Lesson 3: INFORMATION LITERACY

 A set of individual competencies needed to identify, evaluate and use information in the most
ethical, efficient, and effective way across all domains, occupations, and professions
 A set of skills requiring people to recognize when information is needed and to access,
locate, evaluate, effectively use and communicate information in its various formats.

DEFINING INFORMATION

 When data has been collected, processed, and interpreted to be presented in a useable
form it became information.
 A broad term that can cover processed data, knowledge derived from study, experience,
instruction, signals, or symbols.
 In media world, it is often used to describe a knowledge of specific events or situations that
have been gathered or received by communication, intelligence, or news reports.

ELEMENTS OF INFORMATION

 Identifying/recognizing information needs

 Identifying is all about recognizing the need for information. Once you fully identify
what you need to find out, you will definitely recognize the things you should do.
 Determining sources of information
 It is important to look for reliable sources in finding for something. Without this, others
may question the validity of your information. You should evaluate each source to
determine the quality of the information provided within it.
 Types of Sources
 PRIMARY SOURCES are original materials on which other research is based,
including original written works. Ex. poems, diaries, court records, interviews,
surveys, and original research/fieldwork, and research published in
scholarly/academic journals
 SECONDARY SOURCES are those that describe or analyze primary sources.
Ex. Analyses, interpretations, or descriptions of events or topics taken from
firsthand accounts, References materials (review of research works, biography,
newspaper)
 TERTIARY SOURCES are collections of primary and secondary sources. It
gives an overview of information gathered from primary and secondary sources.
Ex. Indices, Abstracts and Databases
 Searching and citing the information
 Since you already knew what information is needed, proceed with searching the
information and don’t forget to cite or write the sources of information
 Citing a source means showing you took words, ideas, figures, images, etc. from
another place and acknowledging the source of the information.
 Analyzing and evaluating the quality of information
 After finding the information, you should analyze or evaluate its quality.
 Evaluating information encourages you to think critically about the reliability, validity,
accuracy, authority, timeliness, point of view of the information.
 Organizing, storing, or archiving information
 The information you have gathered must be properly organized and stored for future
use. Archiving is the process of moving files that are no longer actively used to a
separate storage device.
 Using the information in an ethical, efficient, and effective way
 Ethical use of information means using information properly to avoid plagiarism and
copyright infringement. It is important to give credit where credit is due and use other
people's work correctly.
  Creating and communicating new knowledge
 You shouldn’t copy the works of other people. You may get an idea out of it then
make and justify your own point. Communicate it well so there will be no downsides.
 Knowing when to stop information search
 If you are satisfied enough of what information you have, you should stop searching.
There are times that if you continued searching, there will be an information overload
and it will be difficult to evaluate the information

ADDITIONAL SKILLS REQUIRED TO BE AN INFORMATION LITERATE PERSON

 Finds resources
 Uses the information ethically and responsibly
 Communicate one’s information
 Manages information
 Examines results

ETHICAL USE OF INFORMATION

 Plagiarism
 It is using other people’s words and ideas without clearly
acknowledging the source of the information.
 Common Knowledge
 These are the facts that can be found in numerous places and are likely to be widely
known.
 Example: The current president of the Republic of the Philippines is Pres. Ferdinand
Marcos Jr.
 Interpretation
 These are the statements that are not generally known or ideas that interpret facts.
 Example: The best place in whole country is Quezon Province.
 Quotation
 It is using someone’s words directly, placing the passage between quotation marks.
 Example: According to John Smith in The New York Times, “37% of all children under
the age of 10 live below the poverty line”.
 Paraphrase
 It is using someone’s ideas, but rephrasing them in your own words. Although you will
use your own words to paraphrase, you must still acknowledge and cite the source of
the information.

GUIDELINES ON THE ETHICAL USE OF INFORMATION

 Respect the author’s intentions
 Do not change the author’s main idea
 Do not ignore information that conflicts with your thesis
 Context matters

TYPES OF CITATIONS
 APA (American Psychological Association) – education and sciences
 It uses the author/date method of citation in which the author's last name and the
year of the publication are inserted in the actual text of the paper
 MLA (Modern Language Association) – liberal arts and humanities
 It uses brief parenthetical citations in the text that refer to an alphabetical list of works
cited appearing at the end of the work
 Chicago / Turabian – Business, History, and Fine Arts
 An "author-date" style, so the citation in the text consists of the author(s) name and year
of publication given wholly or partly in round brackets.
 It uses only the surname of the author(s) and the year of publication
Examples of Citation

 APA Style

 MLA Style

 Chicago/Turabian Style