Dylan Riess

Research Essay

Honor’s FYEX

The In-n-Out of Research Essays

We engage in research every single day. What colors work well together in our outfits,

what foods you need to eat at the university dining center, and the next best Netflix series

everybody is watching are all examples of simple types of research. When writing a research

paper, we still engage in research; however, this type of research involves a little more planning.

Through the Research Competency for the Honor’s Program at Minnesota State University,

Mankato, students learn about information literacy, information synthesis, and information

ethics, as well as where you can find scholarly sources and research. These aspects of the

Research Competency allow students to achieve amazing research in the easiest way possible.

When looking through information, many people have trouble finding the right

information for their project. The ability to find the correct information for a given scenario is

called information literacy. Information literacy can be defined as people who “know when they

have a need for information, [identify] information needed to address a given problem or issue,

[find] needed information, [evaluate] the information, [organize] the information, and [use] the

information effectively to address the problem or issue at hand” (Breivik). When people know

how to sift through the gargantuan amount of information on the Internet, it can save a lot of

time and energy. Information literacy is necessary as a member of a college or university,

because students need to be able to maximize the usable research they can get from a small

amount of time. Being literate in this subject helps create an efficient environment in which
productivity skyrockets. Unfortunately, many students, and people in general, have minimal or

nonexistent information literacy skills. This hinders their ability to get a project done in a timely

manner.

Once you find a large amount of information, you have to be able to sift out the best

information to use. This action can be described as selecting the most appropriate information

and writing in a style that best conveys your information (MNSU Library Services). This is

called information synthesis. While doing this, you must be able to figure out which information

will work best, as well as which sources are the most reliable. During one of my FYEX classes,

we learned about looking at scholarly articles, and how to make sure an article comes from a site

of a scholarly caliber. I found this information extremely helpful, as I’ve never looked at the site

a peer-reviewed article comes from. I always just through it was good enough being peer-

reviewed. I learned a couple of aspects of websites to look at and make sure I’m getting my

source from a good site. Using this, I’ll be able to further refine my synthesis of information, and

get better sites as I progress through my research in college.

With so much information at our fingertips, we have to be responsible with how we use

it. Research ethics includes following the university’s academic honesty policy, citing sources in

the correct format, and respecting intellectual property rights (MNSU Library Services). Many

people, being lazy, will copy a portion or the entirety of their essay from someone else and call it

their own. This is plagiarism, however, and highly unethical. Other forms of unethical research

behaviors include paying someone to write an essay for you and not citing the entire passage you

use from someone else. Not using research ethics brings an atmosphere of uncertainty upon the

professors. They won’t be sure if they’re grading their students’ work, or someone else’s. This is
why research ethics is so important. When combining information literacy and synthesis, we

must remember to include an ethical standpoint on our writing.

Before I came to college here at Minnesota State University, Mankato, I had taken 24

credits through dual enrollment at Southwest Minnesota State University. There, I took a couple

of writing classes, including Lit 120 and English 151. In each of these classes, I wrote several

essays, most of which included research. Through those essays, and using my school’s online

library system, I learned a lot of my baseline information literacy and synthesis that I’d like to

improve upon during my years here at Minnesota State Mankato. Through essays I’ll have to

write for my classes I’ll work on these principles and get better at each of them.

In-n-Out, a restaurant chain in California, Southern Oregon, and the Dallas area of Texas,

has a very important goal: to provide great service to guests in an efficient and speedy amount of

time. In this same way, all parts of the Research Competency for the Honor’s Program allow

students to have better research that takes a much smaller amount of time to achieve, I don’t

think anybody can disagree that that’s an amazing thing!