Quick Access 30

If and when you use the all mighty Internet for research papers you have to be extra careful, because while it takes years and moths to get a paper published or even a book, anyone can put something on the web in a matter of minutes. And while that gives you a lot more resources to draw from, it can also lead to sources that are full of inaccurate and biased material. The best method that I have found to search the web with is to go to your favorite search engine, mine is and always has been Google, just for its ease of use and massive size. Once at your preferred search engine start typing in keywords into the search bar to start your search. Now this is important, because when I say keywords I mean: a word or group of words that relate to your subject of interest. Another way to search is by directories, which are lists of topics and resources that can be found on nearly any site and most databases. These lists can lead you to the correct web links in which you will find the most information on the different subjects that you are searching for. When you find a website, the first step you then need to do is to evaluate it for accuracy. Some accurate indicators of this can be found if you venture to find out if whether or not they are an educational, a non-profit, or a governmental organized website. Another god way can be found in expert authors on the subject or a reliable printed source, such as the New York Time. After reading through the content and doing the rest of your research, you might find that it has a lot of unbiased supporting evidence, so be careful out there.

Quick Access 31

Avoid it! Avoid what you ask, the plague? Swine flu? How about an angry member of the People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals? No, would you believe that the answer is d): none of the above? The true answer is plagiarism, and believe you me, it can be just as deadly as any of the other answers. What is plagiarism? Well it is defined as the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own and it can entail many, many things. In fact this chapter lists all the ways that I can think of that come across as plagiarism, they include, but certainly are not limited to: buying a paper off of the internet, turning in something someone else has written, changing parts of someone else’s paper and turning it in, not using quotation marks on direct quotes from sources, just using ‘copy and paste’ on key parts of an article, using ideas from sources without citing them, combining ideas from several sources and not citing them, and taking language or visual ideas from someone else’s work. Wow, right? I know I was astounded at the massive number of ways that people have found to cheat the system instead of just using the massive amount of ways that you can cite sources or bring a source’s ideas into your own work without plagiarizing or taking credit for that which is not earned. To avoid plagiarism just acknowledge when you are using someone else’s ideas, words, or images. Also make sure you use the right documentation style, that you write down all the facts for documenting a source, just in case you lose the source, and, if you have any questions, make sure you consult an instructor because they will help you out. They have to, because plagiarism results in expulsion.

Summarizing, Quotations and Paraphrasing

Nearly any time that you pick up the pad and pen to write you will do it. Almost every time you open your mouth you will say it. In fact sometime even in your thoughts you do it, but what is it you ask? Summarizing!!! With such a world wide topic there is still so much to about it, for example exactly how it should be done and how to not sound plagiaristic when you discuss different ideas and topics. The first lesson in summarizing is to get the difference of what they, the author of the original idea or quote, said and what it I that you are saying about that quote. This is important because before you can truly talk about somebody else’s work you must, MUST, make sure that you fully understand it yourself first, because if you don’t, then how can you expect anyone to take your ideas on the subject seriously if you preface your summery with, “Now I don’t fully understand the piece, but I think it means blah blah blah…” you can’t, so read it and know it first! Next you should try to capture all of the ideas and other points found in the reading because you want to give your reader the whole view of the subject, not just what you want them to see or what you had time to read. The other important reason to including everything is that is you don’t you leave the opportunity for many discrepancy errors to occur and that is where most problems happen in the creation of a successful summery. This is because if you don’t have everything down, in the order of its happening, there are usually going to be many other important items that get left out. Summarizing is a very important tool in your tool belt, so use it carefully!!

Know it All

The article, “Know It All,” by Stacy Schiff was a really interesting and intriguing piece about the creation and proliferation on a certain website that is know and used, at least once, by all of us. That website is my personal favorite in fact. It is: Wikipedia. Now, Wikipedia is a website that was created in 2001 by Jimmy Whales and was originally called ‘the wiki.’ The whole idea of the website would be to bring the encyclopedia into the 21^st century by a) making it available to all and b) keeping it constantly up to date and current. Quite noble ideas really because I can say that I have never, ever used an encyclopedia for any of my research, ever, not because they aren’t useful book, but because it is way too much of a hassle when you are right in the middle of a big paper or project to take time out of an already hectic schedule to go get one. So it is in Wikipedia’s ease of use that its true value is found, but therein also lays its flaws. This is because, in order to make Wikipedia available to all, anyone can post new information or change an article, which is obviously meant to make so everyone helps everyone to keep our knowledge up to date and relevant, but has led to so serious problems for the web site. For example, back home my high schools network was blocked by the wiki administrators because so many people were getting on Wikipedia at the school and were rewriting articles so that they became wrong and not of use to anyone, therefore defeating the whole purpose of the site. I guess the lesson to take form this would be to not abuse the privilege you are given with the site because, in accordance with how the site works, we all need to work together to make it make any sense at all.

My Learning Style

After taking the quiz online and getting my result, I have decided to throw them out the window for this assignment for I believe that my style of learning is not one of the options, but all of them. I draw from each one, taking the ones that help me and then I discard the rest because if a part of any method doesn’t help you in understanding, then it is hindering you and stopping you from reaching your full potential as a student, teacher, parent or any other profession in the world.

The first two, visual and audio learning I feel are one and the same, at least for me. . I need to hear it as I need to see it, so I find it hard to differentiate between the two, because in order for me to learn effectively I need to see the teacher do the problem at least once and hear his/her explanation of why he/she did this or that, without one of those two aspects, I get pretty lost in my inability to understand and wallow in self pity. Not pretty, but all true, and so I am not afraid to admit it.

The last part of the way I learn, which is learning by doing. This is the most important part of my mind’s way of learning new information as it probably makes up 50 to 60% of my ability to understand new thoughts and ideas. After I have heard the teacher’s explanation and after I have seen an example solved I must get my hands on it in order to completely archive it away in my brain as a learned subject. If there is no opportunity to work it out, the idea stays up in my brain as a fractured idea that continually confuses me and halts my progress at times,. For me this is the final step in comprehension.

This is how I learn, not with one method but a hybrid of all three. Perhaps it is immature of me not to grab on to just one and perfect it, but would you sign a business contract without first going over it with fine toothed comb form all possible angles? That is how I choose to view incoming information, small business opportunities that must be examined with all senses and possible tool before carefully filing them away into my memory banks, and if that is immature, then I’ll be immature forever.