Final Exam Blog Post

1.   Are e-textbooks as or more beneficial than regular physical textbooks for students?Keywords: electronic textbook, students, paper textbooks, benefits

2.   E*textbooks AND students AND textbooks AND benefits

As I was typing the search terms into the Academic Search Premier search boxes, I though that using the phrase "electronic textbook" might limit out the types of articles that I was looking for. e-books/e-textbooks has become a more common way of referring to electronic books or textbooks. I may have been able to leave the search term student out, but I did not and I got the results that I wanted so I didn't feel the need to go back and re-search for it without that term.

George Van Horn, et al. "Trading Textbook For Technology." Phi Delta Kappan 92.7 (2011): 46-50. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Mar. 2013.

3.   Authority: All four authors have education background and credentials that make me think that they are very qualified to write this article. Phi Delta Kappa also called The Professional  Association in Education is a reputable organization that publishes journal articles related to education. This is specifically from their publication the Phi Delta Kappan, a journal for the latest research on standards and accountability in education. I feel like the publishers of Phi Delta Kappan would definitely do their research and only ask reputable educators to collaborate on articles that they put in their journal.

Sources: The articles contains several reputable sources in it's reference section .

Purpose: The purpose of the articles seems to be to tell others about the Indiana school district trying digital textbooks and that advantages that they found from using them.

Evenness: The articles is not very even. It focuses on the advantages of digital textbooks but fails to even mention disadvantages. I would still use this source for my paper, but I would make sure that other articles I use talked about disadvantages of using digital textbooks.

Coverage: The entire article focuses on the advantages of trading textbooks for technology. It covers that advantages fairly well in its six pages, but I will need to find at least one more source that also talks about some of the disadvantages of trading textbooks for technology.

Timeliness: The articles was published about a two years ago, however I believe that the Indiana school district's experience with digital textbook is still relevant after only two years

4.   That article starts by introducing a fictional 10th grader, Alexis. She is an average 10th grader, average grades, only disciplined once, she thinks that school is an, "Ok place," and she doesn't like social studies and the huge, boring textbooks. She is told the beginning of this school year that her class will be using the Internet and other electronic sources to get their information and she thinks that it could be a better year.

      Many educators in Columbus, Indiana were not happy with the textbooks series offered to teach the subjects for their district. So when they learned that the school district would consider digital alternatives the textbook adoption team consisting of  teachers from elementary, middle, and high school, department chairs from secondary schools, and literary coaches realized that a two part lesson design would better fit their needs. The first part was setting up platform for students, teachers, and parents. The second part was finding trustworthy sources for information.

       They found that students were more interested and likely to do their homework and be engaged in the subject when using digital sources. Students found these "customized" e-resources applied better to modern technology and caused them to use more problem solving and team work skills.

      This article is very one sided to my overall question, though there is relevant information for the benefits of electronic resources it doesn't talk about some of the difficulties involved with a transition to non-traditional textbooks. These kind of resources are not available to schools and the students in lower income areas. Even if the school gets funding to switch over to electronic resources such as e-textbooks many of the students may not have access to reliable computers or Internet outside of school. This article covers only one part of a large topic, but I would still use it in a report.

Research Journal Part 10: Create a Web Page

Though this assignment did not turn out to be as bad as I thought that it was going to be. Thanks to all of those super smart people out there that understand how HTML works I was able to do a little research of my own to figure out how to add a background picture, instead of just changing the color of the background. I even found a .gif background where the stars twinkle in the background. I was also able to add a picture of  the infamous Tardar Sauce aka Grumpy cat. I am not sure if this activity increased my understanding of web pages very much. I knew before that everything you see on a web pages has code.  I am not really interested in learning html code, I know that there is lots of free software out there that will build the codes for you and all you have to do is tell the program what you what it to do and how you want it to look.

Research Journal 9: Finding Information on the Open Web

Yahoo Search:
1.  Patriot Act AND rights AND protect* AND privacy:.com

Minow, Mary. "The USA PATRIOT Act." Library Journal. (2002): n. page. Web. 8 Mar. 2013. http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/ljinprintcurrentissue/878423-403/the_usa_patriot_act.html.csp.

Purpose: The Library Journal  is in it's 133rd year of publication and it is the oldest and most respected publication covering the library field. The author of this article was a public librarian for over 10 years and is currently the President of the California Association of Library Trustees and Commissioners.

Coverage: My focus is less to do with how the Patriot Act affects libraries however, it is still related to the privacy rights  and so I would include information from this article to ensure my research is well rounded.

2.  Patriot Act AND rights AND protect* AND privacy:.gov

Gottfried, David. "Legal Digest: Important Investigative Tools for Joint Terrorism Task Force Officers." The FBI: Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, n.d. Web. 8 Mar 2013. http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/2013/january/legal-digest-important-investigative-tools-for-joint-terrorism-task-force-offcers-part-2.

Authority: Not to say that the FBI may not post accurate information, but because they are a government agency they are under a lot of scrutiny. It is probably somewhat bias, but I couldn't find a .gov website related to my topic that wasn't probably somewhat biased.

Sources: This article references many sources in it's end notes. Many of the sources are references to specific United States Codes (laws), there are also references to court cases and their decisions.

3.  Patriot Act AND rights AND protect* AND privacy:.org

Wikipedia contributors, . "Patriot Act." . Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, 01 Mar 2013. Web. 08 Mar 2013.

Evenness: This article is mostly unbiased. The contributors for this topic equally covered the two main sides of this topic.

Coverage: The information presented in this article matches very closely with other sources I have been looking at. It also presents the information in a way that makes it easier to comprehend and digest.

4.  Patriot Act AND rights AND protect* AND privacy:.edu

"The USA PATRIOT Act." Department of Government & Justice Studies: Appalachian State University. Department of Government & Justice Studies: Appalachian State University, n.d. Web. 8 Mar 2013.

Sources: This article list more than 50 sources used to write it. Just by scanning those resources and by clicking on a random selection of them, I think that this is a credible article containing statistics data that is back with facts.

Evenness: The author or authors did a very thorough job of including the two main sides of this issue. They have quotes and statistics that represent both people and agencies that support the Patriot Act and those who are against the Patriot Act, or at least parts of it.


To get the text of the Patriot Act the ".gov" websites were best and most likely to be accurate. However the ".gov" websites tend to lean towards supporting the Patriot Act rather than presenting both sides of the issue. I had to look through a lot of ".edu" articles to find one that I trusted based on the A.S.P.E.C.T. method. Many ".edu" articles or websites didn't have source information and I still ended up choosing an article that did not list an author. I can only assume that it was written by a single person for the college website or was a compilation of information from many authors. The ".com" article that I found did not meet my overall needs for information exactly, however, I trusted the source based on many factors referenced in the A.S.P.E.C.T. method. There were several sections of the article that would be useful to touch on in my research.

Research Journal Part 8: Types of Information: FOcus on Search Engines and Web Sites

Search Tools: DuckDuckGo

Search Features:

1.      If you are not getting the results you want from DuckDuckGo there is the option to change to a different parts of different search website right there on the DuckDuckGo website.

2.      You can choose to search by date from the before you do a search, so your results will come already sorted.

3.      They also are a non-tracking website. They do not send user’s information to the websites that they use. It is a much more secure way to search online. I will very likely use this search tool in the future.

4.      They are also a non-bubble website. Other sites return results to your search based upon your search history. The more your results match the more often you will get the same type of results. You get stuck in a bubble of the same type of information that is different from the bubble of information that each other person has. You could be missing out on important information because it isn’t something you normally look for.

5.      They also have a translation forum, where users can help to translate pages. It seems like a very slow and time consuming process. I’m sure that translations have to be checked and double check, but I feel like because users choose to translate sites to improve DuckDuckGo’s access to translations that they are doing to make the site better instead of doing it because they are getting paid for it.

Metasearch Tools: Dogpile

Search Features:

1.      Dogpile has a search filter that filters out none, a moderate level, and a heavy level of explicit content from your searches. Under preferences you can select what level of filter you want applied to your searches. This could be especially helpful if you are researching something that is similar to an explicit topic. The search could be set up to exclude possible explicit material related to your topic.

2.      You can turn on “bold search terms.” If you do that than your search term would be bolded on the results page. This would allow you to see the relationship between the results the website returns and the search terms that you used.

3.      You can choose to automatically sort your results by a variety of options including: relevance, alphabetical, highest rating, most reviewed, and has offers. You can choose to sort it in a way that would find you the best information for your search topic.

4.      You can also choose a preferred location for local search. If you are looking for information related to a specific area, then being able to narrow it within your search from the beginning could save you a lot of time.

5.      Dogpile has all of the advanced search options that we looked at in the deep web data bases such as ProQuest and EBSCOHost. You can include all of your search words as a phrase or in any order, you can search any of your search terms, you can choose words you don’t want to use and you can include or exclude specific domains in your search.

Subject Directories: Complete Planet: The Deep Web Academic Info

Search Features:

1.      Right away I noticed that Complete Planet is described as an, “in-depth directory (that) is a roundup of the best and most useful links and resources within a specific subject area.” They could just be saying that, however it seems like a good start.

2.      They think about accessibility, authoritative sources, and ease of use and aim to be unbiased in regards to their subject guides.  It seems like someone or many someone’s are putting a lot of time into ensuring that these are a good, accurate representation of the subjects that they do cover. There are however limited on the number of subject that they cover. This would be a great place to start from if they have the subject you are looking for.

3.      They give you the ability to browse by subject. This would be a really great way to topic search something if you don’t know what you want to research.

4.      You can also browse by high school and college degree levels. This would be extremely helpful because if you are going for your Doctorate or PhD then you would probably have no interest in information for high school students and vice versa.

5.      I did a search for Patriot Act on their page because it was not listed as a subject and it returned four possible articles. Of the four I could immediately tell from the short description that one was not relevant because it referred to the Patriot League a student-athlete program. The other three seemed relevant however, below each site name and description it said Anonymous (not verified.) I explored each of those sources and realized that even though those subject guides were not considered verified, they contained links to websites whose information I would trust to use as a source; including government and academic websites.

Chapter 7: Finding Articles in Periodical Indexes

"Patriot Act" AND rights AND protect* AND privacy

Popular Magazine Source:

Thomas, R. Eddlem. "The "SECRET" Patriot Act." The New American Jul 18 2011: 29-32. ProQuest Research Library. Web. 20 Feb. 2013.

I chose this article because it references possible databases available to certain government agencies that keep track of private information on our nation’s citizens. The New American is a biweekly magazine that considers itself the essential new source for “freedom-loving Americans.”

Research Article from a Scholarly Journal:

Breinholt, Jeff. "How about a Little Perspective: The USA Patriot Act and the Uses and Abuses of History." Texas Review of Law & Politics 9.1 (2004): 17-61. ProQuest Research Library. Web. 22 Feb. 2013.

I chose this scholarly reference because it presents a hypothesis, though a little broad. It present information in an unbiased way and is broken into logical sections to help you draw your own opinion based on facts.

Article from a Newspaper:

Anthony, Asadullah S. "Exploitation of the Patriot Act: 'the Devil's on the Line,' all the Time Now." Sentinel: 2. 2007. Western Newsstand. Web. 22 Feb. 2013 .

I chose this newspaper article because it is very much against the Patriot Act in its current form. He wants a “checks and balances” system put into place to regulate the government agencies that have access to private the information about U.S. citizens.

This assignment was a little more time consuming than some of the others, but as I like a challenge I still enjoyed it. That being said, I’m not 100% sure that each section of this post is done right, but I did my best. I chose to add “NOT library” to the end of my search results because there were many articles focused on that aspect of the Patriot Act and I am didn’t want to go in that direction. I have been reading The New American for several years so I was drawn to it as a possible resource. I removed the “NOT library” Boolean search phrase for the Scholarly Journal. I thought that including “NOT library” would stop me from seeing scholarly references that included the terms I was more closely looking for. I didn’t have to add “NOT library” back into my search phrase for my newspaper article. There were lots of relevant and current newspaper articles that peaked my interest while matching my key words.

Unit 6 Database Feature and Searching Techniques

Practice Search Statements:

1.   Does television advertising by the pharmaceutical industry have an impact on prescription drug abuse?

"television advertis*" AND (pharmaceutical industry OR prescription drug) AND "drug abuse"

2.   How much more can a college graduate expect to earn over someone with a high school diploma?

"(college OR university) graduates" AND income AND "high school graduates"

3.  Debate the pros and cons of fish farming

"Fish farm*" AND (pro* OR advantage*) AND (con* OR disadvantage*)

4.   Is the current lack of sunspot activity affecting global warming?

lack AND sunspot AND "global warming"

5.   What breeds of dogs make good therapy pets?

"dog breeds" AND "Therapy (pets OR animals)"

My Search Statement:

1.   When does the Patriot Act cross the line between protecting citizens and taking away their rights?

"Patriot Act" AND rights AND protect*



 

Unit 5: Digging into Databases and Books

2a.   Cannell Library Book Catalog

1.   Search terms: Patriot Act and Privacy and Rights
2.   Citation info: Gerdes, Louise, I., The Patriot Act: opposing viewpoints, Detroit, Greenhaven Press, 2005
3.   United States. Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001
4.   Circulating
5.   Cannell Second Floor, KF9430 .P38 2005
6.   The article was written 7 years ago however the Patriot Act has not changed much since I was written so it is still age credible. It includes biographical information and the author has been the editor of many books related to similar subjects. Opposing Viewpoints is a reputable publisher.

2b.   The Summit Catalog

1.   Patriot Act and Privacy and Rights
2.   Etzioni, Amitai, How Patriotic is the Patriot Act?: Freedom Versus Security in the Age of Terrorism., New York, Routledge, 2004
3.   United States. Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001, National security--United States, Terrorism--United States, Civil Rights--United States
4.   Though it is a little aged the subject matter is still relevant. The author has written more than 30 books. Routledge publishes academic books, journals and online references.
5.   At the University of Washington Libraries it is located in the Odegaard Stacks and its call # is KF4850 .E899 2004.
6.   The search looks at many different colleges' libraries rather than just our own here at Clark.

2c.   Books 24/7 - IT Pro Collection of E-books

Unit 4: Types of Information

Practice Questions:

For practice question 1: Is a vegetarian diet healthier than a meat-based diet?, I would use scholarly journals because though there are many pros and cons to this question someone that is a subject expert or scholarly expert on this topic would have the most accurate representation of it.

For practice question 2: Target often forces musicians to alter lyrics in order to have their CDs sold in Target stores. Is this censorship?, magazines and broadcast media and even newspapers would be most useful  type of resource because this is a topic that has been talked a lot in recent years not just with Target but also with Walmart. It is mostly an opinion based answer and finding both sides of the argument in the above resources seems plausible.

For practice question 3: How much more can a college graduate expect to earn over someone with a high school diploma?, I would use an online statistical source to find proven statistics that support the question.

For practice question 4: Should educators use commercial services to combat plagiarism?, I would use scholarly journals to get some expert option and information on this topic, however I would also use magazines and broadcast media to ensure I explored all parts of this question.    

For practice question 5: Is the current lack of sunspot activity affecting global warming?, I would use a subject encyclopedia and a scholarly journals to research this question. Scientist have been warning about the danger of releasing carbon monoxide into the atmosphere since the late 1800's and so a subject encyclopedia would be a great place to start in gathering information to answer this question. Scholarly journals would be a great resource to get more detailed and updated information on the topic.

Research Questions:

For research question 1: How can we protect our privacy in a digital world?, I would use the World Wide Web and scholarly journals. I believe that I would be able to find some current statistics that would help support my topic on the Internet. Scholarly journals would be a great resource to access reliable information from experts or scholars on the subject.

For research question 2: When does the Patriot Act cross the line between protecting citizens and taking away their rights?I would use the World Wide Web to access the United States Department of Treasury and read the full text of the Patriot Act so that I can form my own opinions about it. Then I would access scholarly journals to find expert opinion and information sources.

For research question 3: How can businesses protect their industry secrets when employees leave the company? I would use books on industrial espionage and other industry secret topics to get a lot of in depth information. Scholarly journals would also provide a lot of expert opinion and information on this subject.

Unit 3: Exploring Topics

I choose the topic Privacy and used the Gale Virtual Library and Wikipedia to research it further. I came up with the following twenty keywords related to privacy:

• Country
• Industry
• Law
• Hippocratic Oath
• Technology
• Ethics
• Bedroom Communities
• Boundaries
• Religion
• Civil Disobedience
• Family
• Patriot Act
• Homeland Security
• Doctor-Patient Confidentiality
• Parameters
• Social Media
• Grocery Cards
• Roe v. Wade
• Do Not Call Registries
• College Transcripts

In the future I would like to take the time to read more about privacy as described in this article:

Petronio, Sandra. "Privacy." Encyclopedia of Human Relationships. Ed. Harry T. Reis and Susan Sprecher. Vol. 3. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2009. 1292-1295. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 23 Jan. 2013.

I searched Wikipedia to see what information they had about privacy, the citation for that article is: Wikipedia contributors. "Privacy." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 27 Dec. 2012. Web. 23 Jan. 2013.

Here are the 3 research questions I came up with related to privacy:

1. How can we protect our privacy in a digital world?
2. When does the Patriot Act cross the line between protecting citizens and taking away their rights?
3. How can businesses protect their industry secrets when employees leave the company?

This was a very enjoyable unit for me. I have always struggled to come up with topics that are both interesting to me and would hopefully be interesting to my reader. I like using the GVRL and Wikipedia to come up with keywords related to a very broad topic. Just coming up with a lot of keywords make coming up with the three research questions very easy to do. I know I could have come up with at least a few more without breaking a sweat.

Though Wikipedia is not a reputable source it can still be effective for brainstorming or for common knowledge information. The Gale Virtual Reference Library is a great resource for full scholarly references. I have been using ProQuest and EBSCOhost for the last couple years. I'm not sure what the differences between the GVRL and the other databases I"ve been using are, but they all seem like very useful databases.

Unit 2: Plagiarism

Purdue OWL
Safe Practices: An Exercise

1. This passage is correct, it was the author's own idea/experience and so it doesn't need to be cited.
2. This passage to me could go either way, taken out of context I'm not sure the correct answer. It could be the author's option, or they might have paraphrased or direct quoted it from another source. If it is a paraphrase or a direct quote then it needs to be acknowledged and if it is the author's opinion then it doesn't need to be acknowledged.
3. This passage is not cited correctly, though it is mostly an option the author references a percentage and unless they made that percentage up, than a statement referencing the source and including the source in the bibliography is needed.
4. This passage is a paraphrase of Dr. King's "Letter from the Birmingham Jail." Though he included a statement referencing the author of the source the writer doesn't site the name of the source and where in the source it occurs. The term "social analysis" could be in be in quotes also.
5. This passage is correctly cited. It is paraphrased and directly quoted. The parts that are direct quotes are in quotation marks and it and the paraphrase section include a statement referencing the author and a citation with the name of the source and the location within the source.
6. This passage is correct except they did not acknowledge the source and location within the source after the quotes.
7. This passage is correct, I think, though the author references the opinion of a friend, I think it would fall under common knowledge?
8. This passage doesn't need to be acknowledged as it is common knowledge.

This unit opened my eyes to some mistakes I've been making the past two years. Though I graduate this quarter I know that I will be much more careful in the business world when it comes to using sources and correctly citing them. More often than not college students are not intentionally plagiarizing. It seems to me there should be more of an emphasis on teaching the correct ways to cite and reference sources. I have been attending Clark College for two years and even after taking English 101, I feel like my understanding of citing and referencing sources is lacking. Style guides such as my Gregg's Reference Manual and websites such as Purdue's Online Writing Lab will be invaluable to me in the future, whether I continue on with school now or in the future.

Not My First Rodeo...err...Blog

Thought I have never used blogger.com before, setting up the blog through it was fairly straight forward. Last Spring Quarter I had a very outside the box ENGL&101 teacher and in her class we wrote weekly and bi-weekly 800 word blogs along with commenting on other student's blogs. We used a site called Ning.com. It was really fun, like a Facebook or Myspace but just for our class.

With a digital workspace/classroom there are not as many time constraints. We don't have a set class time just as long as our work is done and submitting by the due date and time. I think that with an online class it is actually easier to get to know people because you aren't limited to a class time in which the teacher is trying to teach, though it can be a little harder to interact without actually seeing each other face to face. Updating your Moodle profile with a picture and a few personal tidbits can also help.

Okay, I'll admit it I was once a member of Myspace, but no longer. I am currently a member of the following social networking sites:

1. Facebook
2. Twitter
3. LinkIn.

I spend more time on Twitter than Facebook because I have discovered that people I've never met are sometimes more fascinating then people I have. I just recently joined LinkIn at the urging of a colleague. I like that it is a "professional" social networking site. With today's job marketing being as competitive as it is, networking is nearly as important as any other aspect of job searching.

I typed this blog in blue (except the numbers because they wouldn't change) because my colleague is convinced that it is easier on the eyes. What do you think?