Any time you do research, you are joining a scholarly conversation. Scholarly conversation is all of the existing publications, conferences, online discussions, and other discourse surrounding a particular topic. Most often when we talk about scholarly conversation, we’re referring to published materials like books, essay collections, or journal articles. The goal of scholarly conversation is to advance the world's collective knowledge about a subject.
For whatever topic you’re researching, there is already a scholarly conversation going on about that topic. Your job as a beginning researcher is to enter into that conversation by doing research to find out what the scholars are saying. As you eventually become more advanced in your studies, you will lend your own voice to the scholarly conversation by crafting your own arguments and creating your own data.
For now, focus on getting information from a variety of different people in the scholarly conversation about your topic, and on properly citing all of the people and sources you’re learning from.
Information Literacy 101 Scholarship as Conversation Assignment
The letters attached below represent a scholarly conversation. Read them, then think about, discuss with your group, or write a short essay to answer the questions.
