Academic Research on the Internet

Good Evening All,

I hope you all had a fantastic week. This week the reading for our English Composition class had to deal with researching the internet and finding sources going along with our topic. Since my last post I have changed my topic. My new topic is the issues with the U.S. education system. There were three steps to the exercise for tonight. But, we only had to do one of the steps. The step I chose to do was step two. In this step we were told to launch a search on one or more of the metasearch engines listed on pages 83. The three sources a chose to launch a search on were http://www.dogpile.com and http://yippy.com.

Here is what I found on dogpile.com:

*http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/30/unequal-education-access-report_n_887771.html

     -This website talks about a well-known issue in the educational system. This issue is unequal access to education. A lot of students are unable to receive a good education like each child should.

*http://www.governing.com/blogs/bfc/col-education-good-teachers-boston-teacher-residency-program.html

     -An issue with the education system is that most teachers are not trained well. If teachers are not trained well then they are unable to provide a proper education to the students. 

Here is what I found on yippy.com:

*http://www.freedomwritersfoundation.org

     -I had never heard of this foundation before and this article was really interesting to read about. The Freedom Writers Foundation was created to lessen the number of high school dropout rates. Their goal is to encourage students and teachers to be successful in school.

*http://deyproject.org

     -I found this source to be helpful with my topic because it talks about the importance of providing a good education at a young age. So many times teachers do not try and invest in the students and this article talks about the need for this.

I found all of these sources to be helpful and informative about my topic. My topic deals with a huge issue going on in our education system today. These are just some of the many sources that cover this topic. I hope you find these sources to be informative and helpful as much as I did.

Developing a Research Strategy

Good Evening Everybody! I am back again. This blog I am going to talk about the importance of developing a research strategy. The focus of this blog was the central idea of the reading from last night. A key step in developing a great research strategy is creating an inquiry question. Having a specific question and then researching that will be much easier than having to research a broad topic. This exercise we have to do for tonight had three steps. 

The first step was to come up with an inquiry question.
*How has Peru's culture changed over time?

Second, we were told to come up with additional questions that will help us further understand our inquiry question. Along with this we also had to come up with a thesis to go with it. 
*What influences caused Roman Catholic to be the prominent religion in Peru? Why is it that Spanish is the primary language spoken in Peru? Who has the most impact on Peru's cuisine? Who were Peru's ancestors? How has literature become an important aspect of Peruvian culture?
*Thesis: Peru, like so many other cultures, has changed over time. Its culture has been influenced by so many things. Their wardrobe, food, traditions, religion, and who lives their now did not just happen. All of it came about from different influence on the country. 

Finally, we had to state if we had any personal or prior beliefs on this topic that have made me feel how I do about my chosen topic.
*I did not choose Peruvian culture as my topic, because I have personally been there. My twin sister, Savannah, went to Peru for a missions trip with my aunt Kathy and uncle Steve. Once she came back from her trip, she was a changed person. Ever since I saw how God worked in her life on her first missions trip I have been interested in Peru. Not because Peru changed her, but because it stands out to me. I also love to learn about different countries cultures and I am interested in knowing more about Peru's. 

Hello all!! I hope you enjoyed my first post and found it to be helpful. I have never had a blog before, so this is very new to me. This experience will be great though, because I am excited to try something new. I noticed, I accidentally forgot to mention the book I am using to do all of these exercise to become a better writer. The book is called, The Curious Researcher and it is a book to help people turn into more skilled research paper writers. This next section in the book we focused on was about helping us choose a topic to write about. There was a process involved in choosing your topic, because there was more to it than choosing a subject you like and writing about it.

Here are the list of steps we were taught in order to help us choose a topic. 

1st- Choose different topics from each broader subject.

Places:
Bermuda
Thailand 
Peru
Italy 
Dominican Republic
India
Minnesota
Ireland

People:
Beethoven
Martin Luther King Jr. 
Francis Chan
Harriet Tubman
Anne Franks

Jobs:
Elementary Education Teacher
Nurse
Missionary
Material Handler
Baker
Occupational Therapist
Chemical Engineer
Social Worker
Musician

Hobbies:
Singing
Playing Piano
Running
Dancing
Baking
Traveling

2nd: Highlight a topic that stood out to you. I choice Peru.

3rd: We had to compile a list of questions that I would love to explore about the topic.

What is the language spoken there?
What are the main religions there?
What are the biggest struggles the people of Peru deal with?
How many people were affected by the earthquake?
How much has Peru been restored since the earthquake?
How many people live in Peru? 
Who are some missionaries working in Peru?
Who is the current president of Peru? 
What is Peru most well known for?
What is the typical way of life in Peru like?

Rethinking the Research Paper

     I am writing a blog for my English Composition class. We were given a list of statements, told to choose one, and say if we believe it to be true or false. The statement I chose to do from the list was, you can use your own experiences and observations as evidence.  Personally, I strongly agree this statement to be true. Inserting personal experiences into an essay can help readers relate to your writing more. Most readers do not like to only read facts, because it can become boring and uninteresting. Adding personal experiences and observations help to know the author is a real person to.
     The next step in my writing assignment is to consider the truth of some statements in a list. One of the statements in the list is; when two experts disagree, one of them has to be wrong. I believe this statement can be true, but it can also be false. It all depends on what they are talking about. If it is a topic where there needs to be a definite answer, then one is going to be wrong if they disagree. Some topics can have more than one answer if they can be opinionated. Another statement was, there is a big difference between facts and opinions. I believe this to be very true. Facts can not be proven wrong because they are set in stone. On the other hand, opinions can have so many different answers. This occurs because each individual has their own belief and ideas.