10/31 Blogpost

Book- In a book you are most likely to find secondary information. Sometimes you may find primary information. It is great to use for research because most of the time the information is accurate. I could use this in my research by taking a quote or excerpt from a chapter to help explain what I am talking about in my paper.

Blog Post- In a blog post you are most likely to find inaccurate information from someone. Usually these are personal opinions about a topic. I wouldn't use this information in my research unless I was doing research about blogging!

Scholarly Journal Article- These are primary sources. Very useful for research papers because they are peer reviewed. Meaning very smart people have reviewed the article and made revisions to it. I could use these in my research paper if I want the most accurate information on my topic.

Wikipedia- These are tertiary sources. Anyone can make a change to something on wikipedia. Wikipedia articles are not good to use in research for that very reason. I will not use wikipedia in my research paper.

Podcast- These can be secondary sources/ tertiary sources depending on what you are researching. They are a recording of someone's voice. So depending on who the person is, this information could be useful or useless.

In class blog post 10/29

We had to find the full text of an article called "Medical students' use of Facebook to support learning: Insights from four case studies". Here are my steps:
First, I opened up the west ga website. Second, I clicked on the Ingram Library tab. Third, I copied the name into the search bar. Fourth, I clicked full text. And there was the article! Done.

Oct 29 Blog

I was recently asked what is an annotated bibliography and why I'm being required to write an annotated bibliography for class. An annotated bibliography is a bibliography that gives a summary of each of your entries. Entries are excerpts you take from a source and use in your paper. There are many other types of bibliographies. I'm required to do an annotated bibliography for this class because you want us to prove that we have done valid research for our research paper. Also, if you have a problem with anything in our paper the teacher will  can look it up and do some research of their own.

10/25 Blog

In class for the past couple of weeks we have studied Plagiarism, Paraphrasing correctly, copyright vs. plagiarism, open content, open access, and creative common licenses. Sometimes in class I'm wondering why are we going over this stuff??? But it's easy to see that knowing how to do these few things properly can save you from getting in a lot of trouble in school. Also, when researching a book in the library you will need to know how to properly cite the book in order to paraphrase correctly. I can apply this knowledge to my other courses. When I need to do a research paper I will know how to properly cite a book and paraphrase. Along with many other ways! The only question I have is how would you cite a podcast?

On the Media

Trouble for Elsevier- Customers say that Elsevier is placing a "stronghold" on the information it provides. People say libraries can restrict what the public can view at the library. Librarians say that the root of the problem is industry consolidation. Elsevier's profit margin is the highest out of all databases. A boycott was formed against Elsevier. More than 6,000 journalist formed the boycott. Elsevier argues that the per article cost of scholarly published articles have declined over the past years.

New England's Journal of Medicine's 200th year Anniversary- People want the journal to be free! No subscription needed. Owner says they put "important" information on the journal for free. Editors were against admission of women into medical schools. Biggest achievement of journal- reports of AIDS, Leukemia, and breast cancer.

The Changing Nature of knowledge in the internet age- It's said that the "smartest person in the room is the room". Talks about findings of Charles Darwin. One argues that facts are not the facts anymore. Meaning people want more than just facts to explain something.

These segments all relate to each other in some way or another. They all have to do with technology taking the place of human knowledge. We rely on computers to do our research for us rather than finding information ourselves. I thought these segments were very informal. And I think we need to go back to thinking for ourselves. Not just relying on technology to do everyday things for us.

Plagiarism

In my own words, plagiarism is taking information from a source that is not your own and using the information as it is yours. It does not matter how big or small the information is. It can be a sentence or a paragraph. If you do not cite the source, you are plagiarizing! There's a difference between copyright violation and plagiarism. Plagiarism is taking information from a source and using it as your own. A copyright violation is taking someone's copyrighted work and using it as your own without receiving permission from that person. That person has exclusive rights to their work. One example of a plagiarism that is not a copyright violation is when M.C. Hammer copied Rick James super freak song but gave credit to him. M.C. Hammer did the right thing to do, even though he still plagiarized. An example of  a copyright violation that is not plagiarism is when Beyonce used "inspiration" from a European pop artist to come up with her song "Run the World". Beyonce said she was inspired by the European artist, but did not copy her word for word.

How I would jump into a convo?

I was recently asked how I would approach a random group of people that were talking about a subject I know a lot about. Well, let's I was at a party a few guys were talking about West Georgia basketball. I would hear them talking about the team, and then I would interrupt them! I would say 'hey, I play on the team!' Then the conversation would go on from there. I would assume that the group of guys would want to ask some follow up questions about the team that I would be more than willing to answer. I would show that I wasn't a creeper by mentioning some of my teammates names, and probably would talk about my coach. Just to show that I am not some random guy that is making up stuff about the basketball team. By doing this, they can confirm that I am on the team. When I'm in a conversation and someone walks up and tries to jump in I immediately feel a little awkward. I don't know who this person is, and I don't know if they're lying to me or not. Once the person gives appropriate or useful knowledge on the topic, then I begin to become more friendly towards them. I might even extend the conversation with them.  

Peer Reviewed Articles 10/3

Boots, Paquette. "Characteristics of Mentally Ill Offenders From 100 Psychiatric Court Reports." Behavioral Sciences & the Law 22.2 (2004): 223-38. Discover Galileo. Web. 3 Oct. 2012. This article is about the characteristics that mentally ill offender tends to have. This source is credible because it uses stats taken straight from actual reports. I could easily use this book on my research to explain how one is legally called a "mentally ill" offender.

 Pifer, Natalie. "Is Life The Same As Death?: Implications Of Graham V. Florida, Roper V. Simons, And Atkins V. Virginia On Life Without Parole Sentences For Juvenile and Mentally Retarded Offenders." Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 43.4 (2010): 1495-532. Discover Galileo. Web. 3 Oct. 2012. This article discusses three separate court rulings that all have to deal with mentally retarded offenders. This is a credible source because there are quotes taken directly from the courtroom of all three cases. I will use this article becuase it will help explain why someone is either labeled as a mentally ill offender or not.

Filter Bubbles Pt. 2 10/3

After watching the video on filter bubbles the other week, I decided that filter bubbles were not a big deal after all. If you do not like them, there are multiple ways you can turn them off so that they will no longer bother you. Today I am being asked could the basic idea of a filter bubble apply to the different databases? My answer is yes. I say yes to this after using the PsychInfo database and the Criminal Justice Periodical Index. When i searched for information in the PyschInfo database on criminal minds, the first words that popped up were minds, murderer, etc. These words had stuff to do with the actual, physical serial killer. But when I used the Criminal Justice Periodical Index the first words that popped up were profiling, psychotic, etc. These words have to do more with the Criminal Justice System, not with the actual killer. As you can see, this is a very big deal when it comes down to researching for my topic. I want to get information that is exactly on my topic. Not things that have a relation to my topic. So this is how filter bubbles can apply to different databases.