This coming Wednesday, we’ll begin discussing your individual blog projects and we’re taking a mini field-trip to the library to launch your research (ok, not as cool as a field trip to the zoo, but decidedly more relevant). This week's blog assignment is to help you prepare for that discussion.
Because You Asked: When Sven and I met this week to discuss your feedback on the course, he said that one simple improvement would be to have these weekly blog comments due a little later in the day. That’s a reasonable request. So the new deadline is 3:00 pm on Wednesday, instead of noon. I want to read them before class so I can direct our discussion accordingly.
Blog Assignment 5 | Due Wednesday May 5 | 3:00 pm
GOALS 1) Share your blog topic with the class, 2) Strategize on search terms
1) What is the myth that you’ll be researching in this class? In two to three sentences, why does it interest you?
2) Good search terms are critical to good research. How will you identify good search terms to use? Suggest a new strategy that no one has listed.
3) What’s the best piece of advice you’ve heard (or perhaps discovered yourself) about doing research online?
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1. The myth I’m doing for my blog is in Lilienfeld #39 that people with schizophrenia have multiple personalities. The main reason I choose this topic is because I have always had an interest in abnormal psychology and severe examples of personality and mental disorders.
ReplyDelete2. When I search for a topic I usually find the two or three of the most important keywords to my subject and search initially through a source like google scholar before doing more refined research on the school internet databases.
3. I think the best piece of advice I’ve discovered or more accurately learned through experience is being very picky when it comes to what sources I will use online. The internet is basically a limitless place to get information on just about any topic if you know where to look, so being able to cut through the information that is irrelevant to my research is important.
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ReplyDelete1) I will be researching “Teenagers behave irresponsible because their brains are immature”. I thought I learned this idea from my Intro-Psyc class, so I assume people who know psychology believe this more than others. I want to do this to prevent an un-established psychological knowledge.
ReplyDelete2) Find a first article and then look at the subject terms of the article. Using subject terms helps you get a more coherent list of articles that is related to your topic.
3) Limit your search by “.edu” or “.gov” so that you can get a little more credible information than information from “com”.
1. My blog topic is that birth order effects intelligence and personality. This is interesting to me because my mom had 3 kids in 4 years so we are all really close in age and I am the middle child. I would like to see what the research says about birth order with more of a focus on personality traits.
ReplyDelete2. When researching I use terms that pertain to my subject and words that have the same meaning as those in my initial topic.
3. The best piece of advice that I have heard while doing research online is to be skeptical. Only use material that has credibility to it rather than a mother that blogs about her children and their attitudes.
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ReplyDelete1. My blog topic is about "Happy workers make better workers". It interests me because the statement alone perpetuates the positive attitude trend in American culture. I am curious about the various implications about mental health and personalities you can draw from the statement. Also, it might seem obvious to the general public but worthy to check out.
ReplyDelete2. Another way to look for good search terms is by consulting a librarian on the web. Seattle U's library site actually has a "librarian chat" feature: "Get Research Help" where you can chat with a librarian from SU or from another school. They can recommend keywords and also help you find articles, among other things.
3. Creating annotations as you are doing research has been very helpful for me. Whatever platform you use (email, .doc, google groups), I like to keep track of the research I find, like a log. I usually just jot down a few sentences under the source (1) what it is or a brief summary or thesis (2) how I may use it and its relevance to my project (3) Type (is it a primary, secondary or background resource?) It can save time in the long run and force you to evaluate the source to use or not. It doesn't have to be formal, just a simple approach to organize your sources in one place to evaluate and refer to.
Questionable Myth
ReplyDelete1. When you’re down in the dumps, think yourself happy by focusing on the positive.I picked this myth because I don’t believe it is a myth. Well, I hope its not. It would be discouraging if it wasn’t true.
Good Research Strategies
2. Brainstorm terms by breaking down your research question into 2-3 smaller concepts; do an advance search of these concepts. Example of a search question is, "How does having a job affect a college student's grades? A way to break the question down for a search: College students, jobs, grades; placed each concept in the search boxes.
Best advice I’ve heard about doing good research
Be cautious of the author(s) or individuals who are sponsoring the site, they could hold some bias and/or lack credibility.
1. I am doing the myth about opposites attract: different personalities attract each other romantically. I chose this myth because I am really interested in social behavior and relationships, and the idea of personality which I think the whole myth is about.
ReplyDelete2. I think the best way to research keywords is to first right down what exactly you want to research, then make a list of words that relate to it.
3. I think the best advice I have heard about researching is choose your words wisely when you type it into the search engine, because has almost an unlimited data base and usually thousands of links would pop up for a certain topic
HJ
DD:
ReplyDelete1. My topic is going to have to do with self affirmation helps kids do better in school or something along the lines of A.D.D. and kids not being able to pay attention (however my second option is not very highly researched).
2. Advanced searches are the best way to find exactly what you're looking for. In order to fully utilize these searches you have to know how to subtract words of the search so you don't find anything that you know won't help you. For example, you don't want to search something about diabetes and find a link THAT SENDS YOU TO AN AWESOME WEBSITE WHERE YOU CAN GET SUPER CHEAP MICROWAVES OMG!!!
3. The best advice I was ever given for doing research is to always look for how professional it looks. If something does not look like it can be trusted, then it probably should not be trusted.
1. My research topic about how alcohol kills brain cells. I picked it as my topic because it was straight forward and to the point. Also because college is all about alcohol and since almost every college student has had at least one drop of alcohol then we've all had our fair share of lost brain cells according to this myth.
ReplyDelete2) A good strategy to use when determining what search terms to use would be to read or do extra research on your topic. I tend to draw words from certain articles or passages that discuss what I'm researching and from there try to find more information on the subject.
3) Always take information on the internet with a grain of salt. Always do extra research to confirm that what you read was true. The internet is easily accessible to everyone. Anyone can post false information.
- LQ
1) The myth I will be researching is the myth that researchers have proven that dreams have symbolic meaning in our lives. This myth interests me because my ethnic culture stresses an importance on listening to your dreams. It will be interesting to see if popular society agrees with what I have grown up around.
ReplyDelete2) One way that I research is to look for bolded or italicized words. These words are stressed for a reason and are usually clues to the central meaning of the subject being researched.
3) I have found not to throw out a source just due to its appearance. Many professional sources are made by professors and professionals that don't have time to make their website pretty.
1) My topic is "Only deeply depressed people commit suicide". This topic interest me because there are so many people committing suicide everyday. People are totally stressed out by their workload, family situation. Therefore I want to do more research on why people commit suicide. Is that because they have deeply depression or they have other reasons which lead them to commit suicide.
ReplyDelete2) I think going to the library is the best way to do research because books include most detailed information and the most reliable sources. Since the authors had written their books by doing lots of researches and under consulting many different people, it must help our research to be more convincing. I always trust books more than internet aticles.
3) The best advice I have heard about researching is limit our keywords and find the sources which are done in recent years. Limiting keywords can help us to do our researches more effectively and we need not to spend so much time on filtering out the inappropriate content. Besides, finding the sources done in recent years could help our research more accurate because old research might have some mistakes that people did not recoginze in previous decades.
1) What is the myth that you’ll be researching in this class? In two to three sentences, why does it interest you?
ReplyDeleteThe myth I will be researching is the myth that all mentally ill patients are violent. The reason that this interests me is because I feel that the media perpetuates this myth greatly. If it weren’t for all of the images we are bombarded with in movies and television portraying mentally ill patients as violent, I think this myth would not be as nearly widespread.
2) Good search terms are critical to good research. How will you identify good search terms to use? Suggest a new strategy that no one has listed.
The search terms I plan on using are: Media influence, mentally ill violence, schizophrenia, bipolar, myth.
I think these will narrow my search down to the studies that will be helpful in creating my blog.
3) What’s the best piece of advice you’ve heard (or perhaps discovered yourself) about doing research online?
The best advice that I have heard about online researches is checking the sources. I always try and at least check one of the sources when reading an article, that way you know that the information they used is valid
1)I will be researching the myth regarding some intelligence tests being biased against certain groups of people. I’m interested because it seems to me that standardized testing has a huge impact on who our society considers to be “smart”, can affect a school’s funding, and I’d like to learn more about the thought around testing.
ReplyDelete2) When identifying good search terms, I start with obvious key words, which usually lead me to some basic websites on the topic, which introduce me to more scholarly terms on the subject. When it comes to good search terms, it only takes a minute or two to try something and scroll through the results, so I’m willing to try anything that seems promising, just to see if it leads anywhere new.
3) As academically unsound as it is, the best advice I’ve ever gotten was to begin with Wikipedia – it is a wonderful resource. Obviously, nothing there can be taken at face value without outside research to confirm, but when doing research on a broad topic that you do not know much about, or when researching something very narrow that you have trouble finding resources for, Wikipedia is often a good jumping off point for a summery to begin to familiarize yourself with a topic, or even to find more specific topics within a broad range.
The myth that I will be researching lays at the agitated head of a passionate global debate regarding religion: does one's engagement in a religion render him or her more altruistic or moral?
ReplyDeleteTo accurately search for resources on your topic I assume a method of trial and error. To restrict yourself to only certain search terms covering specific aspects of your topic will hinder your results. Set out from a word that seems relevant and work from there!
The internet provides fairly reliable information so long as you leave it up to yourself to check credibility. Before reading an article, trace the sources all the way back to the origin. By this I mean, make sure that a source cited from the article isn't merely cited from another secondary source on another unreliable website.
1) The myth I'm research in class is going to be the myth of both Astrological horoscopes and Birth/Natal charts. I'm interested in it because while I find horoscopes to be horridly inaccurate, natal/birth charts are generally eerily accurate for me comparatively. My mom is also interested in astrology and has told me a lot about my birth sign and so it is somewhat personal and intriguing.
ReplyDelete2) I'm sure "Astrology" will be in there, along with "Horoscope" "Birth" "Natal" "Chart" and anything that has to do with specific errors I'm possibly looking at, like "Confirmation Bias" or others. More likely I'd look for synonyms to imply faulty logic is at hand.
3) The internet is all about subjectivity. Depending on what you put in, you're going to get different stuff out. It's best for getting multiple results rather than focused results, so I shall use it as my foundation but not my entire construction.
I'm a little late on this one however, please dont forget about me.
ReplyDeleteThe myth that I shall be discussing for the already upcoming blog is this:
"The polygraph aka 'lie detector' cannot be used as an accurate means of detecting dishonesty."
1) This myth interests me because of it's widespread and unquestioned popularity. I find it humorous that a national tv show aires a series based around using a lie detector to win money and that the government still uses the 'lie detector' to detect dishonesty in speculative employees yet has banned the use of the 'lie detector' to detect dishonesty among the private sector corporations for it's infallibility. Ultimately, it's time to lay this unquestioned belief in a bed of doubt, while all the evidence is out there, I will finally end this belief.
2) Identifying good search terms really is important for good research. So here's how I am going to do it. Say I'm researching lie detection devices, inherent in the name are the best search terms. I will search 'lie' 'detection' 'detector' 'polygraph', etc. One may also note that while on EBSCO search once you click a link, you will discover 'tag descriptions' in front of the abstract, essentially the authors have already sleeted tag words they believe a searcher may search for. I will cleverly click on their supposed tag words and be led to whole new searches and whole new areas of potential research. At this point that is my plan.
3) The best piece of research advice I have learned has been simply type in a every variation of the keyword/topic I am searching for. Eventually patterns will occurs and positive sources will jump out. Also, reading the abstract rather than the entire article is a quick way to determine the relevance of a possibly positive source.
Just my 2 cents,
Alex