Thoughts as I get started...

To be honest, I am pretty excited about this assignment! I'm looking forward to blogging about my personal information inquiry experience. I consider myself a curious person and there are so many topics I want to learn more about, but I've never felt like I had the tools to do any systematic research. I have always been a big procrastinator for research assignments, overwhelmed with the possibilities. Hopefully, understanding my personal learning style will not only inspire me to pursue projects I'm interested in, but will also improve my ability to help others with their own information searches.

I will be using Carol Kuhlthau's Information Search Process (ISP) model during this inquiry. I like how her model describes the feelings, thoughts, and actions that accompany each step in the process. My feelings and moods have a lot of influence over my actions, so I think it will be important for me to notice how these change throughout my search. Confusion and vague, unclear thoughts have discouraged me in the past, but according to Kuhlthau this is a normal and expected part of information seeking that will change to confidence and focus by the end of the process. In fact it is this very gap that leads to information seeking and the opportunity to learn new things. In Plato's account of the Apology of Socrates, Socrates says:

When I left him, I reasoned thus with myself: I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know (6).

Kuhlthau, Carol. "Information Search Process." Rutgers University. Web.
Plato. Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates. Trans. Henry Cary, 1888. Project Gutenberg. Web.