightly more academic. You have things like magazine articles that would fit into current events. To round it off, at the bottom of the list of the least academic resources are your culture and fiction types, such as memes or fairy tales. What does it take to make it genuinely educational? Who, What, Where, Why, and How. Who, as in it, is written by someone with high expertise. What, as in, is its original research. Where, is it published in a traditional publication avenue. Why, as in, was it created to educate. How, as in, is it specialized language and editing. We also learned about a little thing called Cardinal Search, a valuable tool accessible on Oesterle Library's page because you can use advanced searches to find peer-reviewed articles related to your topic that are incredibly hard to find. It does this by searching all articles, books, databases, ebooks, journals, media, and materials from every platform and providing all that match your search criteria.