By Matt Bisanz

Almost every class I take in some way requires me to do research. Whether it is for a group project or a term paper, every class requires us to find some information. But when did they ever teach us how to find information? A professor might mention a journal name or computer database, but what about those nice generic projects that go something along the line of “select a topic relating to the class and write a paper about it.” We’ve all had classes like that and it usually ends with us selecting whatever was on the board at the time the professor mentioned the project.

I took a class on research in high school. It greatly helped my writing style then and I still use the resources from that class in my college writing because I have nothing better to work off of. Recently, one of my management professors gave me an article he was writing on how to research things relating to his hobbies. It was a rather complete article discussing all the ways to find things on his specific hobby. I realized that a class that taught these skills would be great for finding out how to research various topics for any of my classes.

Well, after doing some research I found out the University does offer a course on that, it’s called Introduction to Technology and Information Literacy. It’s a one credit class offered each fall and from what I understand its all about how to do research for a variety of different types of classes. The only problem is that this class isn’t a required class. Most people would never think to look under the bizarre heading of LIBR in the course catalog; and if they did, they would probably assume it to be one of those graduate workshop classes.

An oft heard gripe on campus is that it is almost impossible to graduate in four years from this University because of the lack of classes or the number of credits required to graduate. If this course was mandated and offered in plentiful sections it would ease the burden of trying to find 124 credits of class when the average student might only take, say, 122 in four years of classes. From what I have heard other colleges in New York are mandating this class for freshman as a way to introduce them to the university style of writing. I know if I had had a class like this as a freshman it would have made my transition much easier.