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?