Information Literacy
Do you know where you can find the best information related to picking up a meaningful hobby, starting an online business, or even cooking recipes? Do you have some trusted sites from which you find what you need?
What is information literacy?
Information literacy is the capacity of finding, evaluating, organizing, and effectively using the information or data for a purposive activity. The purposive actions may be decision making, problem solving or acquiring knowledge for business or personal needs.
How to be information literate
Information may come in various forms such as data, articles, books, newspapers, broadcast media, digital, signboards, etc. Modern information sources in global trending arena appear in forms of images, infographics, short films, social media posts, and websites. Books, newspapers, and broadcast media still play a vital role, but it has a more niche audience than the newer media.
If you want to be information literate, it is essential to be critical in your analysis and develop great search skills. There is a lot of information out there (which might not always be correct or true) and limited time, so you have to dig deep but also dig efficiently. You have to have your critical thinking cap on and evaluate the information you find, the source you found it from, and the messages it may be trying to convey. Messages can be merely advertising messages but they can also be outright lies and false claims to make you buy into a scam.
It is also important to remember that as humans, we all have a natural bias and this bias comes out in our writing. Recognizing the bias of the author will help you make sense of what the author is saying as well as why they are saying it. This will allow you to make better informed choices. Being information literate is not only useful in research, it will help you make choices in all aspects of your life, from buying a house to landing a job to exceling at the job.
Elements of information literacy
- Understand what information you need in addressing the problem at hand.
- Know from where to get the information you need.
- Be careful about the sources you follow and take information from.
- Be thorough in your research.
- Verify the information you have received against any other reputable sites or sources.
- Draw information from multiple sources. There is much information available, and they may be available in forms you have not used before.
- Know the reputed journals in your industry so that you have access to verified and accurate/scientific information when you need it.
- Once you have the information, in most cases you will have to share it with others in some form or the other. You can carefully write it up or showcase it visually, or in the case of recipes, even cook it!
- If you are using any information created by someone else, always remember to add a reference to it in your work. Plagiarism is not acceptable and is heavily penalized in any industry or institute.
You should invest some time (and maybe some money) in learning and becoming familiar with the technology available so that you can benefit and thrive.
