Reviews of Research Strategies: Finding your Way through the Information Fog

ACRL Textbooks for Students:

Badke walks the novice researcher through each stage of the information seeking process – from crafting a good research question and designing a search to selecting and using appropriate resources. Badke manages to gently contextualize the information environment, revealing complexities to the reader without being tedious or tiresome. By alerting students to the “fog,” he is able to make trickier concepts (controlled vocabularies, Boolean searching) more relevant. Instructors will find that Research Strategies is a perfect complement to their teaching as each of the ten chapters is well organized, divided into labeled sections, and ends with thoughtful comprehension questions. Includes appendices.
-- Meagan Lacy, February 2011 - http://www.ala.org/acrl/aboutacrl/directoryofleadership/sections/is/iswebsite/projpubs/textbooksstudents

 

City Tech (New York City College of Technology), CUNY:

Research Strategies: Finding Your Way Through the Information Fog...is a research skills and information literacy textbook written by William Badke, Associate Librarian at Trinity Western University and information literacy expert. Library faculty at City Tech use it as the sole textbook for the course LIB1201: Research and Documentation for the Information Age... The book is terrific: it’s written in accessible language for all levels of undergraduate students and includes both practical, skills-based instruction as well as discussion of the nuanced, critical thinking components of information production and use.
Maura A. Smale, an Associate Professor and Head of Library Instruction at City Tech, October 2013 - http://oercuny.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2013/10/07/research-skills-and-information-literacy-textbook/

 

Elrod, R. E., Wallace, E. D., & Sirigos, C. B. (2012). Teaching Information Literacy: A Review of 100 Syllabi. The Southeastern Librarian, 60(3), 4, found that, of 27 syllabi that used a textbook, Research Strategies was the choice of 15. No other textbook was found on more than 3 syllabi.

Cowan, S. M. (2014). Information Literacy: The Battle We Won That We Lost? portal: Libraries and the Academy, 14(1), 23-32. https://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/portal_libraries_and_the_academy/portal_pre_print/current/articles/14.1cowan.pdf

“William Badke has been prolific in his writings in the past twenty or more years. Almost any of his writings are exemplary of his persuasive and often eloquent articulation of, and sometimes defense of, information literacy. Seminal, perhaps, is his early book The Survivor’s Guide to Library Research (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1990) and the follow-up, available in many editions, Research Strategies: Finding Your Way Through the Information Fog...”

 

Reviews from Students:

“Research Strategies is a relatively short book with a dynamic power.  I found within the pages of Badke’s writing insight and illumination as to how to do the art of academic research.  I was awakened to my ignorance in relation to the art and practice of adequate research.  I had no strategy.  I was challenged to ask and then seek to answer a probing question, over just regurgitating information back to the professor, subsequently boring them to death.  This book was a very systematic, nearly surgical, read.”

“I have to admit something… I really wanted to dislike William Badke’s book, Research Strategies; Finding Your Way through the Information Fog. It had been 18 years since I had written a research paper and somehow a book was little solace for the daunting task I was about to face, beginning a master’s program. However, I was very pleased with Badke’s ability to take a great deal of information and put it into a format that is accessible and understandable.”

“Through easy to understand, concise, and often-humorous language: William Badke’s narrative tone captures attention as if the reader was sitting in one of his lectures. This aids the reader in approaching the subject of Research Strategies with optimism, as one may find themselves lost in the vast digital playground of the World Wide Web (WWW), and all it is comprised of.”

"I’m so glad that William Badke uses humor and down to earth language to explain everything."

"In Research Strategies I really liked William Badke’s tonality and the way that his book is written. It really pulled me into the text." 

“Overall I found the book to be extremely helpful and would recommend it to anyone struggling to research or write a university level paper.”

“I would highly recommend this book to any undergraduate or graduate students who have trouble writing research papers.”

“If only there had been a textbook like this when I first started my university career – it would have saved me endless frustration and many unsatisfactory grades on research papers, including a thesis. I had little to no idea how to formulate a solid research question, and no one to walk me through the process. On top of that, learning how to use the university library’s databases was an exercise in trial and error at best. Thus this textbook is a bit of a revelation to me, even after many years at university!”

“Though a book on this topic may at first appear mundane, the language and humour used keep the reader engaged, if not instilling a sense of excitement in the process.  It helps to take away the fear factor in research and paper writing by offering very practical advice and information.  It brings the grand notion of research and paper writing into everyday possibilities and gives students a sense of confidence that maybe, just maybe they can pull this whole thing off.  This is one of those books that will stay in my own personal library because of the useful information that I will need to return to again and again.”

“Research Strategies is one of those rare books you could, without condition or regret, recommend to all your friends.”