Creating cross-collaboration for integrating discipline-specific information literacy and genre knowledge

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p>Simmons (2005) has suggested that genre theory is one way that librarians and educators can highlight the social nature of discourses and the disciplinary ways of communicating. Writing Instructors and Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) and Writing in the Disciplines (WID) practitioners know that one danger of teaching decontextualized skills and practices, students may think they are learning THE academic discourse instead of ONE academic discourse.This same principle applies to teaching undergraduate students to become proficient in research skills. This goes beyond simply showing students journals related to their specific disciplines.

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Liberal arts institutions are known for helping students achieve critical thinking skills and a broad understanding of a student’s world, however, these goals often conflict with students entering specific disciplines outside the humanities such as Engineering. Librarians and Writing Instructors can work together to find ways to collaborate to help students understand more carefully the expectations of research and writing within their own disciplines.