SYNTHESIS

To be honest this topic I didn't cover during lectures, because I couldn't attend the classes at that time. However, I tried my best to do a self-study and cover this topic by my own.
I understood that synthesis is the process of piecing information from a text together with background knowledge to formulate new thinking around a topic. As a readers synthesize, they:

• Add to their already existing stores of knowledge
• Reinforce what they already know
• Merge new information with pre-existing knowledge to gain deeper insight, new perspective or a new line of thinking about the topic being studied    

Synthesis might be demonstrated in a number of ways including: new empathy for characters in book, new perspective on situation presented in text, new ideas about topic being discussed.
Synthesis is the ultimate goal of reading because it is what shapes and changes people's thinking making reading a transformative experience.   

Also, synthesis is like collecting the puzzle, I like it because you do it by your own, the system is good, define the idea or problem and then access to the information and finally you evaluate all your job and process. Overall, this topic might help me to be more developed in evaluating and defining skills. I can become more experienced in synthesizing the information and other sources. Even I didn't got this topic well, I think that it is very important to student to know about it. 

CITATION

I remember, during my mid-semester test, my lecturer Ms Khairunisha said that, citation is the most important part in documentation and also she said that citation is very easy to remember and do. For me, in the beginning when we started learning this topic, its seen very complicated and difficult. Especially, there is many types on each field, such as bibliography, for magazines, journals and books we have to use different strategies of doing the citation. However, later on I became quite familiar with it and I learn deeper and I understood the topic quite well.

First of all, I understood what does citation mean. It is when you use a citation you are giving credit to an author whose work you used in some way. For instance, let's say you are researching Charles Dickens. You use a book called Charles Dickens's childhood by an author named Edward Cullen. By making a citation and citing Cullen in the paper, you are giving him credit and letting the reader know that the idea isn't yours.   

Mostly we learnt and used APA Style (American Psychological Association). This style provides guidelines for publication.
To do reference list by APA Style, we need to follow certain regulations, as I posted the picture at the right side.

We were taught by our lecturers about how to do a citation and reference lists. There are many things to remember. For example, I was taught how to cite the authors names, for American names we need to put first name in the beginning, however for Muslim, Chinese or Malaysian names we have to write as it shown in Identification card. Then we learnt about rules for titles, how to cite the year, documentation and also the signs that we have to use, such as: . ,  :  (  ) et al &.

This is the main format of APA Citation Format. 

Author. (Year). Title. Place of publication. Publisher.

    
Overall, I understood this topic very well, because we did many activities during the lectures. Moreover, during the tutorial classes we have done some activities as well. During the preparation to the mid-session exam, I revised and looked at this topic very carefully, that is why I am already familiar with this topic. I think that citation will be very useful for me in the future, as it world wide documentation format.

SEARCHING STRATEGIES

This topic was one of the useful parts in my Information Literacy learning for this trimester, on Monday few weeks ago, early in the morning I attended my class and there we learnt about searching strategies/tools. Mostly I got knowledge about why we need search the information. First of all, if I plan my search before I start, I will have a much better chance of finding information that is useful for my assignment and also if I will choose my search term carefully, I won't waste my time in looking for irrelevant information.

The first searching strategy that I have been taught by my lecturers is - boolean searching. Boolean searching allows me to group words together in an electronic database or environment such as the world wide web to receive a number of different types of results.

Boolean operators searching the information by using some criteria's such as AND, OR & NOT. It helps to searcher easily find certain info. I remember in first trimester I studied Statistics and there we covered topic such as "probability", here in boolean strategy is almost same with probability theory. In right side I attached the picture of boolean search strategy. Overall, this type of searching source helps me to easily find my useful and certain info.

The second strategy that I have been taught are truncation and wildcards. I learnt that truncation strategy expands the search to locate all words beginning with the same root. For instance, type educat* to find educator, educated and education. However, wildcards searching the information based on three symbols, which helps to find your information. Symbols are - asterisk (*), question mark (?), or pound sign (#). They replaces one or more letters in a word. For instance, type wom?n to find documents containing the word woman, women and womyn. 

Overall, these searching strategies is very useful in our life, especially in students life. I appreciate this topic and these strategies because it is really reliable and useful thing.

STRUCTURE OF INFORMATION FORMATS

Actually, structures of information formats we face everyday in our life, I have been using these structures but I hadn't know exactly what is that, formats, I have never heard about primary or secondary sources and so on. In this part of Information technology studies we learned about the structure of information formats. There are two main formats, such as primary and secondary sources. 

A primary source is an original object or document, mostly people call it first-hand information. My lecturer said that primary source is material written or produced in the time period that you may be investigating. Here is some examples of primary sources: diaries, letters, memoirs, journals, historical documents and so on.

hand-written letter, primary source

certificate of marriage, primary source

A secondary source is something written about a primary source. Secondary sources are written "after the fact", after the event happened. As I mentioned that primary source is first-hand material, however secondary source is the "second-hand" material. Usually secondary sources are in the form of published works, such as, journal articles, books or radio/TV documentaries. For instance, biography, this source is when you write about another person's life. I wrote about Abraham Lincoln's life. This is the secondary source, because I am writing about him after he died.

World History, secondary source

Encyclopedia, secondary source

Overall, both these structures of information are explained me that there are main two structures, such as primary and secondary. Next time I will be familiar with the sources of information, I would be able to differentiate original documents with changed or edited one. This topic was very cognitive and useful foe me. 

INFORMATION LITERACY AND BIG 6 PROCESS

As I am studying Information Literacy for this trimester, my first topic that we covered in my first lecture was - Information Literacy. What is Information Literacy, why we need it, when and where, so many questions I had before we learnt it. Later when I learnt, I understood that IL is research, searching information and information problem solving. Research is the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions. I also got that information problem solving is interesting and long process. For instance, if I want to solve the problem with information, find the solution and present it, firstly, I need to identify the problem, scope, plan how to solve it, gather with people and solve it, then manage my skills and so on, evaluate my solution and then present it.   

Moreover I learnt about Information literacy models. They are Big 6, Mc Kenzie Research Cycle, Alberta model, Pitts Research model, Seven Pillars model and Action Learning model. But as we started late our studies, we studied deeply only Big 6 process. Big 6 process is a six-stage process which helps anyone to solve problems or make a decisions by using information. 

Below I posted Big 6 process. I learnt that, first step of Big 6 is task definition, for me to define the task, I have to define the problem and identify the info requirements. Second step is information seeking strategies, here we need determine and prioritize the sources. Third step is location=access, here I need locate the source and select the information. Fourth step is usage of information, is where ever and whenever you can get info, that information's that you can hear, touch, see, feel and that info's which you can extract. Fifth step is - synthesis. This is the organization and presentation of your info. Last but not least step is - evaluation.

Overall, these topics were good introduction for me into this subject, I was quite interested during the classes, and surely I was interested in the topics, because these topics gave me new knowledge and experience in my life journey.

WELCOME TO MY BLOG

Assalamu Aleikum,my name is Chika! I am from Kyrgyzstan and I am 19. I came to Malaysia in January, 2012. I am studying in AIU and in August,2012 I successfully finished my IEP studies and now I am doing my Foundation Studies!

As a person, I know myself well but I couldn't describe myself fully, I think others see in me more than I do. As being said: "onlooker sees most of the game".

During my life I was interested in a lot of activities. I can say that I am various person. I like sport, travelling, music, humor and information technology as well. So, when I first time arrived to AIU, I decided to choose IT department, however for my last two semesters I did my two courses in this field, they are Introduction to Computer and Internet & Information Technology (IT) and I understood that Information Technology is not easy as it seems, it is not only computers, software, games and so on. I understood that IT subjects needs hard-working and desire. So, now I am not sure which department am I going to choose in my Degree Studies. The time will show us, Inshallah...

I am going to finish my Foundations Studies in this August, I already completed two semesters and this is the last one. For this trimester, I chose Information Literacy and I was enthusiastic to attend my classes, however at the beginning of this trimester we hadn't classes as a lecturer was not working here anymore. So, until week 5 or 6 we hadn't classes, later my beloved lecturers Ms Nur Khairunisha and Mr Azamuddin started to teach us. 

Overall, I enjoyed my classes and lectures. It was quite interesting that two different lecturers teaching us, however it was awesome. I got good knowledge in this field, about citations, information searching tools and so on. In my blog, I am gonna share with you with my experience, knowledge that I got in this trimester from this subject. Enjoy your reading.