Evidence summary (20 of grade)
DUE: Tuesday, 3 July 2018 at 23:59
This assignment is modeled on the evidence summaries regularly published in the journal, Evidence-Based Library & Information Practice (http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/index). As you can see from examining a few examples in the journal, each evidence summary focuses on a particular research study that has implications for the practice of the information professions. While most of the evidence summaries in the journal do focus on the practice of librarianship, this approach can (and will, in this assignment) be extended to any information practice setting that you want to explore for your future career.
Selecting an article
Your first step is to select an article that provides evidence that you'd like to summarize. You might want to think about your term paper (it's never too early!) and select an article about the population you're interested in studying for that assignment.
- It must be an empirical study, broadly defined; to meet this criterion, the authors must have systematically collected data related to their research question and must have reported their findings. If you have questions about whether a particular article meets this criterion, please check with me prior to beginning the assignment.
- The article should be on a topic/question within the scope of this course, i.e., it should focus on human information interactions of some type.
- It may NOT be one of our required readings. You can, however, choose an article that has been cited (or that cites) an article we read for class.
- An evidence summary of your selected article should NOT have already been published in EBLIP. You can check this by going to the journal and using the Journal Content search box at the right of the page; search by the name of the author of the article you've selected.
Writing the evidence summary
The evidence summary itself is written in a very structured format - basically an extended abstract. It begins with brief descriptions of the study's objective(s), its design, its setting, its subjects/participants, and the methods used to carry it out. Then it reports the main results and the main conclusions that can be drawn from those results. Finally, the author of the summary comments on the implications of those conclusions for practice in the relevant information setting. Additional references pertinent to the commentary should be cited, as appropriate; these can include references in the original article but should also include relevant references not cited in the article being examined. The full evidence summary, excluding title, study citation, and additional references, should be 1000-1500 words. Make sure you include a full citation to the study you are summarizing.