WEEK 5 - Boolean

PART ONE: Looking Up Subject Terms

For this part, it was unclear if I needed to list the entire list associated with my subject search or just a few of the listed terms that corresponds with my research project. I went ahead and only included terms associated with the research topic. Also, I was unsure if I needed to click on the subject word link to display more terms associated with it or not. I

COLOR:

COLOR & language USE LANGUAGE & color 

COLOR -- Physiological effect 

COLOR – Psychology USE PSYCHOLOGY of color  

COLOR symbolism USE SYMBOLISM of colors 

PERCEPTION:

PERCEPTUAL learning

Scope Note     Here are entered works on long-lasting changes in behavior and perception as a result of exposure to sensory stimuli. Use only if a narrower term does not apply (e.g., "Perceptual-motor learning"). [EPC]

Broader Terms            NONVERBAL learning

                                    PERCEPTION

                                    PSYCHOLOGY of learning

                                    SENSORY stimulation

Narrower Terms          AUDITORY training

                                    PERCEPTUAL motor learning

                                    SIMULATED environment (Teaching method)

Related Terms             PERCEPTUAL disorders

Used for                      PERCEPTUAL learning -- Psychological aspects

                                    SENSORY training

PART TWO: Practicing Boolean Search Phrases / Statements

1.     What is the health impact of hand blowers compared to paper towels?

a.     Health impact of hand blowers AND paper towels.

2.     Are big box stores like Wal-Mart and Target good for the economy?

a.     (Wal-Mart AND Target) AND economy.

PART THREE: Written Reflection

            The Boolean system was new to me and would help me focus my research questions down to basic search terms in the future. In the past, using the right search terms to conduct research seemed to be one of my main issues. I could input several different term combinations and still not produce a result relating to my research; very frustrating. Using the Boolean system helps me speak the search algorithm’s language. The area I believed I had a struggle with is the use of parenthesis. I am not sure if I understood the concept but I attempted at it in the above example. 

Week 4 find and verify sources

1.              Electronic Reference

Resource used:

·       Sage eReference

·       Encyclopedia of Perception: Color Perception

New Idea or Information:

·                The ability to see color seems to stem from a primitive and evolutionary purpose. Having the ability to determine if something was food, or not, was detrimental to surviving.

·                Synesthesia is the ability to perceive two sensations together. Most commonly, color is associated with numbers but this has to occur every time in the same way to be considered synesthesia. Others can experience synesthesia with emotion and color, or like me with pain and sound.

·                Language may affect the way color is perceived. Someone may not be able to see the difference between lime green and cyan if they call the colors the same thing. In their mind, the color is the same. This was something that I do not believe was in this part of the encyclopedia but was something that I found out about during another class that I thought would be really interesting to research more about for this class.

Subtopics:

·       Color Perception

·       Color Consistency

·       Synesthesia

·       Evolution

·       Color Naming

Possible Research Questions:

·       How does color naming affect perception of the color?

·       Can synesthesia be taught?

·       Can Synesthesia aid in memory and learning?

·       Did we, the human race, have to learn to see color?

List of words that may be useful in the future:

DISTINCTIVE           Color perception

BROAD                      Color

NARROW                  Color naming affects color perception

RELATED                  Synesthesia and Color naming

2.              Book from Search It (The library Catalog)

Name of book:

·       Colour Perception: Mind and the Physical World

Subject Headings:

·       Visual perception

·       Psychological aspects; Color 

·       Psychological aspects; Color vision

Things about the Book:

            This book combines knowledge across many fields of discipline to explain color and how humans see and perceive it both mentally and physically.

Availability?:

            I would request the book from the WSU-Vancouver Library and pick it up at the scheduled time and date.

3.     eBook from Search It:

Name:

Perception beyond Inference: The Information Content of Visual Processes

Evaluation through ASAP:

Age:

yes, because it was published in 2011 which would be in the last five years to be considered an age appropriate source for the subject.                       

Sources:         

One can only assume the sources are great considering it is a book and has been reviewed several times. However, I was able to find any form of a citation page but there was a list of contributors which displayed a diverse list of specialties that had contributed their own knowledge to the making of this ebook.

Author:           

Seems very trusting because there is such a diverse list of individuals who contributed to the making of this ebook; ten pages of an author index. All individuals had their own credentials ranging from psychology to architecture and/or currently worked in their field

Publisher:       

Cambridge: The MIT Press, is an educational institution and a university press that focuses on Science and Engineering.   

Reflection

                             I really wish I took this class when I first got to WSU-Vancouver because then it would had made taking my Methods class and little more smoothly but instead that class has made this class just a refresher course. I find it hard to explain in this section what I can do differently in the future or what I have learned because of me taking methods already. However, a neat tool that I was not introduced to, oddly enough, was the ASAP test. Again, I would use that as a reference tool in the future. 

Week 3 Entry: Background research

Part One: Background Information

Number and enter answers to ALL of the prompts in the following questions into your Research Journal blog.

1. What is your research topic? This should be a general area of interest at this point. It should NOT be a research question yet.

            Deep sea anglerfish

2. Select an unfamiliar Search Engine or Metasearch Engine from the list linked in the lesson and run a search for your topic. DO NOT use Google for this assignment!

a. Tell me which search engine or metasearch engine you used. Scan a few webpages from your search and answer the following:

      Newslookup.com

b. What new ideas or information did you find about the topic?

      There is a new species scientist discovered

c. What are some subtopics you read about in your search?

      New species, oceanography, ceratoid angler fish, evolution, and bioluminescence

d. What possible research questions came up while you were reading?

      How did a species evolve into a new species?

      What concludes it as a new species?

      Have there been other new discoveries of species with in the last 5 to 10 years?

e. List words that might be used for future searches. Be sure to include and label at least one:

DISTINCTIVE ~ Deep sea anglerfish; Evolution

BROAD ~ Marine wildlife;                  Science

NARROW ~ Lasiognathus dinema;     Evolution process of new deep sea anglerfish

RELATED ~ Bioluminescence;                       Natural selection

These should be single words or short phrases indicating a single concept. For example, instead of writing “the influence of climate change on salmon fisheries,” you would list “climate change” “salmon” and “fisheries” as three separate search terms.

Part Two: Evaluating the Website

Whether you are doing background research, thinking of buying a new car, looking for health care information, or just satisfying your curiosity about any question, you will want to ask yourself about the source of the information. This week you will walk through the steps of evaluating one website.

Please respond to each of the points below in your evaluation of a website of your choice.

1.     Search the web, select one website that relates to your topic, and give me the URL.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-08/nsu-nsu080515.php

2. Identify the website's domain, including the suffix (for example, .org or .net). What does that tell

you about the website?

(.org); it is used by a non-profit organization or advocacy groups.

3. Authority — Scan the page for:

• Information about the sponsors and/or authors of the page. Is there an “about us” link?

            Joe Donzelli

            jdonzelli@nova.edu

• Are there any author names, either individual or organizational?

            Nova Southeastern University

            American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

• What are the author’s credentials?

No credentials were found other than being associated with Nova Southeastern University.

4. Currency

• Can you tell if the page has been updated? Is there a “date last updated” or copyright date?

Copyright date of 2016 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science is provided. However, a public release date of August, 5 2015 is listed.

• Do you consider this page sufficiently current for the topic you are researching?

Yes, because the website has been recently updated and the article is a little over a year old.

5. Accuracy and Objectivity

• Does the page have quality information? Are information sources documented with footnotes or links? Does it seem as credible as information in books, journals, textbooks?

It does appear to be accurate and objective information because the university had conducted the discovery and research. Also, the discovering researcher, Tracey Sutton, Ph.D., was included within the article along with other specialists in the field. My only critique is, I wish there was more detail information on the species. For an example, what made this a new species? What factors concluded this?

• Why was the page put on the web? Is the purpose to sell something or convince you of a particular point of view? If they are making an argument, do they address conflicting opinions? What biases can you identify?

The webpage did not appear to push an agenda, advertise to me, or had an opinion about the subject other than that it was a new discovery.

Part Three: Reflect

Finally, reflect on how you will apply what you learned this week to your future research.

            For future research, I will utilize the Evaluating Internet Resources handout posted on blackboard. I found it the most helpful part of the lesson when sifting through webpages to determine the best source for me to use. I have been so used to using scholarly articles and databases from WSU that when I had an assignment presented to me in my Biology course, it required me to use an online source and I found myself confused on how to go about this and to know for sure if the webpage I am looking at is accurate. Of course I know a little bit of how to look for the right webpage but sometimes during the research process, things get confusing and frustrating and the article will be a great tool to get back on track. It is great to have a quick, step-by-step cheat sheet to help identify whether or not a website will be a reliable and valid source.

Questions and Answers week 2

YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESEARCH THESE QUESTIONS! Don’t give an answer to the question, just tell me what type of resource you would use to look for the answer.

1. I have to do a paper on biogeography but I don’t really know what that is. Where should I begin to find out?

Because background information is needed in order to start the research process, it would behoove the student to start with secondary sources. This will allow a better understanding of the topic and its significance. The best place to start would be a textbook about biogeography which is found in the publication cycle.

             

2. A professor is writing a grant to the National Science Foundation to get funding for a research project on the effects of DDT in ground water. The NSF needs to know that this study is based on previous research. Where will the professor get the kind of information that will convince the NSF to fund the project?

As a professor that needed support for a grant from NSF, I would use a primary source from primary journal articles on the publication cycle because support is needed for my research claims and primary sources are used to back those claims up, provide historical perspectives and supply evidence for theories and research.

3. I heard on the radio that there are killer bees coming north from Central America. How do I find out if they are in Washington State yet?

This would be part of the, “Next day,” stage of the information cycle. This information is new to the person since it is known they just heard it on the radio therefore the next step would be to get a deeper context than what the radio can provide and secondary sourced information from print and online articles provide a better context for the migration path of killer bees.

4. I have heard that there was a man who was president of the United States for one day. Where would I find out who that was?

Secondary sourced information is all that is needed for this question because background information and an understanding of the significant event is inquired. Found in the last step of the information cycle, textbooks, biographies or encyclopedias are great sources for finding that information.

5. My instructor wants peer-reviewed articles for my research paper. Where can I find them?

Information from months to years after the event would be best. This primary source can be found in academic journals because these are peer-reviewed and written by scholars and subject experts.  

6. Where can I find some firsthand information (primary sources) about the Black Power movement in the Pacific Northwest during the 1970s?

Apparently this would be gathered from primary sources because it is not new information that just presented itself. This is many years after the fact and books, primary sourced newspapers, memoirs, speeches and interviews are going to be more accurate information and provide better historical context.

7. I need to know everything I can about honey bees. Where should I start?

Need to look in secondary sources like textbooks and encyclopedias which is in the last stage of the publication cycle because those sources provide a factual in-depth information on the topic of bees.

8. Where would I look if I want to know what outfits Justin Bieber has been wearing lately?

This would be a first-hand account in the of news now. Searching through social media sites like Twitter and Facebook would give you this trivial information. Since first-hand accounts are about the who, what and where, there is no other information needed beyond this. Just surface information.

Third: REFLECT in about 100 words, write a paragraph that tells your reflection on how this exercise relates to your own experience with information seeking, and to your plans to find information in the future.

This exercise was surprisingly confusing. I felt like I could be right on several of these questions but as it turns out I second guess myself and change my answer which is a similar process when I complete research in my classes. It’s frustrating because there are tons of different information out there written by many individuals and trying to sift through the mess can be tedious which is what this assignment felt like to me. For the most part, I know how to conduct research and fact check my sources. I feel my only struggle in research is making sure I am using the right keywords to find the right articles that I need.