Information Literacy

      The artifact I have chosen to represent my information literacy core skill is a proposal essay entitled “Putting an End to Childhood Sports Injuries" which I completed during my Writing/Research in the Disciplines (ENG-112) course in the 2022 spring semester. In this proposal, I wrote about techniques that could decrease the number of injuries in children’s sports. I have chosen this artifact because, in it, I talk about important and sometimes controversial topics ethically and effectively. This proposal also does a great job of portraying my ability to gather research ethically and responsively.   
     The instructions for this proposal were to choose an issue relevant to my area of study and produce a proposal that offered a solution to the problem. For this assignment, I decided to discuss childhood sports injuries because they related to my future at the time. During this period, I was considering pursuing either a career as a sports medicine physician or a pediatric doctor, so this topic fit well with my associate of science program and my interest. Additionally, this proposal was to be written in the format most commonly used in my area of study, which is science, and offer a variety of cited sources.
     My first goal for completing this artifact was to research topics in my area of study that related to my future career path. As I stated before, I chose the topic of childhood sports injuries because it allowed me to combine two of my potential career paths: pediatrics and sports medicine. My instructor required that we choose a topic relevant to our area of study, so this artifact provided an excellent opportunity for me to explore my career interests and determine if they were something I could see myself further studying. Additionally, researching my topic also allowed me to get experience in researching scientific issues and producing a paper based on the research I gathered.
     For my second goal, I wanted to learn how to use scholarly sources to support my arguments. To achieve this goal, one thing I had to do was learn how to locate scholarly articles. In the past, I often used my Chrome browser to find articles. This was important because, in the past, many of my papers were about pop culture topics, so I could be more informal with my sources. However, I realized that I had to use databases to find scholarly, credible sources. For example, when writing this proposal, I ensured that I used articles and information from databases like ProQuest and EBSCO. In doing this, I could elevate my writing because these sources had much more in-depth, well-studied, professional knowledge and facts. Completing this goal taught me the importance of using information and quotes that elevated my writing and added credibility to it.  
       The big takeaway from this artifact was that it allowed me to research my future career interest while also helping me develop my research-gathering skills. My experience developing this artifact was vital because it forced me to explore scientific and medical information literacy in a way I had never done before. Doing this has set me up for the future, where I will construct papers and projects similar to this repeatedly as I further my education. As I pursue a medical career, I can reflect on experiences like this to help direct me in researching and developing topics for my essay.