A well-designed library assignment is an excellent teaching tool for building your students' critical thinking and research skills. They should accomplish two things: increased understanding of the process of finding and evaluating information and increased knowledge of a subject. The librarians at Skyline College Library are happy to help you develop library assignments that will support your teaching goals. We can also do research workshops for your classes. (Complete the Research Workshop Request Form to schedule a research workshop.)

For some quick tips on designing effective library assignments, you may be interested in the following Web sites:

• ”Effective Research Assignments” (UC Berkeley)
• "Designing Assignments” (University of Washington)
• "Designing assignments to develop information literacy skills" (Drew University)
• "Alternatives to Term Papers" (Lawrence University)
  Identifying and evaluating appropriate information sources

• "Evaluating Information from Webpages" (Skyline College Library)
• "Critically Analyzing Information Sources" (Cornell University Library)  

Guidelines on creating annotated bibliographies

• "Annotated Bibliographies" (Purdue OWL)
• "How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography" (Cornell University Library)

Documentation Styles

• Citing Sources (Skyline College Library)