I sure did not expect this coming into college. A third if our writing classes would be in the library, not out regular classroom? Isn’t the library a place to borrow books (not many students even do this anymore) and study until 2 AM? Apparently not.

Our “Award-Winning” Library, also known as the Learning Commons.

We had multiple classes in media labs in the library, with a specific educational librarian teaching us specific skills for academic writing. Most notable was how to find sources. Yes, you might think. “go to google and look up whatever you need!” That might work if you are really lucky, but it is rarely that easy.

In academic writing, professors often ask for citations from “academic sources” or “peer-reviewed articles.” These are articles which are published in academic journals of all kinds, but often these do not circulate in public. Why? Because you need to pay to access these journals. As a university, the library is the one place that has purchased all of data bases which contain these subscriptions, meaning a search through the library website is necessary to get through the pay wall.

These databases aren’t that easy to use at they seem either. You need to know specific techniques such as using “” marks for terms you want to see exactly matched, the difference between AND/OR, and truncating words using * for maximum results.

I did not know that I would be taking classes in the library, but even more important, I did not know that I would learn so much about skills for writing! Some of the simplest process often are the most overlooked, and I ma so glad that I was forced to start by learning the basics again.