In class Blog October 31st

Books: Books give you a basic outline of information. They go into detail, but you may need more than one book to get all of the information you need. These are reliable sources for a paper because the author is an expert or has gotten expert opinions in that topic (most likely).

Blog Post: Depending on who’s writing the blog and what the topic is you, you can get different things from a blog post. It can either be strictly facts, strictly opinion or both. This can be good or bad for a research paper. If the post is accurate it can be a positive thing, if not it can harm the paper.

Scholarly Journal: You will find expert opinion or peer reviewed articles on your topic. You can find statistics, analysis of other papers or articles and actual facts on whatever you are studying. This is excellent for a research paper. Scholarly journals are almost always the best source for any academic paper or research.

Wikipedia: Wikipedia is a toss it. It can give you great background information to start, but anyone at any time can come in and change information. Though it does give dates, they may not be accurate. This is a terrible source for an academic paper. It gives you a place to start but the information could be tampered with and that is very dangerous.

Podcast: This is similar to the blog post. Depending who is on the air with the host can determine whether or not this is a good source for a paper. This can be based off opinion and not the facts. I would not recommend this for an academic research paper unless I knew the information was coming from a person with the credentials to speak on a specific topic that I was studying. 

Homework October 29th

What is an Annotated Bibliography?

An annotated bibliography is a summary of the sources (books, articles, journals, websites ect.) that a student used in their paper. There are three different things that an annotated bibliography should do according to the Purdue Online Writing lab; Summarize, Assess, and Reflect. It should summarize what you got from each of the sources. Assess each of the sources, compare and contrast each of them. Finally, reflect on each of these sources. How did they work? Would you use them again? Ect. Just like most academic papers, an annotated bibliography is written in either MLA or APA format.

Why is it required to write one in this class?

At the end of this class we are going to turn in a research paper. Annotated bibliographies are a great thing to use in order to weed out the best and worse sources. This is not only good use for this paper, but we could be asked to use an annotated bibliography in another class for future papers. In the video it states that professors want us to find out information on sources on our own rather than them just telling us the information (showing vs. doing). It will be more beneficial for us to learn how to find our information because during the rest of our time here, when we further our education other places or in the work force, we will have to be able to find information on our own. 

In class blog October 24th

All of these topics have to do with Library Research in a major way. They all can be prevented and are mostly caused by ignorance of what Plagiarism, Copyright, and different licenses and Paraphrasing correctly are really about. There are a few cases that people think they can get away with this activity, but there are many ways to check the authenticity of your paper now. In most if not all academic papers, students will need to go to the library to use books and/or databases about for their project. I can use the knowledge of what I have learned in this class in many of my other classes by citing my resources in the right way, giving credit to the author of the sources and not just rearranging words. I will be able to know how to avoid plagiarism and not using someone else’s work. I am still confused on how to you can still plagiarize even if you site the sources you use. Is there a way to check and see if you have done this to avoid failing the paper, the class or possibly getting kicked out of the school? 

Homework

Trouble for Elsevier:

This passage is about Elsevier not paying his staff enough. They work basically for free and do not get paid what they are owed, so they decide to boycott and tell people to purchase or read any of Elsevier’s work.

New England Journal of Medicine:

This Journal was made free to the public because it has a lot of health information that we should be notified about. They talk about their rises and falls (in the journal) and how they have grown throughout their past years.

The Changing Nature of Knowledge:

There used to be a lot of censoring when it came to knowledge. Only a few things were allowed to be exposed, but now there are many new ways to disclose information. Not only because we have more freedom, but there is more information, besides books and newspapers, that we can gather on anything. Technology has changed our thinking or lack thereof because it is so much easier to get information than to actually read and study a subject.

Each of these stories have to deal with how technology and knowledge have changed throughout the course of time. Sometimes these things are can be positive and negative. In Elsevier’s case it was negative and in The New England Journal’s case it was positive. Technology has a huge impact on me because it has EVERYTHING to do with how I learn. Everything to do with my school is based around technology and without it myself or my school probably would not be as successful without it.

October 17th In class blog

To me plagiarism is copying/re-doing someone else’s work (art, music, choreography ect.) without giving the original author or artist their credit to that original work. Plagiarism is copying the entire piece and passing it off as your own whereas copyright violation is using the entire piece, you cite the information but you can still get in trouble for using someone else’s work. When a student passes off a paper and cites each author but takes the entire paper from the original author that is Plagiarism. When an artist buys the writes to a song but does not give the original writer the credit it is Copyright.

In class blog

When I am at a party and I want to join in on a conversation, usually I listen to what the people are saying then when the people come to a point where I can ask a question I usually jump in. For example, if someone was asking about a new television show that I have watched and they mentioned a part of the show I was familiar with I would jump in and ask “Are you guys talking about….?”  If they said yes I would join in on the conversation about what they were talking about. When someone tries to jump into my conversation, I usually look to see if they ask questions about the topic or if they come in and agree or disagree with what me or the person I am having a conversation with says. I like when people join in on my conversations and know what they are talking about. It shows we have common interest and that is how you can meet new people. 

In class Blog October 3rd

I think that filter bubbles apply when using data bases. Search engines such as google and bing.com on my computer and always save previous things I’ve search. I feel it works the same way on data bases. For example, I used academic search complete on my laptop to look up articles about my topic. As I go into the database each time on my computer and type in my topic into the search box, when I type in the first letter my topic automatically pops up. I may get one set of results but if I use another computer I get a different set of results. I think this applies to the other parts of the website as well. When I narrow my search down by subject or by the type of source I want, my theory still applies. Like I said this can be good or bad. On my computer I can get information that my filter bubble knows I would be interested in. At the same time I could be missing out on valuable information because my filter bubble blocked out something it thought that I may not have wanted to see. Filter bubbles apply to everything not just social search engines.