Information Literacy Instructional Program
Information Literacy Learning Guides
Organizing and Synthesizing Information
Learning to organize and synthesis information is the first key to understanding and using information effectively.
"Students must also develop the ability to be independent thinkers who can solve real-life problems and keep up with the latest breakthroughs. And students must see the connection between their studies and their world. Memorizing facts will always be important. But in today's world, students need more to succeed. Schools must now more actively help students understand the meaning of facts. Students need to be able to see patterns and relationships between facts and ideas, and to use facts as tools for understanding and organizing concepts and principles." - Introduction: The Basics, plus Essential Academic Learning Requirements: Science, Social Studies, Arts, Health and Fitness - Technical Manual; 1996
Synthesizing information requires a student to process information rather than simply copying and memorizing information. We must take the information and interact with this information by categorizing, analyzing, and comparing for bias, inadequacies, omissions, errors and value judgements. The final step is to take the information and relate it to our own knowledge and experience.
Organizing Information
Books Books are organized by call numbers. This is a straight forward process which groups books and other materials together by subject. At Estrella Mountain Community College, we use the Library of Congress Classification System. For more information : Finding Books
Magazines & Newspapers Newspapers and magazine are organized by title of publication and by date. They can be found in print or digitally on an online database. For more information : Step 4 Finding Magazines and Newspaper Articles
The Internet The Internet has been compared to the largest library in the world - with all the books thrown up in the air and landing randomly on the floor. It is not quite as bad as that. Search engines are tools that allow us to search millions of documents at the same time and locate information. For more information : Step 5 Finding Web Resources
Debbie Anderson, librarian
Estrella Mountain Community College
2001 - 2002
Last Updated: 8/2/04