S3B Reading by Design: Information Literacy versus the Materiality of Digital Sources

Presenters

Carolyne King, English

Abstract

Often, when we talk about source selection, "especially when we include digital sources,” we give students heuristics which encourage critical attention. For example, the popular acronym CRAAP reminds students to pay attention to a sources' currency (or timeliness), relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose. Although heuristics like CRAAP are an important aspect of source selection, they don't necessarily speak to the actual process of reading a digital text. These tips encourage students to avoid unreliable sources but they don't help us, as instructors, to understand students' actual processes of readerly engagement as they work with digital texts. This presentation uses examples from one students' process of reading digital sources to address how students actually work with digital sources. In an IRB-approved study, students completing research projects in a first-year writing class recorded their processes via screen casting software. An analysis of this data reveals that the design of the digital text impacts the students' interactions and ultimately, the way they incorporate (or write) with the chosen source. Document design is rarely discussed as impacting reading processes. In response to this oversight, this presentation will lay out the ways in which we as instructors must consider our students reading practices and encourage them to be mindful of digital designs. We cannot only encourage critical attention to a source's content, but we must help our students to be aware of the ways that the source's design impacts their processes of reading as well.

Session Recording