Union’s librarians will be hosting three workshops titled “Getting a Grip” on different study techniques in the next few months. Anna Poore, technical services librarian, is hosting the first workshop on Wednesday, Feb. 15 and another on Feb. 16. The workshop will be on writing a literature review.
Students who attend will be taught how to do a literature review, from writing techniques to research skills. Students are encouraged to start on the literature reviews they are working on at the workshop. “
“The literature review workshop will help you to better understand how and why to do a literature review and you will get the opportunity to get started,” Poore said.
Anna Poore knows research. You can hear it in her voice. She is a quick and precise speaker, communicating with friendly efficiency. As Union’s technical services librarian, she is immersed in research methods.
When Union released their strategic plan in 2016, one of the seven major steps was “supporting meaningful research among faculty and students,” clarified to include the mandate to “Increase research opportunities for students” and “Celebrate and publicize meaningful research activities among faculty and students” according to Union’s website.
Poore, Public Services Librarian Savannah Patterson and Director of Library Services and Public Services Librarian Melissa Moore, saw this point of the strategic plan and, like members of every department, decided that they wanted to see what they could do to help accomplish it.
“We each decided to take one workshop that was something that students needed to learn,” Poore said. “A lot of people, especially grad students, don’t have the skills to be efficient researchers.”
Creating a series of seminars to help students better research caused all three to reflect on what skills would be useful for students looking to improve their research work. Poore, who earned a masters in Intercultural studies while working full time as librarian at Union, is well acquainted with the demands placed on researchers. She decided to run a seminar on writing a literature review.
Preparing for this seminar required the very skills that she plans to teach to students. Poore examined other libraries with similar workshops, compared their methods, and used the library books on writing lit reviews and recalled what was difficult in her lit review writing process to finally write her own curriculum for the seminar.
Four graduate school students have already signed up, but Poore is hoping for more.
She encourages students who are looking at writing capstones or similar theses to sign up. Any major research work requires a good lit review, and she knows how to help you get just that.
The workshops will be held at various times during the semester, but the lit review workshops headed by Poore will be held on Feb. 15 and 16 from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Large Instruction Lab, room 131 of the Logos library.
Poore was careful not to schedule the workshop on Valentine’s Day.
“Who wants to go to a library workshop on Valentine’s Day?” she said.
