Teaching Research to Upper-Level Students: Assignment Prompts

We have a number of books in our collection about teaching research and information literacy. We encourage you to check them out.

We've compiled a selection of external guides and resources that contain suggestions and prompts for designing research assignments. 

• Assignments - from Project Cora, a community of online research assignments
• ACRL Framework for Information Literacy Sandbox - browse assignments geared toward information literacy standards; while this resource is geared more towards librarians, classroom faculty will also find useful ideas
• Designing Research Assignments - from Columbia College
• Designing Effective Research Assignments - from Colorado State University
• Designing Effective Research Assignments - from Lansing Community College
• Ideas for Incorporating Research into Courses - from Buena Vista University
• Sample Academic Research Assignments - from Grinnell College

If you're curious about some of the research being done on best practices for teaching research, consult these sources from Project Information Literacy, where one of the researchers is our own Professor Emerita Barbara Fister

• Information Literacy in the Age of Algorithms: Student Experiences with News and Information, and the need for change 
• Principled Uncertainty: Why Learning to Ask Good Questions Matters More than Finding Answers 
• Research Handouts Study
• First-Year Experience Study

If you are assigning annotated bibliographies, here are some examples that you can share with your students.

• Annotated Bibliography Samples - from Purdue OWL
• Annotated Bibliography - from UW-Madison Writing Center
• How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography - from Cornell University Library
• Sample APA Annotation - from Eastern Nazarene College

These resources contain examples and tips to share with your students.

• Getting Started on a Research Paper - from the Gustavus Writing Center
• Model Papers from the Discipline - from Yale's Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning
• Writing a Research Paper - University of Arizona Writing Center (includes a sample research paper)
• Writing a Research Paper - from UW Madison Writing Center

Here are some examples of research posters, along with design tips, to share with students.

• Creating a Research Poster - from Wright State University
• How to Create a Research Poster - from NYU Libraries
• Research Poster Examples - from Illinois Library