We all know the young girl with short dark hair, pink shirt, orange shorts, and a purple backpack who explores with her partner in crime,Boots, as Dora the Explorer. And I think that I am pretty similar to her in various ways as I am exploring my sources. Two major components I do my best to locate in all my sources are:
- Territory
- Gap
Territory
The territory of the source is the context that the author establishes for his or her research, providing necessary background on the topic. I locate the author’s territory by locating the central claim, topic generalizations, and references of previous items of research made by the author.
An example of locating the territory is in a scholarly article that performs a study that analyzes undergraduates understanding of fourteen commonly used information-literacy terms: citation, bibliography, keyword, full text, abstract, database, peer review, journal, catalog, open access, subject heading, scholarly, source, and stacks. The results of the study revealed that some of the terms least understood by students are those most frequently found in faculty-created research assignments, syllabi, and used during library instructions. Therefore, I can conclude that the territory is that some of the students who do not understand the terms being used when they are being taught how to use/find sources have great difficulty when they actually have to find the sources on their own.
GAP
On the other hand, the gap of the source refers to the aspect of an article that the article that the author fails to address all the existing issues sufficiently. Typically, I indicate the gap of information after I read the information presented, and still have questions or am left wondering about specific piece of information.
An example of locating a gap in the same article that I found the territory in is, what about the students who do understand the literacy terms presented to them? Do they still have issues when researching? If they do, why is that?