Last Class Post

Well like all good things, our first year seminar class had to come to an end.  I can honestly say I am happy I had this class as my first year seminar.  I only took this class because it was one of the few that were still available when I scheduled my classes, but I really learned a lot that will benefit me now and in the years to come.  Things that really stick out in my mind when I think of this class are the resources available to us, how to properly evaluate a source, and citations.  I really appreciate Bonnie and Amanda taking the time to explain in great detail the resources that we have and how to use them.  If I had not taken this class I would have never knew about the different databases, the different search engines, and what and how to use the “I Want It” feature.  I would probably only have used the Lion Search or just stuck with Google, because I would never have taken the time to go to the library and ask how to use the website to the full extent.  I also really appreciated them Amanda explaining how to properly evaluate a source; because I never evaluated the credibility of my sources I only cited them.  But I know evaluating my sources is an important factor in doing good research.  Another key factor in doing good research is being able to cite in properly.  Before I only used MLA to cite things because that is what my English teacher told me to use, but I never knew that the way you cited things depended on what field you were researching in.  In a nutshell this class was very beneficial and I would recommend it to everyone as a useful first year seminar to take.   So, thank you Bonnie and Amanda for teaching me so much, in so little time.

Late Blog

I know this is really late, but I am a firm believer in better late than never.  The week that I forgot to post this blog for was a very informative one.  We further explored copyrights, trademarks, plagiarism, and research ethics.  It made me come to the realization that many people break copyright without even knowing it.  A copyright is the basically something that shows a person’s legal ownership of something.  A copyright lasts that said person’s life time plus 75 years, which will benefit that person’s children and grandchildren.  A trademark is the same as a copyright, but instead of referring to a text a trademark protects an image.  If someone wants to use an image or something that has a copyright you have to get permission from the owner.  Or to make it easier you can use a website called creative commons which has all different types of materials that have been approved by the owners to be used.  Another thing that might be very tempting to not pay much attention to is research ethic.  When you find a source that agrees with you like 90 percent, but then disagree with you 10 percent.  It would be very easy to just edit that disagreeing part out, but ethically it would be wrong.  So the next time you have something that you want to edit, either leave it unedited, or just find a new source.  Another thing most people don’t know is that if it is common knowledge than you don’t need to cite it.  This lesson was important to me because I vaguely knew about copyright and trademarks, but this lesson clear a few things up for me.

Twitter, Creative Commons, & The Google Effect!

This past week we talked about many different things.  One thing that I personally like that we talked about was twitter.  Most people consider twitter to be a website only for following friends and celebrities, but most people don’t think to follow things like tweets from the presidential candidates.  Well at least I know I never thought to follow important people like that.  I never even considered the president actually having his own twitter.  I could maybe see other people in his party tweeting for him because he is such a busy man.  But apparently he takes time out of his busy day to tweet things or at least approve of certain tweet.  If the tweet says “POTUS” then you know that it is something that the President of the United States tweeted or approved of himself.  Another interesting thing we learned about in class this last week was “creative common”.  Something that has a creative commons license means that you can use that specific material without having to worry about being sued.  Many things have creative common licenses, like music, videos, and images.  So by using these sources it can make life a whole lot easier because you wouldn’t have to worry about if you are breaking copy-write laws.  The last interesting thing I consider to be interesting was our class discussion about the article we had to read about for class. I thought our discussion was interesting because discussed the article on a broader scale and it got me to really thinking, especially when Bonnie talked about us being unplugged.  Today as I switched from Sprint to At&T and I was briefly unplugged, not knowing any of my phone number except for two that my aunt and dad have used for as long as I could remember.  That got me to thinking that maybe people using technology as memory banks isn’t such a good idea.  What happens when you are phoneless like I was today and you don’t know any of the important numbers you need.  Will you still think depending of technology to store things for us is a good idea.

The Importance of Wikipedia

All through middle school and high school teachers always told me that Wikipedia was not a reliable source and that I should try to find other sources so I don’t only depend on Wikipedia.  Even though teachers told me that, they never said I couldn’t get the majority of my information from Wikipedia, so that is what I would do.  After Thursday’s class I now realize that the rest of my sources usually weren’t reliable either.  My other sources didn’t contain two of the three things that we were told to look for when determining if the source was reliable, the author and the date.  Even though my high school teacher probably didn’t really check my sources and they let me use Wikipedia while still giving me good grades, I have now realized the same tricks I used in high school will not fly in college.  But back to the topic of Wikipedia, it’s not considered to be a reliable source mainly because anyone can go on and change the information in the articles.  But contrary to most beliefs Wikipedia can be a very good source, if and only if used properly.  Most people, including myself, never ever think to use Wikipedia as a tertiary source (an index of primary and secondary sources), only to get a basic understanding of the subject they are researching.  But it class we learned that Wikipedia is actually a great tertiary source to find reliable sources, because at the bottom of every article there are a whole section of cited references.  So even though in college it is not recommend and most times prohibited to use Wikipedia as a secondary source, using it as a tertiary source can still get you and your research off to an excellent start by giving you a good number of reliable sources. 

Introduction to Library Resources

 

Today in class we were introduced to the Penn State library website and different databases that are available to us, the students.  One database that is of extreme importance is The CAT which is the Penn State Library catalog.  When using The CAT database if the search is too specific not many sources will pop up.   For instance, in class when we searched freshman weight gain not many things came up, but then when we searched college weight gain many more sources came up.  When using The CAT, the sources that come up aren’t always books so sometimes you can just view them from your computer in your dorm.  Other times they are books or dvds and The CAT searches all Penn State campus libraries so if the book or dvd is at another campus you can simply click the “I want it” link and it can be sent to the Pattee Service Commons Desk. We also learned about interlibrary loans and reserves, two things that are will be very beneficial when we have to write papers and research things that will require us to use a variety of sources.  I really like that with interlibrary loans if the materials are not available in any Penn State libraries you could request it be sent from another library if you have enough time for it to be shipped.  Even though the Penn State library has a very large selection of materials, and it would probably be rare that I personally would need to use this resource, it is still nice to know that it’s there.  Being able to reserve materials is also handy.  Many professors reserve materials that they know students might need for their course.  If you need something that on reserve you could borrow it for a half hour to a couple hours, but getting books on reserves gets harder around finals because everyone wants to use the books on reserve to study.