By taking the tutorial, I learned the differences between primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. All of these sources can be useful, but have their advantages and disadvantages. Books, for example, offer an in depth analysis of a specific subject, and offer a bibliography to find other sources. However, sometimes the information can be dated. Newspapers, on the other hand, can be more up to date, but cover a wide range of topics with less detail. By learning these differences, I know which resources to focus on for my paper as of right now.
As a teaching advice, I thought it was helpful and up to date. It clarified some of the information that was given at the library. Specifically, I thought choosing the keywords was the most helpful. I will probably use this method when conducting my research. However, I think if the tutorial was more interactive it would have kept my attention a little more and helped me remember the different resources. If they provided more small tasks or activities to help with the research, it would be easier to use later on.
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Thanks for posting. One point I will discuss (when we next meet) is that the same item can be either a primary or secondary source, depending on how you use it. For example: if you are researching the privatization of colleges and universities, you would generally see an article in a popular magazine like Time or Newsweek on that topic as a popular, non-scholarly and secondary source. However, if you were researching the ways in which the media represent privatization -- or the ways they discuss college funding as though it were a purely private decision (between parent and child) rather than an issue with social implications -- then that same article in Time or Newsweek might be a primary source used in a very scholarly way.
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