Original Research

I have never done original research before in any classes or anything but, from what I have leaned in this class is that it is harder to do. For original research you have to be very into it and know a lot about what your topic is about. It is different from library research because library research is more right at it you can find information very easy. Library research is not very time consuming and easy to do where as original research can take awhile needs you to be more into it. Critical thinking is important in anything you do for both of these research ways but, I would say library research it would be used a bit more. In library research you don't always know if the information you are reading is correct or incorrect. Sometimes you have to go out of your way to see if it is valid to use which makes it a little harder to do and time consuming at times. Critical thinking in original research you need more skills of setting to something picking a specific topic and researching on just that. By using specific and keywords to search for to get you only information on your specific topic.

Statistical Information

With the government document that I found it showed how they collected the data that was in the document. The HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research did a study with many different towns in the United States to get their information. The data was collected and analyzed by researchers that put it into table and charts that make it easier to understand. In the scholarly journal that I found it did not clearly state how the data was collected it only stated from research done. This is because government documents are more important, people are paid at the government to obtain all the information from studies unlike those who do it for their own purpose.

Government Document:

Donovan, Shaun. "Strategies for Improving Homeless People's Access to Mainstream Benefits and Services | HUD USER." Document Moved. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 24 Mar. 2010. Web. 10 Apr. 2012. http://www.huduser.org/portal/publications/povsoc/homeless_access.html

Scholarly Journal

Hill, R. (2003). Homelessness in the US: an ethnographic look at consumption strategies<FNR></FNR><FN>Portions of   this article have been previously presented in Surviving in a Material World: The Lived Experience of People in Poverty by University of Notre Dame Press... Journal Of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 13(2), 128-137. doi:1O.1002/casp.718

Checking In!

The success that I am having with my semester research project presentation is that I am getting closer and closer to being finished with it. I have almost all of my questions answered and am continuing to do a little research on my questions still just improving them. I am starting to put my questions on powerpoint slides.

Challenges that I am definitely having is finding all kinds of sources to use for my research.

I am also doing a 10 page research paper for my English class and a research presentation for my philosophy class. In both classes I am learning a lot of what we do in IM and it is helpful knowing all the things we learn that are helpful in class. Its just stressful having so many big things all dues within days of each other.

What is Intellectual Property?

My personal definition of "intellectual property" is different types of media and performing arts that belong to someone who designed that specific thing.
An experts definition of intellectual property is:  Intellectual property (IP) refers to the creations of the mind; inventions, literally and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce.
A few examples of intellectual property that I can see me using from my everyday life are textbooks, books, artwork like paintings, movies, photos and sculptures.
The concept of intellectual property can change by being shared as others use the ideas of it or base their own ideas of off the one someone else has created. In some cases it may be hard to determine if a persons intellectual property is actually there own or if they copied someone else's original idea. So it can be hard to determine if someones intellectual property is actually theirs as being their own idea at the beginning or if they just based it off of someone else's making it no the original.

Urvashi Presentation Reflection

1. My expectations prior to attending this presentation by Urvashi were that she would be sharing some of her personal stories with us and that the audience would be more informed of the LGBT community and what is currently happening.

2. The information was presented in an Auditorium in Atwood that seemed more relaxed and calm. The chairperson spoke for a quick introduction and then Urvashi came up and gave her presentation. A lot of the information she shared with us was new for me to hear I have never looked into the LGBT community or any current events that occur with this community. I learned a lot about the LGBT movement and what it takes to make things actually happen and see a difference for LGBT people.

3. Something that I did not know is that gay marriages are legal in 6 of the 50 states. I didn't know it was legal in any states at all.

4. Yes the speaker's personal, professional and academic background made her a good person for this topic. She knew what she was talking about since she has worked for fighting for LGBT rights and is involved in the LGBT community. She even had some personal stories of hers or others she has heard that help you see what things actually happen to people because of their orientation.

5. This presentation has given me some new information about the LGBT community and has informed me about challenging issues faced. I will be able to use some of this new information in my ALternative Viewpoints Paper.

6. Many people in the audience participated in asking Urvashi some questions I don't know for sure if any of the people were from our class.  But, the questions she answered she gave a understanding answer that was satisfying.

Google 101

During the google exercise we did in class I knew about the google scholar website I used it the week before in my English class so that wasn't new to me. But when searching in google I didn't know that if you add a plus sign it is like using AND OR in the other databases. This google exercise and learning new ways to search for information will help me with my research for the rest of the semester because I now know more ways to search for more on Homeless people. My opinion on google is still the same I used to use it all the time to start off with research projects and now that google scholar has recently been introduces I will use it more often. This will also help me in other class I am taking now and in the future. Knowing all the resources that there are online to find articles, newspapers, scholarly articles, etc. will help so you have many options to chose from not just the same ones I have been using for most of my life.

Personal Viewpoints Paper

Olivia Minor  

IM 204

Alternative Viewpoints Paper

           

            The homeless population that I would like to learn more about is especially families that have been kicked out of their homes and left jobless. I want to know how they survive with nothing left and no place to live. I am curious to where these families get money besides health care, food stamps and things like that. Where do they get the money from for everything else they need to live, especially with a family where there are multiple people to provide for.

            I am not all that familiar with homeless people or a family. I have seen the occasional people standing on the street trying to get money for you that look like they do live on the streets. I want to learn why most families become homeless do they loss their job, blow their money on things they can no longer afford and have gone in to debt. Because the homeless people on the streets are the ones that our money is going to. Our tax dollars and the money taken out of our checks to go to Medicare, Medicaid and healthcare if we are giving to them can’t we know why we have to give to them. I have never really read an article or anything on how most people become homeless besides losing their jobs but I want to know if there are other reasons than just one for the millions of people and families that are homeless.

            Most of the information I have gathered about homeless people are from seeing them in public, articles in newspapers about them, magazines and news shows. Each source gives different information on whether homeless families, students etc. Also, since I’ve done my research I have gained more knowledge about this population and I am looking forward to learning more and answering questions I still have about the homeless.

Research Reflection

So far with my research project I am lost with where we are supposed to be and everything so far. At the beginning I chose my vulnerable population to be homeless people which I would like to learn more about and how they survive on the streets but finding books and scholarly articles about it has been a struggle.

Blog Debate

I think that blogs are creditable source to use for information and research. If you look into a blog and see if there has been a lot of work put into it then it may be legit to use. Most blogs aren't filled with facts and information they are more about the authors personal viewpoints or opinion on whatever the blog is about. So I think that blogs are legit sources to use you just have to make sure you review the information on there knowing that some may not be true and that there will be personal opinion involved.

http://blog.endhomelessness.org/

This web address is from a blog about homeless people and their personal stories they have shared. It is from cities all over the US.

"About Homelessness." About Homelessness. Web. 13 Mar. 2012. <http://blog.endhomelessness.org/>.

Search String

The specific database I chose was JSTOR by going to the St.Cloud Library website and browsed through the Databases A-Z and just chose one that looked good.
I found that Academic Research Premier brought more relevant results for my topic.
You can narrow your search in Academic Search Premier by being able to chose document types, language, scholarly journals, full-text date range ad cover story. Though in JSTOR you can chose date range, language, publication title and article type.
My search string worked the first time.
I Academic Search Premier I found 324 results with most of them being relevant to my research and with JSTOR I found 2,456 results and they seemed to be relevant also to the ones I looked into.
All my articles were available in full text because I clicked that box to narrow how many results I got in Academic Search Premier.
My search string question has changed many times because, some of the keywords you use will get you a lot of results and sometimes not many. Changing it multiple times I think I now have a good search string to work with and it has gotten better every time.
The hardest thing for me is figuring out what to use for my search string and trying to figure out what i actually want to know about my population. I am still figuring it out as I go and am getting closer to what I need.

Getting Ready to Use Academic Search Premier

I have never used the Academic Search Premier before but I thought that it was fairly easy to use and operate. It looked a lot like the OPAC search engine the only difference is the we are looking to find articles and magazines instead of books. My overall impressions of this database were pretty good, it is easy to use and not overwhelming at all. I have never used Academic Search Premier in another class yet. In other classes I don't necessarily use a specific database I mostly type whatever I need to find out in google and go on from there. The main fear I have about using this database is that I may not be able to find what I am looking for on here right away.

Your Population

Since I have started my research about homeless people and reading about this vulnerable population in books, online articles and from others resources. My assumptions about this population have changed. I have been mostly looking into why are most people homeless people homeless and do they try to change that. From what I thought was that most people are homeless because of the poor economy and cannot locate a job. While this is true for some people there are other reason like; wasting money away on alcohol and drugs.

I don't have any questions about my population right now.

The information I have gathered so far is just basic information that most people know or assume about homeless people. I have to still go into depth with my resources. I am still trying to locate an encyclopedia and another book so once I do I am hoping to find new information that I can use.

Encyclopedia vs. Wikipedia

When it comes to using encyclopedias the pros of using them is that the topic you are researching thats all you will be reading about. They provide you with a lot of valuable information that is useful and reliable. Also, they are filled with so much information that can be dated many many years back. Though there are cons to using encyclopedias especially the fact that they are so long, and that so much new information is always being found the information in them gets out dated very fast. Wikipedia's pros are that its on the internet you can access it very easily and almost anywhere, it also it updated constantly so the information is up-to-date. The big fall back of using Wikipedia is that anyone can access its information and change it which makes it hard to know if it's reliable.

While searching for an encyclopedia article on my topic I was unable to find any results. I went to the Miller Center Library homepage and used the advanced search option. From there I typed my topic homeless people in the first box and encyclopedia in the second box. And there were 0 results found. I just may not have been doing it right but I couldn't locate any print encyclopedias or E-encyclopedias. 

Since I was unable to locate any encyclopedias I wasn't able to read any information about my topic.

My Research Project

The topic that I have chosen to research is the homeless. I am looking for both basic background information and a more specific topic that I would like to know about. I would like to know more about how they survive with the little that they have. The way I found my book was by going to the SCSU website then clicking on the Library link, next in the search for a book box I put homeless people and got 43 results. Then I used the advanced search and looked just for book no e-books and got 20 results and then narrowed it down from there and found a book that I could use. When I looked for an e-book there were 3 available through OPAC. I am not really interested in reading through e-books just because I like to have actual books and have it in my hands. I would try it once and see how it went, but I don't think I would like it. The 3 e-books that were available for my topic weren't what I was looking for really so I only looked at one and it was different reading from a computer. I prefer to have a traditional book print in my hands. When I went to the Great River Regional Library I was unable to find a book about homeless people. I seem to prefer the Miller Center Library OPAC over the Great River Regional Library just because it seemed easier to find and locate a research book at the Miller Center rather than a leisure book.

What Do You Assume To Be True About _________?

Throughout our IM 204 course I would like to learn more about the vulnerable population of those that are homeless. I chose this group because I'm curious about how they live, how most of them got to be homeless, how do they make money and just what they do to stay alive. What I assume to be true about homeless people is that "most" have lost their job in the poor economy and are fighting to put food on the table and provide for themselves, families, etc. I have learned this from just basic knowledge like listening to the news, reading newspapers, magazines and hearing others talk about this topic. The most difficult part of doing research on the homeless population would have to be if the information is valid. Because, most information would be from people who live that way and if they aren't telling the truth your information is not valid then.

What is Critical Thinking?

My personal definition of critical thinking is thinking deeply about somethings meaning and figuring out what it means by using what you know and an open mind. Everyday we think critically about everything. I have heard this term before many places in english classes and in philosophy class. According to Dictionary.com the definition of critical thinking is; disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded and informed by evidence. On Dictionary.com they do not identify a specific process you must engage in to think critically. The connection between critical thinking and IM 204 Research Strategies is that in order to research about something we must think critically about what we are going to research, what sources that you will actually use as valid sources and that you think critically everyday so we must use it in this class.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/critical+thinking