Assignment 22: Original Research

I had never done original research before now.  So far, what I have learned is that it is a bit more difficult because you have to go much more in depth on the topic.  Library research kind of prepared me for original research but not as much as you would hope. Library research is much more straight forward, takes less time, and the information you are looking for is much easier to find.  Critical thinking is required for both types of research but I think you need to be more critical when doing library research because a lot of the information you find can be incorrect or misleading. In library research it is most important to be able to decide what information is useful and which information is faulty.  With original research it is most important to have skills that help you form a search string and to know what words will work best for keywords.

Assignment 17: Intellectual Property

I consider something someone's intellectual property if you are using their exact words or you are taking their idea and putting it in your own words. The legal definition of intellectual property is: "The ownership of ideas and control over the tangible or virtual representation of those ideas. Use of another person's intellectual property may or may not involve royalty payments or permission, but should always include proper credit to the source."(dictionary.com)
Some examples of intellectual property are copyrights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets. When a book has a copyright on it it means that the words and ideas conveyed in that book are the author's intellectual property.  Trademarks usually brands, such as "Fisher Price" or "Circo", someone who does not own the brand can not put it on their products unless they have the owner's permission. Patents are usually inventions. Tomas Edison invented the lightbulb, when he was developing this invention, he might have put a patent on it so that if someone else cam forward with the same invention, the would not get credit because Edison invented it first. Trade secrets are secrets that a company or individual uses when they go about making their product, an example would be Pepsi, they would never reveal how they make their soda so delicious because someone could take that secret and make the same soda for cheaper and Pepsi would loose a lot of money.

Assignment 20: "Checking In"

I was having a lot of difficulty in forming a search string that works for my semester research project, but I went to Professor Wexelbaum's office one day and she helped me not only find a search string but she also gave me a shove in the right direction of getting started on the project and not just working on it in class. I was finding it difficult to be motivated to start it but now since I have she has helped me I know where to start. In other classes I do not have much research that I am doing right now, but earlier in the semester I had to write a paper and I used Academic Search Premier to find my information because now I actually know how to use it properly.

Blog Post on the Urvashi Vaid Presentation

1. What were your expectations prior to attending this event?  What did you know about the topic before you attended the event?
I expected that it would be someone talking about equal marriage rights for a few hours.  I knew there was a movement for equal marriage rights but I didn't know how huge the movement is.

2. How was the information presented? Did the information presented at the event differ in any way from what you had learned or believed in the past? How?
She is a very strong public speaker so it was not difficult to sit and listen, she can really pull in her audience.  There is a lot of optimism in the LGBT community, you would never know that if you just listen to or watch the news because of all the negativity, bullying, and suicides that is reported concerning the LGBT community.

3. What was one thing that you learned from this event that you did not know, or had never heard, before?
The people in the LGBT community do not consider marriage a secular thing.  Only 6 states allow gay marriage, it is difficult for LGBT's to even get a civil union.  LGBT's believe that they are winning the fight and they see a near end to the fight.

4. Did the personal, professional, or academic background make the speaker an authority on the topic? Why or why not?
Yes, she is a LGBT activist and has published several books.

5. What can you take away from this presentation to assist you in your Alternative Viewpoints Paper?
My alternative viewpoints presentation is on lesbian mothers and I learned that kids in lesbian households have twice as a high poverty rate than kids in heterosexual households.

6. If someone in the class had the opportunity to ask a question, how did the speaker respond?  Was their answer satisfactory to you?  Why or why not?

Assignment 14: Google 101

During Google 101 I learned that you can use Google in almost the same way that you use a research database except you just use "+" instead of "AND".  When using Google I got the most results but much of it wasn't very relevant to what I was looking for.  Also I learned that you can upload pictures onto Google and it will find you any websites it could have come from.  I think I will probably use that feature a lot when looking for art or violin sheet music, it could be very helpful in finding new websites for things I need.  I will probably start using Google more often because of what I learned in Google 101.  Now I actually know how to use Google.  You don't just have to type in a couple words, to narrow your search you can use a search string, I did not know that, knowing that will help me in my school work.

Assignment 14: First Draft of Alternative Viewpoints Paper

There are about 1.5 million lesbian mothers and about 1 million homosexual fathers in the United States and about 6 million children have a parent who is homosexual.  These children report relatively low levels of stigmatization but boys report being excluded more than girls do and girls report being gossiped about more often because of the sexual orientation of their parents.  Vanfraussen found that children in lesbian families are not teased more frequently than children in heterosexual households about such things as clothes or appearance but Tasker and Golombok did find a trend towards children in lesbian families getting teased more about being gay/lesbian themselves.

Assignment 13: Review the semester research questions

1.     What human population did you research and why?

I am researching how elderly people the United States are treated by the rest of the country.

2.     Before doing research on this population, what did you assume about them?  Why?  Where did you hear that information from?

Before I started this research I assumed that the youth of today have little to no respect for the elderly, that they do not hold then in very high regard. I heard that information from the media and from what I see everyday when working in the nursing home. 

3.     What did you find out from your background research to be true? 

I have found that most stereotypes concerning old people are negative and while younger people have some respect for the elderly, they do not want to be around them because of their bias's they have gotten from the media and also from their own apprehensiveness about growing old.

4.     What are some of the challenges that this group faces in mainstream society?

They are under represented in the media and most depictions of them in the media are negative.  Also many people assume that they are just old, cranky, senile people, who can not make their own decisions anymore and who just belong in the nursing home where no one can see them deteriorate. Many people stick their relatives in a nursing home when they get old so that some one else can take care of them whereas in many other cultures it is considered an honor to be with the elderly and to learn from them in their last years.

5.     What type of research studies have been done on this population to seek an answer to ONE of those challenges (the one that you consider to be the biggest challenge)?

There are a lot of case studies that professionals have done to try to determine where many peoples bias's about old people come from, and a few have found that much bias comes from about people's own fear of growing old and death.

6.     What are the challenges that people have in doing library research AND original research on this human population?
Removing their own opinions from their research. Also finding information that is on how the elderly are treated or viewed, not information on medical treatments for them.

7.     After learning a little bit more about your human population, what was the research question that you generated on them?  Show the research strategy that you used to find answer(s) to this question, as well as the best resource you found which answers this question.
How are the elderly viewed in the United States?  I typed a search string into Academic Search Premier and then found a result that was the closest to what I was looking for then I took the keywords from the results and made a new search string using my new keywords.

8.     Who are some of the organizations that educate people about this human population, if people would like further information about them?  Are any of these organizations led/staffed by people from that organization itself? 
A lot the organizations are nursing homes and Universities, most of the research is done by medical professionals, psychologists, and university professors.

Assignment 11: First Draft of Annotated Bibliography

Widrick, R.M, & Raskin, J.D. (20120). Age-related stigma and the golden section hypothesis. Aging and Mental Health, 14(4), 475-385. Doi: 10.1081/1360903167846

“Age-related stigma and the golden section hypothesis” is a study that investigated whether people interpreted identities associated with old age as negative or positive.  The golden section hypothesis refers to the idea that people give positive adjectives 61.8% of the time and negative adjectives 38.2% of the time.  In the case of old age, the phenomena are reversed.  This is a good source for my project because there is a lot of useful information and the authors cited everything so it is very creditable.  Also there is a whole case study that is cited in the article.

Castelli, L., Zecchini, A., Peamicis, L., & Sherman, S.J. (2005) The Impact of Implicit Prejudice about the Elderly on the Reaction to Stereotype Confirmation and Disconfirmation. Current Psychology, 24(2), 134-146.

This is a case study on ageism.  High prejudice people will implicitly favor stereotypers and will derogate group members who use stereotype-inconsistent information.  This case study investigates if this is true on the subject of ageism also.  This is a good source for my project because the study investigates people’s implicit opinions of old people as well as what they will explicitly say about old people.  The authors also cited every thing very well so there is a lot of credibility.

Chasteen, A.L. (2000). The Role of Age and Age-Related Attitudes in Perceptions of Elderly Individuals. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 22(3), 147-156. Doi: 10.1207/S15324834BASP2203_3

The goal of this study was to find the role of age-related attitudes in perceptions of old people.  Results shoed that group attitudes and own aging attitudes were related to judgments of elderly targets when the elderly person was considered as a typical old person.  This study is a very good source because the author did not bias the study at all.  There were no assumptions that the results would show negative attitudes.  The author made plenty of citations and also it says that she works in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto so that adds to her credibility.

Umphrey, D., & Robinson, T. (2007). Negative Sterotypes Underlying Other-Person Perceptions of the Elderly. Educational Gerontolgy, 33(4), 309-326. Doi:10.1080/03601270701198885

Umphrey and Robinson are social psychologists and they found in their studies that more than 30% of people draw on negative stereotypes when they are making estimates about advertising effects on old people. This is a good source because it addresses how the media effects our perceptions of old people as well as the distance young people have will old people which fuels stereotypes.

Assignment 12: Blog Entry

Blogs can sometimes be a a good source of information but it takes a long time of searching to find the right blog if you are going to use it as a source in an academic setting.  Blogs can also be a good source of news but since they are usually written by an individual person and usually for the purpose of delivering their opinion, they can be very biased with a lot of personal opinion so I would recommend trying to stay objective when you read but they are useful if you are trying to form your own opinion on a subject and you don't know what to think.  

The blog I found that pertains to my research was :  http://baur-writing.blogspot.com/ 

This blog is very informative but there is also a lot of personal opinion in it; I might use it as a source though because there is a good deal of information about how elders are treated in countries other then the U.S. so it might be useful if I wanted to compare countries but not much of the information is confirmable and I could probably find the same information that is provable somewhere else on the internet. 

Citation:

Baur. (2012, July 16). Attitudes towards elders: Attitudes Towards Elders I've Noticed in Other Nations. [Web log comment. Retrieved from http://baur-writing.blogspot.com/

Assignment 10: Research Reflection

Assignment:  What "LGBT population" do you think you should learn more about over the course of this semester? Why? What do you assume to be true about this population?  Where did you learn this from?  What do you think will be the most difficult challenge that you will have in doing research on the population or issue that you have selected?

I think I should learn more about LGBT pre-teens and teenagers because they are the age group that I interact with most often and I may also have children some day so I would like to be educated on the subject.  Some assumptions I have about this population is that something usually happens in their life to trigger LGBT behaviors, they are usually pretty moody (but that's probably true about any teenager), and there has been an increased amount of teenage suicide related to LGBT issues.  I have learned most of this information from the internet, media and just society in general.  The biggest challenge I will have in doing research on this population is formulating an unbiased research question just because of the many societal biases that everyone has been subjected to.

Assignment 9: Search String

1. What subject specific database did you choose?

I went to Google and typed in "scholarly databases" and the first hit was JSTOR so that is the database that I ended up using.

2. Which database provided more relevant results for your topic?

I have found that almost all databases I have tried out have brought me relevant results, mostly all of which have been useful to me. But the most useful so far has been the Academic Search Premier.

3. How are you able to narrow down results in Academic Search Premier?  How are you able to narrow down results in the subject specific database?

In Academic Search Premier to narrow your search you can choose full text, scholarly journals, document type, number of pages, what type of images you are looking for, dates published, periodical type, language, cover story, quick image view, and full PDF text.  With JSTOR you can choose item type (article, review, misc, pamphlet), date range, language, and discipline and/or publication title (i.e. African Studies, Astronomy, Business, Music, Philosophy, etc.)

4. If your first search string didn't work, what synonyms did you use?
My first search string worked.

5. How many relevant articles did you find from Academic Search Premier? How many from the subject specific database?
With Academic Search Premier there was 1005 results, most of them useful to my project.  With JSTOR there were 46691 results and many of them were not relevant to my search.

6. Of the relevant articles that you found, how many were available in full text?  How many were available via Findlt through other databases?  How many were available via Findlt in print in our collection? How many are not available at all, and required an ILL request?
539 were available in full text.  I don't know what Findlt is... But there were very many that were not available at all.

7. Since working with databases, have your research question(s) changed at all? Why or why not?
Yes, my search question has changed several times because I realized from using the databases that my the question I was using was not going to get me any results.  I have had to change even the whole main idea behind my question but they have all defiantly been changes for the better.

8. What has been your biggest challenge in composing your research question?  How do you think you would be able to overcome those challenges?
Probably one of the hardest things for me is revising my question in such a way that will get me proper results when I make it into a search string.  I think the best way to overcome this is to practice and do a lot of revision.  I know I will get it in the end.

Assignment 8: What is Old Age For? and Interventions for Preventing Falls in Older People.

The frist article I read was the one called "What is Old Age For?". I found that in this article the author talked about the elderly with respect and compassion.  In the other article the authors were  very straightforward and did not bother themselves with emotions.  It was just the facts and nothing else.  The article by William Thomas may not outright say it, but he certainly does imply that elderly people know more then us and have much more wisdom then us.  They are to be respected.

The structure of the first article was much like any other article I have read, it was nicely formatted and well organized.  The second article did not have any structure at all, in fact it was almost just a litany of facts.

Citations:

Gillespie LD; Gillespie WJ; Robertson MC; Lamb SE; Cumming RG; Rowe BH (2009) Interventions for preventing falls in elderly people.  Retrieved from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14583918

Thomas, William (8/5/2005) What is Old Age For? Retrieved from http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/respecting-elders-becoming-elders/what-is-old-age-for

Assignment 7: Getting Ready to Use Academic Search Premier

The Academic Search Premier seems like a really good database to use if you are going to be doing a research project.  Nearly all of the information I have found so far while using it has been accurate and helpful.  This is the first time I have used the database but I will defiantly be using it more often for any kind of research.  I have used the Miller Center database and that is a good one to use too, I had to use it for a Communications class last semester and it is fairly similar to the Academic Search Premier, you just type your subject in the search bar and it brings up tons of information on that subject.  I am a little apprehensive to use this new database though because it seems a little complicated; I still need to figure out how to use it to its full potential.

OPAC Search Experience

1. I am probably going to do my research project on the elderly, particularly the elderly of MN.

2.  I am looking for general information and also something more in-depth, like their living conditions and how they keep track of their finances.

3. Not Applicable.

4. I can't real find many EBooks on the subject of the elderly because it seems like such an obvious thing to many people.  I think I will have to go look at gerontology textbooks.

5. Not Applicable.

6.  Not Applicable.

Critical Thinking

What is Critical Thinking? I have heard this term in several classes such as Philosophy 194: Introduction to Critical Thinking, and Religious Studies 150: Old Testament/ Hebrew Bible Studies.  I understand Critical Thinking to mean that when you see, read, or hear something that you have the ability to remove all previous biases you may have had and form your own opinion on the subject, regardless of what anyone else has tried to convince you of.  Also I understand the term to mean that when someone is trying to convince you to agree with them, that you are able to differentiate between fact and opinion.  Criticalthinking.org defines critical thinking with the quote: "Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action." I understand from this source that if there was a particular process that a body would have to engage in to think critically, it would be evaluating information.  

I think that the connection between critical thinking and IM 204 Research Strategies is that to have good research strategies, when researching you must always be engaging in critical thinking.

What Do You Assume to be True About the Elderly?

Professor Wexelbaum has asked me to pick a population of people that I know very little to nothing about and write about what would assume to be true about the members of said population.  Well before I worked at an Assisted Living I thought that all old people were just generally unhappy people who are just waiting to die.  In the media, most depictions of the elderly show them to be either extremely unhappy and grumpy (like the comic character Crankshaft), or more of a Betty White character, the person that is semi unconnected that everyone laughs at at social gatherings.  When I got a job at Parkview Care Center I learned that although there are many of the elderly who behave in this manner, there are many of them who are very happy people!

Hello

Hello I am Ava and I am starting this blog for my IM 204 class.  I think this class is going to be interesting and informative.  I am a 2nd year Nursing student at St. Cloud State University.