Sunday, September 30, 2012

Reflection of My Research Topic


I still think that my research question needs to be more defined or updated where I can more information as well as correct and effective information , now that I think about it. I have a general topic that is not too broad and not specific, but I think that it is not fully helping me get a better understanding of my topic. I believe my topic is a good topic; the big issue is that I can go so many ways with it and I need to be even more specific than I am now. Because my major is biology, I am looking at the biological aspect of viruses in the United States and since there are so many viruses, I do not want to just limit my search to one or two, but get a general concept that is not too general. I still have a lot of work to do as far as making my research question the best research question for this project and doing more research as well to help answer my research question.  So in the end, I need to define my research question more in order to better my research for my topic. 

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Applying Skills to Other Classes


I have already had a basic knowledge of some of the information we learned in class. This class is just enhancing the knowledge I already knew for researching. I have learned more about how to search for sources that are more useful and creditable. With this knowledge, I will be able to redefine my search for other classes I may have to do research for. This will help me get better information on the topic at hand. It also helps me understand and know what sources are good sources to use and has a good amount of information that will help with my topic. I used Galileo once in high school and now, I know more about it and how to use it. So if I come across a subject in another class, I know that Galileo can be a good source for that topic. I already knew how to cite my sources because high school and college has drilled plagiarism into my head and that I need to cite my sources so that I will not get in trouble for it. I have been taught to cite the sources and especially cite them correctly. So as far as today, I already knew a lot of stuff, this class just helped better my understanding.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

High School Library vs. College Library

I never used my high school library unless I really had to. Even when I had to use my high school library, it was not for getting books so I cannot compare my high school library to my college library. The one thing about my high school library is that the library did not have a big selection to choose from. Before my high school was remodeled, there were huge gaps on the shelves where books should be. When my school was remodeled there were more books, but there still was not a big variety. I even asked some of my friends that were in the library and they said they really could not find what they are looking for. With college, I have not had to look for books until this class and the process is quick and easy. The only thing is that when I actually look for a book it can get kind of confusing because of the letters and numbers. When I was looking for a specific book for the research project, the book I was looking for was not completely in the right spot, but that could have been from a student. How the books were organized and arranged was confusing as well. The way to get books are simple and easy but when you actually have to find it was a little confusing.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

September 10 Homework

My group members and I decided to make our project about the health viruses that are occurring in the word, especially in the United States. I went to the librarian at the front desk for help with some possible options on books for our topic. I started off with a lot of options. There were so many good sources but I narrowed it down to the top four based on the title and the subjects of the books. I looked at all four of them. Two of the books were on Galileo so I looked those up as well. I did an overview of the two books that were in the library and on Galileo. I narrowed my search to the two sources online, mainly because they were more recent than the books on the shelves. The two electronic books were Viruses and Human Disease by James H. Strauss and Ellen G. Strauss and Human Viruses in Water by Albert Bosch. After I chose these two options I read them completely and it was very hard to choose just one that would be best for our topic because they both had recent and up to date information that will be used. They both dealt specifically with human viruses, but still had information that showed where viruses can be, like in the water. People need to be aware of things like this and both of these sources gave me great insight on it. I think both of the books are beneficial to our research in different ways, but still coincides with one another. 

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Interviewing an upperclassman


When interviewing my friend who’s an upperclassman, he had a lot of similarities I had. This is my third year at the West Georgia and I know a few things about papers, projects, and all other assignments given by college professors. We agreed on the same things. First, all assignments including research papers are completely different in college than high school. It was funny how my other upperclassmen friends and I agreed that high school did not prepare us for college. With research papers in high school, we did not have to do much, but look online and cite our sources. In college, there is a lot more work. I personally have not had to do a research paper yet but my friend said it was not as simple as high school research papers. My friend said his professor did not really give him any limitations on how to research the topic other than to use credible sources and cite the sources correctly when writing the paper. Although they basically could do whatever they wanted with their papers, the professor had specific questions they had to answer and he said those questions made the paper difficult besides looking for multiple credible sources. Overall he said the paper was an okay paper and he got an okay grade. He said it was a lot of work and that if he started as soon as he got it, he might have gotten a better grade and it might have been just a little bit easier.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Library Ethnography Project

http://www.slideshare.net/acs589/library-ethnography-project    In this project, I took pictures and I found the book we were looking for.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Redefining My Research Question

I will redefine my research question by first looking at different aspects of the general topic. Once I narrow them down I will choose which one has the best and more information on the specific topic. I am not sure of exactly what I want to do it on, I will need to do more research in order to be more clear and to choose which specific topic I want to research on. After that, I will make my question more specific, but not too specific.