Skunk Ape Tutorial Review

After completing the library tutorial, I learned some new skills that I will use that I never knew existed before. Such as, the online FGCU library has so many choices to choose from when wanting to research a topic. I can choose from an encyclopedia, or a magazine, or a journal. The online library website has several tabs to click on in order to get information from a form of academic writing. I knew what an encyclopedia is used for but I did not know I could use a magazine or scholarly journal in my sources of information. I think I need to know where to start when performing basic research but since I am at a university; I can always start with the online library and then search the regular web.

Three things that I did not know when I started the tutorial are: how to use the different data bases FGCU online library had to choose from, what kind of magazines were academic and could be used in research papers while others were just for fun reading, and how to find information in a newspaper, where there are not as many words but still useful information. Another thing that I did not know before the library tutorial was how to use the words and/or when searching a longer topic. To find more information on the topic I should use or, and when I want to get really specific with my topic I should use and. That really helps me because when I would research topics in the past on Google I would never get exactly what I wanted because I always entered in long topics and used the word and a lot.

Three things that I already know that were explained in the tutorial are; how to cite my sources properly, how not to plagiarize, and how to find background information on my topic in order to get more acquainted with it. I always knew the definition of plagiarism because it is something that has always been taught and stressed by all of my teachers since sixth grade. I also know how to cite my sources because I have had many strict teachers that would give a paper back if it had one little mistake on the works cited page, then the student would have until the end of the day to fix it and turn the paper back in.

Overall, I think the tutorial was a good thing for the class and I to do, but there were too many five minute or more videos. I think the tutorial would have been better if there were not as many questions as well at the end of each section. I think ten questions would have worked fine instead of twenty or more. The tutorial could have also put section one and two together because they went hand in hand almost. Putting them together would take out the unwanted information or should I say repetitive information. If the tutorial changes those few things, I think students would take more time on it and actually read all of the sections.