Things you can create as part of your deep dive

When you do a deep dive for a hobby, you likely save links to resources you want to visit again. You might take screenshots or notes or share social media posts. These are great strategies for personal deep dives. As deep dives get more serious, for example, about a health condition or major life decision, you may want to keep things in a more formal way so that you can easily find those resources again. In an academic deep dive, you will need to have evidence of your deep dive- not just the outcome of it. The evidence of your deep dive will vary based on the type of deep dive you are doing. In college, your deep dive will likely need:

• a list of potential sources
• notes on the readings you did
• a formal source list of the sources you chose to use
• a presentation

You can be asked to present these by the faculty to show your process. It’s often not enough to have “just” the final presentation (or paper). Your instructors can ask to see evidence of your deep dive. Be sure to keep

Remember: in academic work, the process you use, the thinking you do, and the decisions you make are as important as the final product you hand in

Potential Sources List

You’ll want to keep a list of potential sources. Potential sources are ones that you looked at and could be useful for your project. You might keep these as a list in a document.

Consider keeping track of:

• title of the source
• link to the source
• what the source is
• what the source contains (very brief summary)
• your rating of usefulness of the source.
  For example, you might say “not very useful” or “very useful”) as you want to keep track of everything you considered and read. This can prevent you for searching for something you read but discarded.

These are your working notes and you should create them for every project you do, regardless of what your instructor tells you to do! The format for these should be something useful to you and that makes sense to you.

Notes on the readings

For every source you read, you should take notes. You might decide quickly to disregard sources as you begin reading. In that case, make a note of that! This will keep you from spending time revising something you already disregarded.

For notes, consider keeping track of:

• Title
• Author
• Link
• Citation entry (APA format)
• Summary
• Key takeaways (specific things, like statistics, you want to have ready for your work)
• Connection to your project (what you think will be helpful to you)
• Things you are curious about or want to confirm (for example, new ideas you have, things that do not match with what you thought before reading etc)
• How it connects to other readings (if you notice something that is similar to another article or different, note it!)

Formal Source list

An instructor may ask you to create a formal source list of the sources you used in a project, paper, or presentation. There are many ways to create a formal source list, including an annotated bibliography (see below). For that reason, you should listen to what your instructor asks for. If they do not give you a specific format, you will want to create one to use.

For a formal list, you want to have the following information:

• Source title
• Date you chose it
• Author(s) name(s)
• URL link (remember, permalink or shared link in library resources)
• APA citation
• Summary paragraph describing what the source is, its purpose, and what it contains along with any major takeaways
• Connection paragraph describing how it was useful to your project

Ideas for presenting a formal source list

• You might create a formal source list with a table (with one row per source, with each of the items above as your column headings).
• You could create a written entry for each item, starting with the identification information (title, date, authors, link, citation) followed by paragraphs
• You also might consider creating a written document with the identification information, and then a video of you talking about the summary and connection for the source

Remember to refer to your instructor’s instructions on how to present your sources!

Presentation

In your personal life, you use your knowledge from a deep dive when you share information casually, make a formal decision, or take action. In an academic deep dive, you’ll be expected to present your findings in either a presentation or paper (or both). Presenting your deep dive is how you make your thinking and process visible to your instructor and other students. It is not just about the outcome; an academic deep dive is also about the process you used throughout.

It is very important that you refer to your instructor’s instructions on how to present your deep dive!