Week 5

Week 5 Blog

For this assignment I read everything carefully before beginning the assignments. This is the first week that I’ve had to get assignments done early; I had obligations early in the week so I did the work as soon as possible to post early. One of my flaws is to overlook a detail, as Phil pointed out about my posting on Annotation Analysis. Classmates’ postings have been extremely helpful to me, helping me recheck my work for something I may have misunderstood or overlooked in the instructions. Reading their postings has provided a counterpoint for me to review and fine-tune errors what I’ve done.

Each lesson broadens my technology interactive skills and improves my comfort level with technology. In the Annotation Analysis assignment, I initially did not think I could do the colorful highlights with my computer, and did not attempt it. After seeing what others had done, I felt “left out” and wanted to see if indeed I could master that. So I tried, and yes, I did it!! What a sense of accomplishment.

In doing the Citing and Annotating assignment, I discovered sources that are just perfect for the Pathfinder using the keyword “electromagnetic fields.” It was very distracting to find such great stuff. I think I’m simply better at searching now that I’ve done it a few times. It’s very encouraging to be able to use the resources just as directed, and I’ve begun a list to look up in ProQuest.

In addition to the practice of annotating and citing, one of the accomplishments was using Britannica Online, which I accessed through the SCC Library website. I was unable to find it for the earlier assignment to access an online encyclopedia, but found it so easily with this assignment. Again, what a sense of accomplishment to be able do use the resources.

The encyclopedia article is so well done, the science is so clearly elucidated it gave me with gained perspective on my own perspective: how I’ve been influenced by one sided information and not known how to obtain alternatives to balance out what may otherwise be considered a bias titled “The Sky is Falling.”

There are two books that I considered for the Citing an Annotating assignment, and they appear to be very similar. I did search for them on Amazon.com as well as in the library. Amazon had interesting reviews posted of each book. There is so much overlap in both of them, but the one I chose for the assignment is more of a textbook than a “general readership” kind of book.

Anecdotally, one of the authoritative sources I discovered is a business my brother worked for in 1986. It was one of his first jobs. He was night security. He said they usually did nothing but read books. One night, at some odd hour between 1 and 4 am, he received an emergency phone call. The call was one of the first to the US about the Chernobyl disaster

Information or Spin?

In working on the Research Plan I found myself doing a lot more research and coming up with results that I found very interesting –and very distracting! I also discovered that my attention to detail really needs rechecking. The MLA guide information almost slipped into obscurity, but at the last minute I reviewed the MLA and made corrections before posting.

It was a real relief to post the Research Plan. I enjoyed reading what others put together. The topics and research plans are very impressive. My feedback has been only to suggest other research sources.

In working on this weeks’ assignment, another issue of information evaluation came to mind, that of information spin.

So often, we don’t trust information provided us by those who stand to profit from giving out that information. If the advertisers are our only source of education, where does that leave us?

This happens every day in relation to our medical care. Pharmaceutical companies are coming up with new drugs all the time. In addition to publishing (and advertising) in medical journals, pharmaceutical company representatives visit doctors to inform them of new drugs.

In reading Jen’s post on Selecting Information Sources, I became aware of the filtering of information, but from the perspective of who is funding the research.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the independent researchers on EMF, Neil Cherry, rebutted research funded by the cell pone industry. Neil Cherry’s research showed conclusively that EMF indeed pose health risks. The industry sponsored research found otherwise, and concluded that EMF from cell phones is harmless. The industry researchers followed the same research –re-enacting Cherry’s same experiments. Cherry reviewed their research from beginning to end. The key difference between his research methods and theirs was this: his experiments used live subjects; theirs used post-mortem subjects. This accounted for the different findings. Anyone who did not know how to compare the research, or did not have access to the primary research could not determine this “nuance” that accounted for the different findings.

In a topic such as Jen’s GM foods, she will encounter a lot of industry sanitized findings. But how can the student or newbie to the field determine funding-inspired-spin from seemingly rabid tree-hugger perspectives?

Week 3

I used the Seattle Community College catalog and visited that library as well. In searching the library catalog for books, I used both the basic subject search and the advanced search. The basic search resulted in a list of topic categories – a menu of items that included the keyword I had used in the search. The results illustrated that what I had originally been searching for word definitions. So the topic concept became more clear. Initially I didn’t know that WiFi is a type of Broadband, and that they are both subsets of the greater category of electromagnetic fields. So the topic “Do electromagnetic fields pose a health risk?” is a better restatement of my original question.

Using the term “EMF” and “wifi” gave no results. A librarian suggested I use a hyphen in “Wi-Fi” and that proved successful. Writing out “electromagnetic fields” was also successful. Stretching my brain to think of alternative keywords was initially a challenge. I would not have considered inserting a hyphen into WiFi, because everywhere I see it in print, there is no hyphen. "Wireless" also gave the most, with 83 results. "Cable" gave 24 results, but most of them were completely irrelevant.

In reviewing the MLA Style Citation guide, I see I made an error in my posting on Library Books. The Library doesn’t capitalize the words of the book title, which surprised me. I thought the standards had changed, if even library catalogs aren't capitalizing book titles. So even though I had the MLA Guide right there, I failed to notice this detail and followed the Library’s lead.

To reiterate by confusion, just earlier in the day I was chastised for how I had addressed a letter. In the past, if the letter was to go to the attention of a worker at a company, that was the very last line. Now it is to be the very first line, with zip code on the same line as City and State.)

Searching the databases was both fun and a bit daunting. Because the subject search returned categories that include the keyword, that was helpful in gaining direction about the search, and learning about other relevant searches, or branches, to look into to potentially round out pursuit of the overall topic. Learning about Boolean search terms was great. In the past, I’ve been so put off by the word “Boolean.” Well, I still wish they'd chosen a different word.

I really like that ProQuest has full articles. In searches pre-LIB 180, over and over I've encountered results that say "to read this article, subscribe to..." Sometimes the abstract is free to read, and that provides enough information for my needs.

The libray field trip really paid off twice, because Lynn helped me with the crucial issue of topic clarification, and I got to meet with Meryl in person!

This class is enjoyable, my time management is getting better, my stress is still high, but I'm feeling better about myself, and have a better idea of how to manage around the technical difficulties I've had.

I expect to be using these search skills over and over in the future. The helpful tips on Google were great. One of my friends has written many computer "how-to" books. I brought up this class, and my topic. He suggested Wikipedia as a resource – then went on to say “ you don’t know who’s posted in Wikipedia… I’ve posted in Wikipedia – on pantyhose!” Here's the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantyhose