The most useful thing that I learned within this module is the difference between search and research. Before this lesson, I would often describe the two interchangeably in conversation and in schoolwork. However, from this lesson, I have now learned to describe the two as two separate things. Research refers to critically analyzing multiple sources of information for various purposes, whereas searching just refers only to gathering information for a particular reason. Furthermore, research is often conducted to attempt to answer one research question or multiple research questions even when there might not be a specific answer. In contrast, searching often results in a direct and concrete answer.
A specific example of something that I have put into practice from this module relates to the three measures of source credibility: reliability, quality, and utility. For every class I’ve taken in college (and a few classes in high school) where I’ve had to conduct research for papers and other assignments, I have used these three criteria to assess whether or not a source is credible enough to use. The most recent example of me doing this was for a research paper that I had to write for my Auditing course (AMIS 4500). I had to assess sources’ reliability, quality, and utility to determine if they were able to be used.