Research Portfolio 9/26/2012

Book #1: Txtng: The Gr8 Db8

Crystal, David, and Inc ebrary. Txtng: The Gr8 Db8. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Web. 28th September 2012.

This book looks at the big debate in what texting can do within today's society.  Overall this goes in depth with trying to find out connections between text messaging and the society.
I plan to use this book in my research as guide and an outline to help shape my research, since it is mostly what my research is about.  I plan to use some of this book's examples to help me explain the different effects texting can have on an society.

Book #2: Always On:Language in an Online and Mobile World

Baron, Naomi S. Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print.

This book is similar to book #1 in that it also goes in depth as to how mobile communication effects the society.  I also plan to use this book in my research as guide and an outline to help shape my research, since it is mostly what I am researching.  I plan to use some of this book's examples to help me explain the different effects texting can have on an society.

(Side note: Both of these books were electronic books so I looked at the description of the books to come up with my summary.)

9/24/2012 Blog Post

Peer-review is important because it is allowing someone to review your work and see what errors you have according to him/her.  From the article Meet Science: What is "Peer Review"?, I think they said how the "peers" in this process are not always experts.  It usually depends on how much that person knows.  If you get a person to peer review your research paper and he/she knows alot about whatever you are researching, then the peer reviewing would be significant because you will have somewhat of a  legitimate help.  You can tell if an article is scholarly if you do not see any errors and if it looks presentable.  For example, if the article does not have lots of pictures or advertisements.  The appearance of the article plays a big part.  If the article is pretty lengthy, has factual information, and is not biased, then it is most likely scholarly.  You want to use peer reviewed research in your work whenever you are trying to present the information to your audience.  I think having peer reviewing everywhere on your research paper is important. I engage in informal peer review when asking questions about certain things. Whether it is my teacher, classmate or friend.

Word Count: 205

9/17/2012 Blog Post

My group's topic is texting.  I could use scholarly books to see how technology is affecting people in general. Since scholarly books have most likely been made years ago I do not think there would be a specific book to answer my research question. My research question is how does texting habitually negatively effect people socially? Popular Magazines would be a good source to see a broad view of what's going on with texting. There would not be anything too specific in a magazine.  Newspapers could also be an ok resource, but it would also be general and not specific. Government documents would be specific and great with statistics, however I do not think too many of these documents would relate to my research question. An encyclopedia  is ok if I want to know certain terminology about texting/cell phones/technology in general. Scholarly Journals should be quite useful if there's one specific to my question. They are quite lengthy for a journal, however they go in-depth with their research.

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Extra Credit 9/12/2012 Blog Post

I think this was the first Public UWG Debate I have attended and it was very interesting!  If there is another debate with an interesting topic I would most likely attend. Both debate teams (the pro and con) were prepared with excellent evidence as to why African Americans either should or should not go to a HBCU. Although they might have not used a "Research Question Checklist" to verify if their information was in line with the overall question, everything seemed to be in good shape.  Going to this debate was not only a great outside educational event, but this debate also set a foundation/example on how a research paper is done.  In the beginning, when both of the teams spoke for the first time, I think they acknowledged the question first and then went on about their research.  I found that important because by them doing that it was as if it was the "thesis" of their presentation.  If they did not acknowledge their question, I think it could have been unclear about what position their standing for.  Taking a position, and making sure it is clear to your audience is definitely apart of the research question checklist.  The evidence the pro team had was that if an African American student decided to attend a HBCU then they would have an advantage to the amount of support they would get because of the similarities amongst every student.  They said HBCUs help construct an identity, and builds assimilation.  Meaning there would be a different social-economic environment. For example, you would be amongst the rich and the poor.  Also the pro team said you could become more educated about African history (more educated than what a non-HBCU would offer) and companies go to HBCUs because of diversity.  The pro team made excellent reasons that answered their overall question, however it was brought up by the con team that they did not have plenty of statistics to back up their arguments.  Although they did mention a few statistics, it was not as much as the con's presented. Therefore making the validity of the pro's arguments questionable. The con's arguments were that African Americans should not attend a HBCU because it is expensive, companies will end up not hiring, because of the student's debt (if in dept.). Also they brought up that the HBCU does not make the person, but the character of the person makes that person and leads to them doing great. The con team had many statistics to prove their evidence.  I am more against the statement that African Americans should go to HBCUs because I feel that it limits your options. Overall both teams were great and shown that when you do research, you must have plenty of evidence, your evidence must be relevant, and your information needs to be clear.

9/12/2012 Wednesday's Blog

No I did not decide to change my research question since Monday. My group's topic is texting and I decided that my research question should be "What are the effects of habitual texting on a person's overall health (mentally, physically, and socially)?". After discussing my researching question to my group on Wednesday, it seemed to be ok, so I decided to keep my reseach question the same and make no modifications.   I think my question meets all the requirements on the Research Question Checklist.  The checklist basically wants to know if the question is researchable, has a position, is in-depth, is not too broad nor too narrow, if the question is subjective, and if it passes the so-what test?  The kinds of resources I think I would mainly be using for this research paper are statistics, photos, news articles, and maybe even some interviews. There could possibly be books written about my topic but I think it may be a little tidious to find. If I were to use a book maybe I could find something that relates to how technology has expanded and read about any risks it may portray of fast-growing technology.  Overall the main goal would be to just about find alot of information about texting and health!

9/10/2012 Monday's Blog Post

What are the negative effects of habitual texting on a  person's overall health? I think this is a good research question because it is researchable and not too opinionated.  This research question clearly shows what position I'm standing for, which are the negative effects of habitual texting on a  person's overall health.  Also I think this question goes in-depth enough, it's not too broad nor too narrow.  Some things i've learned from researching so far (coming from e-how.com) is that text messaging can be an addiction, and the American Psychiatric Association included this addiction as part of a disorder called "Internet Addiction." Also i've learned that texting can cause temporary or permanent damage to the user's thumb. The specific aspects I want to research further is what texting can do to a person physically, mentally, and socially.  Especially if the person is addicted to texting. I want to research the negative things that happen when a person texts all the time. I feel that many people can relate since many people are text messaging nowadays.

Group Topic

My group decided on choosing the topic: Texting.  I think you had us choosing our topics from news sources because it seemed to reflect what was on our evaluation checklists. For example, with news sources the currency/date is mostly updated, with the news sources there is expected to be trustworthiness within the work presented. You can expect the news sources to be factual and accurate and the source should look as though it has a reasonable author or authority. After doing pre-searching on the topic texting, learning about the effects it can have on a person's health is interesting!