Author Contact Information
- Mary C. ThillMary Thill is the Humanities Librarian and Reference Coordinator at the Ronald Williams Library, and a Professor on the library faculty, at Northeastern Illinois University.
- Frank LambertFrank Lambert is the Program Coordinator for the Master in Library Science degree program, and an Associate Professor in the College of Education, at Middle Tennessee State University.
- James W. RosenzweigJames Rosenzweig is the Education & Children's Studies Librarian at the John F. Kennedy Library, and a Professor on the library faculty, at Eastern Washington University.
CC BY-NC-SA
Many of the materials shared in this guide are released under the CC BY-NC-SA License, meaning:
- Reusing/editing/transforming these materials is fine--even encouraged!
- You can use this work for non-commercial purposes only.
- You must credit the authors.
- You must share your materials under the same license.
We hope to build a community of practice around The WHY Method, in which librarians and educators share resources and approaches very freely. If you create documents of your own based on The WHY Method that you'd like to share, we hope you'll contact us so that they can be added to this guide!
Middle School Materials
- The WHY Method (for middle school students)A handout on our source evaluation approach -- "The WHY Method" -- that's suitable for distribution in the middle school classroom. It's free to reuse (it's released under the CC BY-NC-SA license) and we hope you find it helpful!
- The WHY Method (for middle school students, editable)Here's a Microsoft Word version of our introductory handout, which you may customize to suit your population.
- Who wrote this? (for middle school students)This is a simple handout designed to lead middle school students into a discussion of the first of the three questions in The WHY Method: Who wrote this? As with all our handouts and assignments here, it's released using Creative Commons, and you're encouraged to adapt it as much or as little as you like for use with your students.
- How was this edited? (for middle school students)This is a simple handout designed to lead middle school students into a discussion of the second of the three questions in The WHY Method: How was this edited? As with all our handouts and assignments here, it's released using Creative Commons, and you're encouraged to adapt it as much or as little as you like for use with your students.
- whY was this published? (for middle school students)This is a simple handout designed to lead middle school students into a discussion of the last of the three questions in The WHY Method: whY was this published? As with all our handouts and assignments here, it's released using Creative Commons, and you're encouraged to adapt it as much or as little as you like for use with your students.
High School/College Materials
- The WHY Method (for high school and college students)A handout on our source evaluation approach -- "The WHY Method" -- that's suitable for distribution in the high school or college classroom. It's free to reuse (it's released under the CC BY-NC-SA license).
- Example Discussion/Worksheet handout (for high school and college students)An example of how to teach high school or first-year college students using The WHY Method that doesn't require access to computers/the Internet for research. This assignment focuses on the "W" in WHY, but similar assignments could target the other two elements in understanding source authority. It's free to reuse (it's released under the CC BY-NC-SA license).
- Example Google Form Assignment (for high school and college students)An example assignment using the taxonomy in Google Form format, suitable for high school or college students.
- Know Your Sources Checklist handoutThis is a copy, released under the CC BY-NC-SA license, of the handout distributed at our presentation at ALA Annual 2019 and revised in 2022 to reflect updated WHY Method category language.
Use of The WHY Method by Other Librarians and Instructors
The WHY Method is being used by librarians and instructors in both K-12 and college/university settings -- we are excited by the approaches we've heard about, and want to share those approaches here. If you use The WHY Method with students in any way, and would like to share materials with the wider community here, we'd love to include your work (and credit you!) -- please contact any of us if you have something to share.
- Evaluating Resources (Northern Illinois University)Kimberly Shotick shared this video recording with us from NIU Libraries: it's a brief, clear description of how to employ The WHY Method in evaluating sources, and it's designed for an intended audience of first-year college students at NIU.