We have read/ learned about vedas and upanishads, hinduism, theravada, mahayana, chan, zen, and confucianism. Class readings are from Bresnan and Novak. This is the assignment, please do as best as you can and please don’t paraphrase or use ai the teacher is very strict on that and I honestly have just been going through a lot and need some help getting finished with this assignment. Here is the exact instructions from the professor. If you need extra information please let me know but here it is, also lastly can you use fairly easy vocabulary if you can because I usually do not speak very very sophisticated.
Information Literacy:
For this assignment you will consider some controversial issue in the field of Religion, engaging four sources two scholarly and two popular. You will discuss the relevance, accuracy, and importance of each source’s treatment of the subject, and you will compare, analyze, and comment on the implications of this subject’s treatment in scholarly vs. popular discourse. What is called for here is a discussion of the appropriateness of each type of source (scholarly and popular) and the outcomes, implications, and consequences of using one versus the other.
Context: Information Literacy (IL)
The University defines IL as your capacity to identify, access and evaluate sources of information. Within GenEd, information literacy encompasses a broad spectrum of abilities, including the ability to recognize and articulate information needs; to locate, critically evaluate, and organize information for a specific purpose; and to recognize and reflect on the ethical use of information. In a nutshell we can describe information literacy as the capacity to find, identify, assess/evaluate, make use of, and communicate information. What constitutes “good” or “legitimate” information and what, conversely, is “bad” or “illegitimate” information (so-called “fake news”)? How do you identify scholarly sources vs. popular sources? What kind of information is useful? If it is useful, what is it useful for? What are the applications for which each type of information is appropriate or not appropriate? How do you let your readers know where they can find the information you are referring to or citing? What qualifications must you make if you choose to use a popular source where a scholarly source is the appropriate, or even required, choice? These and other similar questions fall under the aegis of Information Literacy.
General Instructions:
Choose a controversial subject in the field of Religion, one that has some importance or “bite” in the public square and popular imagination. Consult two scholarly and two popular sources on the same issue, then discuss the outcomes, implications, consequences of each source’s use of information.
How to identify scholarly versus popular sources? What sets the two apart? The difference lies in style and intention, i.e., how each type of source justifies its claims to authority and the kinds of conversation each intends to take part in. Scholarly sources intend to advance the collective body of human knowledge by engaging the extant scholarly discourse on a given subject and adding to it. They cite other scholarly sources with the intention of participating in the conversation and advancing it.
*Note that I am not sending you out to condemn popular sources or to look down your nose at sources that do not meet scholarly standards of rigor and peer review. I just want you to report what you find and engage in a bit of commentary about the appropriate uses of information and the outcomes we can expect depending on which kind of information we choose to use. As far as possible, try not to form an opinion before you read. Keep an open mind and allow your argument to arise from your evaluation of the sources you engage.
Sources:
- Scholarly sources include most academic texts: journal articles, encyclopedias, dictionaries, periodicals, and other similar media. If it is peer-reviewed, published by a university press, and has a bibliography which cites other scholarly sources, you probably have a scholarly source on your hands. However, if you have a question as to whether some particular source is scholarly or not, please email me as soon as possible to discuss it.
- Also, there is a database compiled for this course specifically by our Librarian Extraordinaire, Fred Rowland: .
- Popular sources include Wikipedia and other open-source encyclopedias and dictionaries; opinion columns such as Buzzfeed, Vox, and the Daily Wire; online news sites such as the Washington Post, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, and the Washington Times; newspapers such as the New York Times; periodical magazines such as the New Yorker; your friends and neighbors; anecdotal personal experience; parents, colleagues, and peers; priests, pastors, and other religious functionaries; fellow university students; the majority of internet sites.
- None of these are scholarly! However, as a great deal many scholarly sources are available in full or in part as online media now, this complicates the picture of popular vs. scholarly.
- But again, if you have questions about any particular source(s) just email me and I will tell you whether it’s scholarly or popular.
- Our slides are neither scholarly nor popular, so they don’t count towards your required number of sources.
Specifications:
- Length: Two pages, double spaced, 12pt font. If you find that you cannot fit your commentary into two pages, scale back your approach. Say less. Boil it down to the bare bones and say only what is most important. On the other hand, if you find that your commentary does not fill up even one page, you need to scale up your approach. Say more. In both cases, however, conciseness is key.
- Content: Your analysis should contain an original argument, one that comments on the arguments put forward by the authors of the sources you choose to work with for this assignment.
- This assignment is not a simple “book report”. You are not just reporting facts. You must try to evaluate the arguments in the sources you cite and take a position of your own. Your argument will be in response to the arguments in your sources.
- This is what it means to engage and participate in the scholarly discourse.
- You should not review each of the four sources separately. Instead, each evaluation should form a part of one overall assessment and argument. The paper should not read as four separate reviews of four disconnected sources, but rather one integrated assessment of a single theme common to all four.
- The argument must be properly contextualized and introduced, with the clear thesis appearing by no later than the last sentence of the first paragraph.
- Scholarly Writing: The Number One rule of academic/scholarly writing is that you must cite your sources. You will use Chicago-style footnotes.
- Use correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.
- Use scholarly language only.
- Use no slang, street language, or other vernacularisms/colloquialisms.
- Never use contractions in academic writing, e.g., won’t, can’t, didn’t, shouldn’t, would’ve, I’ve, we’ll, you’re, couldn’t, I’d, she’s, he’s, they’re, etc. Some scholars resort to using contractions to make their writing seem more “accessible”, but we should reject that trend as patronizing and unnecessary.
- Header: Use our standard header for this and all other writing assignments. The header is for my organizational purposes alone, so ultimately, it should not matter to you what your header looks like. Please follow these instructions to the letter.
- Do not put the header into the body of the paper!
- Use the “Insert” function from the toolbar to place the header into the pre-formatted header slot designed specifically to contain this content (or simply double click the top of the page).
- Headers go in the left-hand side of the header slot.
- Use single spacing between the lines of your header.
- Include all of the information below and only this information:
Name
REL-0863-702
Information Literacy
Date Submitted
- Include a title for the paper centered above the body of the text. The title may not be “Information Literacy Paper”. That nomenclature goes in the header. Your paper must have an actual title which forecasts to the reader what they can expect to read.
- Include a separate works-cited page or bibliography on a third page.
- You may only include works on this page which you have actually cited in the body of your paper.
- If a source does not appear as a citation in the body of the paper, in the footnotes, you cannot list it on the works cited page!
- Number every page. Page numbers should appear in the bottom right-hand corner of every page, including the first page, in the footer. Do not append anything to page numbers, including your name or surname.
- Submit PDF files only.
Grading:
This assignment is graded out of 100. Failure to follow any of the instructions will result in a loss of points. Your paper should demonstrate that you understand the difference between popular and scholarly sources, how and where to find and access them, and the appropriate uses of each of these types of media. It should be correctly formatted according to my instructions and properly sourced. It should contain an analysis, not just a report on “the facts”.
Facts Are Useless:
On their own, without your analysis, facts are useless. They have no agency, no volition, no meaning, no value. They cannot do, say, imply, or infer anything. It is up to us as scholars to draw inferences from facts and make arguments about normative meaning.
I say again: without inference, facts are useless. So, don’t give me facts without analysis, inference, argument, Meaning.
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