IDL 3.2a Establishing Relevance

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來自 The University of Sydney 的課程

Academic Skills for University Success: Capstone

個評分

The University of Sydney

Academic Skills for University Success: Capstone

個評分

課程 5（共 5 門，Specialization Academic Skills for University Success）

This Specialization is aimed at preparing students for undergraduate study in an English-speaking university. The course equips you for full participation and engagement with your studies by building awareness and understanding of the core values and expectations of academic culture, and providing you with practical strategies to apply to your studies. In the Capstone Project, you will apply the academic knowledge and skills you have learnt throughout courses 1-4 to research, write and present a project proposal that addresses a complex, real-world problem related to your field of interest and/or future study. After completing this course, you will be able to: 1. Apply a range of idea generation techniques 2. Apply research strategies to search, collect, select, process, and cite information 3. Use the research process to develop and critically analyse ideas 4. Apply critical thinking skills to evaluate and analyse ideas and evidence 5. Use problem-solving skills to identify gaps in knowledge and define issues 6. Develop creative and innovative solutions to real-world problems 7. Use appropriate academic genres for written texts and multi-media presentations 8. Use written and oral skills to communicate ideas effectively for academic contexts

從本節課中

RESOURCES - Optional

This module is for the resources from the other courses you have studied. There is no new, or extra, material here. You do not have to watch any of this material.

IDL 3.2a Establishing Relevance7:09

IDL 3.2b Establishing Relevance5:55

IDL 3.4a Processing and Coding: Step 1 and 27:54

IDL 3.4b Processing and Coding: Step 34:06

與講師見面

Katherine Olston
Deputy Director (Digital Learning)
University of Sydney Centre for English Teaching
Luke Alexander
Academic Literacy Instructor and MOOC Learning Instructor
Centre for English Teaching
Lydia Dutcher
Education Manager, Graduate Programs
Centre for English Teaching
Jessica Blackburn
Academic Literacy Instructor and MOOC Learning Designer
Centre for English Teaching

[MUSIC]

Hi, and welcome to the lesson.

In the previous lesson,

we looked at ways to help you judge the credibility of sources.

In this lesson, we're going to look at criteria to help you judge the relevance

of sources and look at how these can help you more efficiently

select sources to use in your assignments.

So, just imagine for a moment that you're shopping for a pair of shoes.

You live in the city and you go jogging.

So, you'd like a pair of shoes for long runs around your inner city neighborhood.

You've been doing a bit of research on what shoes to buy and

you've found three options.

One, a pair of hiking boots that are highly recommended

by a well-known outdoor magazine.

Two, a pair of minimal, barefoot style running shoes.

These shoes are highly reviewed on specialist blogs for barefoot running, but

they've been shown to cause injuries like shin splints when used for

long periods on concrete.

Three, a pair of lightweight trainers from a reputable company

that got a lot of positive reviews online and

they've also been recommended to you by your best friend who runs marathons.

You probably choose the lightweight trainers, wouldn't you?

Why?

Well, in terms of credibility, the shoes of being recommended by anonymous

reviewers online as well as someone you trust and know personally.

The barefoot running shoes don't seem quite so credible in comparison because of

the mixed reviews and the reports of injuries, so you can safely reject those.

But the hiking shoes are arguably equally as credible as

lightweight trainers because of the recommendation by an outdoor magazine.

So, why wouldn't you choose the hiking shoes?

The answer is because they are not relevant to your training needs.

From this example, we can see that credibility while important,

it's usually not enough for selecting sources.

We need to also establish whether the sources are relevant to our needs.

For a source to be useful, both of these criteria must be met.

Let's look at some questions that we can ask of sources

to evaluate their relevance.

The first question to ask is,

is the information related to your topic or does it answer your question?

The information given in a source can relate to all or part of your topic or

question.

For example, a source may be answering a similar question but

in a different context.

Different source will relate to your topic in different ways with

differing levels of specificity.

For example, if you're question might ask you to focus on the USA but

your information source answers a similar question about the UK.

And therefore, it may still be relevant and help you answer your question.

Or a source may relate to a sub topic or question that you've identified and

this may contribute to your information need.

For instance, let's look at our example assessment question.

You might find a source about driverless cars.

You could use this in the assignment to discuss the traditionally

human task of driving and

the implications of these tasks being done by artificial intelligence.

Driverless cars aren't mentioned specifically in the original question,

as is medicine.

However, you can still use it to answer the question.

A second question to ask to establish relevance is

does the source meet the needs of your assignment?

This particularly relates back to lessons 2.1 and 2.2 about

the different kinds of information sources used in different fields.

For some assignments,

it's okay if you simply use information from your textbooks and course notes.

Whereas for other assignments,

you may need to do more research to find additional resources.

When doing this research, if you find a primary source, consider if

it's the type of source that's considered to be appropriate in your field.

If it's a secondary or tertiary source,

consider if it's appropriately scholarly as an academic source.

The third question you should ask regarding relevance is,

is the information written at an appropriate level?

That is not too elementary or advanced for your needs.

To answer this, think about the audience of the source.

It may be written for children or teenagers, for lay people,

university-educated audiences, for academics, or students in the field.

The difference in the audience affects the level of difficulty of the source

in terms of technical vocabulary used and the complexity of concepts discussed.

You could potentially use any source for an adult audience but

you would want to check that the level is appropriate for your field and your topic.

Also, you shouldn't spend too long trying to understand sources at a high level of

difficulty, but may be targeted at an audience beyond undergraduate level.

The last question to ask regarding the relevance of an information source is,

is the information appropriately explored?

That is not too general or specific for your needs.

When answering this question,

consider if the source explores the topic to an appropriate level of depth.

A tertiary source, such as an encyclopedia, may help you to understand

the topic overall and may provide useful definitions of terms.

But it's probably going to be to general to use for your main arguments.

On the other hand,

some journal articles deal with very niche-specific aspects of a topic and

are to detailed to be used to build the kinds of arguments you're working on.

So, in this lesson, we've looked at criteria that you can apply

to help you select relevant resources for your assignments.

In the next lesson,

we'll practice applying some of these criteria to real examples.

[MUSIC]

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