Practice using various library resources, online databases, and the Internet to locate sources appropriate to your writing projects.

In my experience, there tend to be two kinds of people with regards to Course Learning Outcome #7. Either students are clueless with utilizing different resources to find information, or they are experts at such a skill.

Luckily in this course, we have largely choose the topics for our projects. Therefore, most students have automatically lumped themselves into the first category. This is because if a student chooses as topic they gravitate towards, then they usually know where to find the proper sources.

For example, one of the assignments this semester was a technical description. In this assignment I choose to elaborate on the tail and rudder mechanisms of a Cessna Skyhawk. I am very passionate on aviation. Therefore, finding my sources was very easy. If I had choose ballerinas, or printers, I would have checked myself into the second category.

I am very well connected to other aviation nuts, whether it be pilots, mechanics, or museums.

With regards to my technical description project, I asked a pilot colleague of mine on where I could find the schematics for the Cessna Skyhawk. He kindly sent me this pdf:

This is an owners manual for the Cessna Skyhawk. Complete with schematics and everything.

While I am very happy to have had the ability to conduct research on topics I am passionate about, this Course Learning Outcome has been fulfilled with regards to unfamiliar topics.

I personally believe that expecting people to conduct extensive research on topics outside their realm is unnecessary. Work in companies happens in spheres of highly specific knowledge. In the situation that I need to learn about or find sources for a unfamiliar topic, then I turn to colleagues who can help.