Monday, October 26, 2009

OCC Week 8: Locating Research

This week, we focused on strategies for effective research. We discussed the importance of research questions in guiding our work. We also laid out the five steps for writing a research paper: prewriting, locating sources, evaluating sources, inside-out drafting, and revising.

A key factor in locating sources is using time efficiently. Once again, utilizing a method becomes vital to succeeding at this goal. Having a method to use each time we write provides a roadmap for more efficient and effective experiences. As we use the method, we can revise our steps and tinker as needed without having to "reinvent the wheel" for each new writing assignment. This method should cut down the time we need to spend researching because we won't waste time closely reading materials that won't help us directly answer our research question.

With this in mind, answer the following in your comment this blog:
  1. What is the research question you have chosen for your response paper?
  2. Based on your research question, where did you search for possible sources? What keywords did you use to search? Did you have to modify your search terms?
  3. Were you able to use the time-saving techniques discussed in class (titles, table of contents, indexes, abstracts, graphic highlights, section titles, introductions, conclusions, topic sentences)? Specifically describe two time-saving techniques you used and how they helped or why they didn't work for you.

35 comments:

  1. The research question I chose was should gun control have stricter laws? Why or why not?
    I have used the internet to find resources. To find reliable sources I have used key words in both Google and databases provided through the school, such as, gun control, self defense, and the bill of rights. I did have to change some of the keywords to form a better and more narrow list of topics that came up.
    When using the databases I have been able to use time saving techniques. I was easily able to use the graphic highlighting when it came to a long list of information from a article that was much needed. This saved me from doing a lot of time consuming reading. In addition, I have used introductions to determine if the article I could use was worth actually using. This made a very big difference in the amount I read because it is very easy to read an introduction versus an entire article.

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  2. 1.)The research question I have chosen is "How should the energy/global warming crisis be addressed and what role should the U.S. play?"
    2.)So far I have used the web and I have a book "Earth in the Balance" by Al Gore that is very informative. I really have searched quite a few different terms as far as the web goes, it's a pretty broad topic.
    3.)Time-saving techniques I have used so far are table of contents and indexes.

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  3. The research question I have chosen is " Should there be stricter gun control laws? Why or why not? I haven't done a whole lot of research on this topic recently. However, I have used various online search engines like google, ask jeeves, etc. The keywords I used to search were firearm sales, youth violence, gun control policies, gun deaths per year. I didn't modify my search manually but the computer gave me search suggestions and add-ons. While searching for creditably sources I used two main time saving techniques. Section titles made it easy and quick for me to look at the main idea of the article and determine if it would be useful in my paper. It was also easy to read just an introduction of a paper instead of the whole thing. It saves time, and allows me to see the main point, and thesis statement the author wanted the reader to get.

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  4. I still need to run this by you but I would like to use "Is affirmative action a system that prevents racism in the civil service system or endorses it?" as my research question. There is certainly a lot of controversy over this subject, more so with those competing for civil service jobs.
    Statistics and researchable material can be found on many government websites.
    Using the titles as time saving techniques made researching move much faster. This is because the title tends to relate directly to what you are looking for but articles with irrelivant titles may be missed

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  5. The research question I chose was the first one, about technology (ie facebook, video games, etc) being used in school.

    I haven't done much research yet, but I did go to google quickly and found a couple of possible sources. I used key words including: monopoly, games, educational, and more. I used monopoly because that is one game I was thinking about incorporating in my paper.

    I haven't done much of the "time consuming" stuff discussed in class. I haven't done much research yet, but I know what and how I can do it now. I did go to the library and find out how to use the database, which will help me out.

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  6. The research question that I chose was "should popar cuture text (movies, muusic, etc.) and/ or technology (ipod, cellphones)be use in education what the advantages and disadvantages of using them?

    I went to google and typed in "advantages and disadvantages of technology", I found a couple of sources that would help me get started with this paper.

    I haven't really used/done "time consuming techniques" but when I do I will most likely use the table of contents and section titles. Those seem like they would be the most helpful.

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  8. The research question I have chose is, "What determins when a minor is tried as an adult for a murder case?"

    At this point I have only used internet search sites such as bing, google, and ask. The key words I have used are minor, juvnile, murder, and child. I have modified them by using synn.

    I have read the introductions and topic sentances on the information I have found to determin if it is really going to be helpful to make my paper better.

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  9. I chose to research diet soda versus regular soda, and which is a healthier choice. Is diet soda as healthy as people make it out to be?

    I used the internet to research my topic and figure out what I should write about. I have always been wondering if diet soda is healthier for you because I always hear people say that it makes you lose weight, and that it is not as fattening, so I decided to find out for myself. Some key words that I used to find out good information off the internet were, "What is healthier diet soda or regular soda?," And "What are the ingredients that make diet soda unhealthy?" I didn't really have to modify me research terms because the information just came up with my original questions.

    I couldn't really use the time saving techniques because most of the information that i needed were a little more involved in the paragraphs. I could have used the introduction but sometimes introductions can be misleading , especially online.

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  10. the R.Q. i choses was wether or not gun control laws should be stricter.

    Some key words i typred in were ATF, NRA, and gun control laws. On google i found credible sources such as official web sites for the ATF and NRA to start my reasearch by finding out what gun control laws are, and some conflicting views on what they should be.

    Some timesaving techniques i use to aid my search were grphic highlights and secion titles. These helped me not waste time on looking at useless info and focus on things that i needed.

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  11. I have chosen the research question “Should popular culture texts (movies, music, magazines, TV shows, ect.) and/or technology (iPods, cell phones, Facebook) be used in education? What are the advantages/disadvantages of using them?
    So far I have only researched online. I haven’t had time to go to the library yet, but plan to this week. When I was researching I had a limited amount of time and therefore didn’t have a chance to do much. However some of the key terms I used were “technology and education”, “modern culture texts and education” and “non-traditional education.” I did have to modify my search terms to some degree, but because I have written a lengthy research paper before, I knew how to word my search terms fairly well.
    I was able to use abstracts as a help and topic sentences. Because I was using online sources and most of the documents/articles were lengthy the topic sentences were very helpful. By reading the topic sentences I was able to determine whether or not paragraphs and articles were able to help me at all. Also, abstracts did the same thing. They helped me to determine whether or not there was anything in the article that would be of help in my research paper.

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  12. The research question I chosen for my paper is "How should the United States solve the global warming crisis?"

    I searched the internet for my possible sources and tried using some online library sites. The keywords I used to search was "Solving global warming." and I used "United States preventing global warming." I didn't really have to modify my search results.

    The two techniques that really helped me search for research was titles and topic sentences. The titles helped me because it showed usually what was discussed on the page. The topic sentences helped me a lot by describing what was in that paragraph.

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  13. The research question I chose was should media content be more regulated? why or why not?


    So far I have searched the library's data bases. I have come up with two news paper articles and a couple of books. I will be going to the library to further review them. I located these sources by typing in the words media censorship. I also just typed in censorship and found a lot more results. I did not have to modify ny search but by doing so I found multiple listings.


    I was able to use one of the time saving techniques from class. This was looking at the table of contents. When I was searching the databases for books on my topic it brought up the table of contents for each book I looked at. I also looked at the title of the book and it seemed like it was a good book to look into. I was not able to use anymore techniques as this was just a brief discription on the computer, but I am sure i will be able to use more techniques once I get the book.

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  14. My research question is 'What are the major downfalls of using technology in education?'.

    I looked through databases, along with a little glance through google and a few books I already own that reguard education.One strong source I may utilize is one of my professsors here at OCC. Main keywords I used included technology, education, television, and Waldorf. I didn't exactly modify my search terms, however, I did come across new words that proved usefull.

    While looking for sources, the time-saving technique that I found most usefull was utilizing indexes. I have a few books based on education, yet none of them have a title relating specifically to the use of technology. Indexes conveniently point out pages that put any sort of emphasis on technology.

    Itroductions and conclusions also proved to be quite usefull as a shortcut. This is often where a topic sentence is located. Using these techniques also helped show me that I was looking for the same things that we are being taught to put into our writing ; )

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  15. The research question I chose was should gun control have stricter laws? Why or why not?

    I found several possible sources for my research question on the internet. There are plenty of websites that talk about gun control. I would also like to find a book that I could use for a source but I haven't looked yet.

    I was able to use some of the time-saving techniques from class. The two that helped me the most were probably the titles and the introductions. They both worked for me because I could pretty much tell what the article was going to be about before I read it, so this saved me a lot of time. If I couldn't tell what it was about from the title I could definitely tell from the introduction.

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  16. The research question I have chosen to work on is, "should social security be reformed?". This is something I feel like needs more attention. While beginning my research I typed in words like "social security" and "political issues". The two time saving techniques that helped me the most would have to be the titles and introductions. When skimming through the titles I use them to help me figure out weather or no the peice is worth reading or not. The introductions are also a key thing I use as well. Because the intorduction is what the whole writings is about,by reading the intro without the body helps you avoid a bunch of extra reading that will waste time.

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  17. For my research paper I choose the RQ; “Should popular culture texts (movies, music, magazines, TV shows, etc.) and/or technology (iPods, cell phones, Facebook) be used in education? What are the advantages/disadvantages of using them?”

    So far I have used the coulter library database and found it quite successful, I searched; “education through multimedia,” “Facebook and education,” “Online communities and education,” “modern forms of education,” “technology and education,” “Change in education practices.” I’ve had to modify my terms a few times to broaden my search.
    Compared to previous research papers I have written finding these few first sources has-been really easy.

    Even though I’ve only briefly searched the coulter library database I’ve found three promising articles, about using facebook for community based learning, other ways to use the internet to connect the students and teachers for online study groups and so on.

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  18. The research question I chose is: “Should popular culture texts (movies, music, magazines, TV shows, ect.) and/or technology (iPods, cell phones, Facebook) be used in education? What are the advantages/disadvantages of using them?
    The first place on the internet I went to find sources was Newsbank. However, I could not even find articles. I remember in high school we4 had to type in a user names and password to even get into the site, and I will have to make a new one. I then went to google and typed in "Technology in education," and many reliable sources popped up.
    In analylzing the information, I highlighted important parts of the article and summed up the paragraphs with one sentence in the margins. Luckily, at the end of the article there was a bibliography provided for me. Skimming over the titles of articles was a fast and easy approach to picking out articles that related to my research question.

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  19. My research question is should the fat tax be passed? Why or why not? I found two possible sources on internet journals. I also found a possible printed source through the references of one journal. The key words I used were either fat tax, or the purpose of the fax tax. I often had to modify my key terms because a lot of the time I received bias articles. That’s when I began looking on journal websites. Yes, I used the reference, abstracts, table of contents, and graphic highlights techniques. I have already explained one method I used which is the reference technique. I look at one of the books the author used. Then I researched the book and looked at the table of contents which looked like it would work for my paper. I used the abstract method to see if one of the journal articles would work for my research question. After reading it I found it did indeed. That is how these two procedures have helped me.

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  20. Sorry P. Snow, It's technically Wednesday now, and I had completely forgotten to do my blog last week. But, I'm pulling an all-nighter and figured that late was better than never..

    The research question I chose is "Should advertising content be more regulated?" The concept that a lot of what we see today in our ad's are either sex, or body image based really gets me thinking...

    I have checked out a few Internet sources already for my paper. One of which was the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty website, which listed statistics of young girls, relating their self-esteem levels to the consistency of what is being presented to them through "beautified" advertising. I have also whipped out one of my favorite books, "Why We Buy" and started to go through its chapters to see if there is any information there that may correlate to my paper.

    I have used some of the techniques you showed us in class, chapter skimming is a favorite of mine. I also appreciate looking at an author's index to see if their work relates to my own research question. It has saved me time, and effort to see ahead of time if the source I am looking at is credible for my paper.

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  21. The research question I chose was “Should tax payers be expected to pay for new stadiums for professional teams? Why or why not? To find sources for my paper, I have used a couple different search engines, including “Google” and “Bing.” I haven’t looked through any databases yet, but plan to do so, probably using something along the lines of “EBSCOHost” or “Opposing Viewpoints.” Some keywords I’ve used to search include “funding for professional stadiums,” and “tax dollars in professional sports.” I haven’t had to modify my searches, because I’ve gotten a decent amount of information using the terms I’ve searched. As far as time-saving techniques goes, I’ve used topic sentences and graphic highlights to enhance my researching.

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  22. the question I have chosen how will the US find a solution to global warming.

    i searched the internet and checked databases and search engines like Google. Some key words I used where: alternative, magma, US, renewable energy, UN. i actually am using wiki right now to see what exactly what it is. and learning a lot about magma power. I plan on going to the library and looking at some books on it soon.

    the time saving tip i have used the most so far is that reading of the summery. I like how that this also helps me understand if the article is going to be any good or just a wast of time. these skills are really coming in handy!

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  23. The research question I've chose is, "Should America have universal healthcare?"

    I haven't done extensive research yet, but I found 2 creditable sources from a Google search. I used Universal healthcare and healthcare reform as keywords. I attempted to search on EBSCOhost, but I couldn't seem to figure it out.

    I've used titles, topic sentences and introductions as far as time saving techniques. When I go to the library, I will definitely use the indexes and table of contents to help save time.

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  24. I have chosen the research question “Should popular culture texts,movies, music, magazines, TV shows and/or technology, iPods, cell phones, and Facebook be used in education? What are the advantages/disadvantages of using them?
    So far i have only researched on the internet. I have typed in many different things into the search bar and have recieve many different reliable sources to use for my paper. I have had a hard time locating any news articles or books on the topic but i have inlisted in some help from a local librarian to help me locate sources within the library.
    Two time saving techiques i have used so far in this research was reading the introductions and conclusions and also the topic sentences. It helped me find out quickly if the article would help my in the paper or not.

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  25. This is Brian Kim. The research question I have chose is “Is Second Life will be the actual Second Life? Or just another version of social networking application?” One of my source is a book called “The Making of Second Life”. I also found my sources on Internet. I went to Google, and typed “virtual life”, “second life”, “gaming addiction” and such. I didn’t use timing consuming technique much yet. I luckily have some books that I would use for my paper. I currently using one book for my research, but thinking about adding more sources from different books too. I also went to library to do some research, but sadly didn’t find much.

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  26. The research question I have chose for my paper is “Should popular culture texts and/or technology be used in education? What are the advantages/disadvantages of using them?” I began my research for this topic on the internet. Since the internet is a key aspect of my question I figured it would be the best place to get started. I used key words such as technology and education and then I narrowed my search to specifics such as iPods and learning. Using these terms did give me results however I did use various combinations in order to find the best and most useful information.
    I was able to use some of the time saving techniques in order to make my search more effective and useful. When I was working online I used the time saving technique of looking through the highlights in the search results. This saved me time because I wasn’t wasting time reading articles that weren’t going to be in aid to my paper. As far as using books goes when I was looking through them I went to the index in hopes of locating the exact pages I needed in order to gather the necessary information. If I wasn’t able to use this resource I would have spent much more time trying to find information and wouldn’t have been able to get key points. If I was reading an entire book I may have overlooked the key points which I was able to locate my narrowing my search.

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  27. For my research paper I wrote about gun control. I chose this topic because it is a popular topic in our culture by most people. There is plenty of good research on this topic and there are many of sides to take on this topic. For my sources I used three books from the OCC library and an internet source. Finding the right books at the library was very easy to do. I looked at about seven or eight books and chose three based to briefly looking through the books. Finding an internet source was not easy to do. Gun control is a touch subject and there are a lot of opinions and arguments on the internet that tend to shadow the good information. I eventually found a good internet source that had academic information and opinions. It took way to long to find an internet source because of all the garbage that pops up on this subject threw a search engine.

    In the books that I chose I was able to use several time saving techniques. I utilized the index and bibliography page. I also used heading titles and summary section to find useful information. The heading and titles are especially useful for finding a section that could be useful.

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  28. My research question is "Should technology be used in classrooms?" While it was relatively easy for me to find sources online, finding a book source was much harder. I found books, that were supposedly in the Onondaga Library system, but even my mom who works for them couldn't find them. But I ended up finding quite a few online sources quite easily.

    Many of my sources I found through this blog I found, yes I know a blog, very bad. But the blog was of an essay a girl did on how to facebook in a classroom. So luckily I was able to use quite a few of the works she cited for the paper in mine.

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  29. The Research question I chose for my research paper is "Stricter gun control Laws". I felt this was a good chose because you can debate on why or why not there should be more laws for guns and firearms.
    Sources I used were the library,the internet,encyclopedias,and books on the subject. Key words were from the question I used or the debate or rights on guns. Yes,I had to modify my search terms because sometimes their is more than one word for "guns" which is whatmy paper was on.
    Topic sentences help me to begin what my paragraph discusses. I tend to have diffucult moments where I am unable to start my paragraph but once I've started and chose my topic sentence I can slowly add moree information.

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  30. The research question i picked for this paper was about adding new technology into school, to improve learning.

    To find articles related to this i looked up "technology", "New Teaching Techniques". online was easy to find a source, however finding a book i could not do.

    The time saving methods helped when skimming through the online articles to find out how credible they were and if they actually related to my research question.

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  31. I chose media censorship as my topic, with the research question of "Should media content be censored or regulated?"

    I searched for sources for this topic within my memory and of course, on the internet. I knew exactly what I was looking for, so searching for these sources was easy. Last year I read about a book with very interesting conclusions on this very topic, and I instantly decided that would become my primary source.

    I actually didn't utilize any time saving techniques we discussed in class, but I can definitely see how they would be very beneficial if you didn't know exactly what sources you were going to use beforehand.

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  32. I chose the topic of technology in classrooms. I used the question "are cellphones helpful in the class room or not?"

    I searched the internet, I went to the library and I had a librarian help me look in the databases online, and I searched in books. I had a very hard time finding what I needed. I had to search using many different key words.

    I didn't use any of the time saving techniques.

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  33. The research question I choose was should gun control have stricter laws why or why not? When I first started to write this paper I looked up books on gun control laws and read through some chapters and I used some of that information in my paper. The key words I searched were “gun massacres” because I was trying to make a point. The point I was trying to make was that guns are the reason for a lot of massacres that have happened in the past.
    Some of the time saving techniques I used were introductions, conclusions and topic sentences. I pre wrote the entire essay before hand by planning out what I was going to write and in what form I was gong to write it in. these techniques worked as always. They never fail on me and they always get me to get my paper done efficiently

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  34. 1) The research question i did for the response paper was, Is the main character in "A Tell Tale Heart" emotionally stable?

    2) My main source was the text. By reading the story over and over I gained a better understanding for what Edgar Allen Poe was trying to say. For this paper I did not really use any sources other than the text itself and the opinions of my peers. By getting others opinions on the short story i was able to be more open minded towards Poe's writing techniques. When I better understood what the author was trying to say I could then elaborate more on the research question that i created.

    3) One time saving technique I used that we learned in class was annotation. By breaking up the story into several parts and writing the key parts in the margins it helped me better understand the writing itself. I tried the highlighting method but it wasn't as effective as annotation. Highlighting to me is just basically coloring and does not help me better understand the story at all. Highlighting could have possibly been more effective if the story was significantly longer and i needed to remember where certain sentences were in the text. Since the "short story" was approximately 4 pages long highlighting would be ineffective.

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  35. 1) The research question i did for the response paper was, Is the main character in "A Tell Tale Heart" emotionally stable?

    2) My main source was the text. By reading the story over and over I gained a better understanding for what Edgar Allen Poe was trying to say. For this paper I did not really use any sources other than the text itself and the opinions of my peers. By getting others opinions on the short story i was able to be more open minded towards Poe's writing techniques. When I better understood what the author was trying to say I could then elaborate more on the research question that i created.

    3) One time saving technique I used that we learned in class was annotation. By breaking up the story into several parts and writing the key parts in the margins it helped me better understand the writing itself. I tried the highlighting method but it wasn't as effective as annotation. Highlighting to me is just basically coloring and does not help me better understand the story at all. Highlighting could have possibly been more effective if the story was significantly longer and i needed to remember where certain sentences were in the text. Since the "short story" was approximately 4 pages long highlighting would be ineffective.

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