Final Exam

I found that using the deep web was just as easy as using an open web format now that I am educated on how to do proper research.   The first article "The Future of Print", I was able to find via the Clark College Library website, articles and databases, then I decided to use EBSCOhost, and did a search against the authors name.  It was the first article that came up.  

The second article I was able to Google The Guardian and look for articles written by Ewan Morrison, and found the article titled "Are Books Dead...". Both were fairly straight forward to search for, but I know that finding the second article prior to taking this class would have been much easier since I am more familiar with the open web, then the deep web.  

A: Authority

S: Sources

P: Purpose

E: Evenness

C: Coverage

T: Timeliness 

While reading the article titled "The Future of Print: The Book", I was evaluating the creditability of the author and the material that they were writing about.   Authority: Merrill Distad is an Associate University Librarian at the University of Alberta.  He is also the co-editor of Peel’s Bibliography of the Canadian Prairies, and a recent author of The University of Alberta Library: The First Hundred Years.  I was able to find this information at the end of his article in Feliciter.  Sources: There were no foot notes at the end of the article so I would consider this article to be more of an opinion of the author than a researched subject.  Purpose:  The author has a great purpose to this article.  The future of print is being replaced by hand held readers, the paper book it on its way out because of cost and convenience that Kindle and I pads have brought to consumers.  Evenness:  While reading from a students standpoint I felt the article was written with an evenness to it. There was a little bias to it but you would have to expect that because the author is a librarian, and I am assuming most librarians have a love of books.  The feel, and smell, and disconnect to the real world that books bring to readers.  As for coverage and timeliness, the article was written in 2011 so fairly recent, and Distad was good about covering the cost, convenience, and changes that Internet has brought to the book industry as a whole. 

I probably would not use an article like this if I was writing a research paper as a primary resource, but I would reference it as a secondary source for comparing information that I had found that displayed sources.  

The second article written by Ewan Morrison called "Are Books Dead, and Can Authors survive?, was really interesting.  I also was thinking of the ASPECT model when I read this article and saw that Morrison has written four books, published many articles, and even worked in television for the Authority part of the article I would say that Morrison knows when he is taking about.  Sources: again this article did not directly contain sources, but I was able to do some research against the article and it checked out.  For instance the quote from Chris Anderson linked me directly to Chris Andersons pod cast regarding Free: The Future of a Radical Price.  Purpose: The purpose of the article is fairly straight forward, readers/consumers are able to get books for free by pirating/stealing the material online.  Consumers have a taste of convenience and not they expect that convenience as the cost of the artist, the writer. Evenness: The article was well written, Morrison was able to touch on many points of the online book industry, and how it is changing the ways of how writers are being paid, and how the world of paper publishing as well as TV has changed so much over the last few years.  Consumers are able to have their cake and eat it too.  The article was written in 2011 so it was Timely.  Also the Coverage of the article was appropriate for the topic that Morrison chose to write about.

I would be more apt to use this article by Morrison as a secondary source, but it was easier to check Morrisons information than Distads info. I also preferred to read Morrisons article over Distads, so that is another reason that I would use it as a source over the first article.  

I really enjoyed reading the article written by Ewan Morrison.   This is a subject that I have been thinking about over the last couple of years as I have watched Boarders and other book stores closing down.  I am an avid reader, I don't own a Kindle or a hand held reader.  I guess that I am old school, I love the feel and smell of books, and I love that reading a book takes me away from reality of TV, phones, and electronics.  I see the convenience and cheapness of the hand held reader especially since I am a student, I would rather have my text books online to save the money and back pain of hauling them around, but pleasure reading I want a paper book in my hands.  

Morrison makes some really obvious points in this article when he discusses industries like newspapers, music, and porn.  They are available online for free, which is what society expects now.  Consumers don't care about the art form of writing literature, music, or preforming.  Consumers can go online to Google, YouTube, and even get music from other computers easily downloaded to your i pod.  The Internet has changed so much about how we live our lives and how we obtain information.  I agree with Morrison that for a huge change to take place we are probably looking at a political interference, which is not always a good thing.  

The long tail marketers like Amazon, and i Tunes has made it so cheap and convenient to purchase books and music from them at a fraction of the cost these amazing book stores have no where to compete, which means writers will have to figure more creative ways to market themselves.  Writers and musicians are creative people so I don't doubt that they will figure ways to make their art form profitable.  Other authors that are not huge named yet can be published and sold for practically free on the long tail, which gets their name out there, but these amateur authors are still not making any revenue. 

Books will not cease to exist any time soon, people that are in certain age brackets still like to have their books in hand, and not by some digital reader, but change is coming and it is coming fast.  I would imagine within the next 10 years newspapers will be a thing of the past.  So much information is available online for the simple payment of having Internet access.  The cost of printing on paper just can't compare with posting digital text.  

Writers and books have changed my life over the years.  I used to read about 15 books a year before I started back in college and I miss reading for pleasure.  Writers and artists deserve to be paid an honest wage for their art-form that we exploit.  Hopefully changes can be made to make everyone happy, but we all know that never happens.  

Megan Fletcher

Part 10 Create a Web Page

http://letteraday.org/students/meganfletcher.html

This was so fun!!  I have learned so many new and excited things about how to set up and maintain blogs as well as design my own web page!  I never knew that I could be so savvy, with your help of course.  I have viewed code before but it always looked like complete gibberish to me.  Now that I know how to identify at least some of the characters it makes a little more sense to me.  Like in week 8 and 9 I always thought of the web as the Internet, and now to clearly be able to see them as two different entities is a learning experience.  

Since my major is more science based not IT based I don't know that I will look into writing code for fun, but if I have to do a large research project ever again, I will look into designing my own web page instead of using power point, just for fun.  

I definitely liked the wordle application, and will use that again.  I also plan on creating a personal blog about myself and my family, so I can ditch my Facebook.  I am beginning to have a love/hate relationship with Facebook and have been looking for a way out to still be able to keep in contact with my family that lives away.  

I have learned so much over this quarter about blogs, researching information, using the amazing sources that are available to us a students via the library, and now building my own web page.  I have enjoyed it, and will definitely tell peers to take this class.  

Thanks for a great quarter,
Megan Fletcher

Research Journal, Part 9 Finding Information on the Open Web

Using Google advance search I was able to limit my search to censor* and "America", looking for sited that have been updated within the last year, and sites are considered part of the top-level domains.

For my first search I focused on .org 

Rosenburg, Alyssa. "Ten Books That Could Be Kicked Out Classrooms Under Arizona's Insane Curriculum Law". Think Progress.Web. January 2012.  

http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/01/18/406198/ten-books-that-could-be-kicked-out-of-classrooms-under-arizonas-insane-curriculum-law/

I felt that this site was creditable because it followed the ASPECT outline very well.  The sources were all over the website and liked to other censorship websites regarding banning of books from schools in America.  I was able to view other websites that supported the information, which gave the cite authority, and the story that I read was written January 2012 which makes the information use able in a paper. 

Second search .gov

Kaufman, Steve. "Does Your School Have The Right To Censor Online Activities?" .US Embassy. Web. March 2012.  

http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/article/2012/03/201203282911.html#axzz1x7RVvSvi

Here is a article maintained by the American Embassy.  The article discusses how schools are able to censor their students on a higher level now more than ever.  Student newspapers are being looked at on a much higher level.  This is a site that I would also use on my research paper because there is creditable information attached to the article like the Student Press Law Center, and literature professors from Georgetown that have had first hand experience with their students 1st amendment rights being infringed on.   Article was written March 2012 so definitely within the Timeliness and I also feel that it displays Sources.   

Third search .edu

Margaret A. Blanchard, The American Urge to Censor: Freedom of Expression Versus the Desire to
Sanitize Society - From Anthony Comstock to 2 Live Crew, 33 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 741 (1992),
http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr/vol33/iss3/4

 This was the best site by far when seeking a source that displayed all the evaluating keys of ASPECT, the only issue was Time, but when looking for a history of censorship I would use this source.  The source was written in a scholar law journal published once a year by a law school, cited sources on every page, and the document has been reviewed.  A very researched document. 

Fourth search .com

Strickland, Jonathon. "How Internet Censorship Works." How Stuff Works 1 Dec 2008.

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet-censorship.htm

I was actually routed to the site from my previous .edu search, which I really like that by reading a published research paper, I was able to search against the students information to confirm its relevance to the topic of censorship and see if I can also use the cited information for my own research.   This site was a little old on the Timeliness side of ASPECT, but the Sources were very available, and I felt that it had great good coverage on the topic. 

This was a very informative activity.  As for research on my topic I felt that based on the articles that I read through that .gov and .edu were the more substantial in terms of finding all the information that a student would typically need to use a source, and find it creditable.

Thanks,

Megan Fletcher

Part 8: types of Information: Forus on Search Engines and Web Sites

I had no idea how many search engines existed in the web.  I think that so many of us are programmed to use Google or Yahoo because it is easy and on our homepage, but are we getting the information that we need?  Now that I have learned the tools of using search techniques coupled with search, meta-search, and subject directory search tools I feel more knowledge then ever when it comes to online research.   I wish that I had possessed these tools when taking English 101 and 102, my papers would have contained more in depth information, and I would have learned more on my subjects as well.

After viewing the lists on the Southern Oregon University library website I decided to research Lycos when using Search tools.  The Lycos website is very much like a Google, but easier on the eyes.  I was able to use the Boolean  techniques, " ", as well as anding concepts.  I did find quite a few websites, a few videos, but not much in the form of imagery,  or news.  These areas of may require a more general search term like censorship rather than "censor* in America*.  Using a search tool enables you can take advantage of features specific to a particular search tool to enhance your search.  When digging into what is unique about Lycos is that not only does it has its basic Internet search, but it also has the ability to to parallel searches within its own web page called HotBot, plus it also has a white pages type of search as well for contact information. 

Within the meta-search tools I decided to explore the mamma.com website.  This was an amazing website very easy to use and actually received more hits using the "censor* in America" than in other websites.  Like in Lycos, I was also able to use truncating, censor*, and " " in the search area.  Mamma.com is very much more geared to getting you to other websites that possess your needed information, not so much on the news front, or image arena.  Meta-search tools search multiple tools simultaneously.  Mamma.com will search multiple websites and base their relevancy of the source.  I would definitely use this site again.  Having the relevancy of sourced information already done for you would save a lot of time when researching a topic.  I did not see any specific information on search tips within Mamma.com, but I asked it for search tips and it linked me to a Google web page. 

A subject directory is maintained by librarians to give the researcher good information.  I was able to play around with the ipl2 website, and this by far was where the best information was found regarding censorship in America.  I was able to search using Censor* in America.  All of the articles were directly related to censorship in America, like banned books, comics, coalitions against censorship, and historical references regarding censorship.   The easiest search engine by far has been the ipl2 website.  It actually gives search help like wild card characters, Boolean operators, advance searches, and range searches.  As for the most complete search engine I would get those most out of the subject directory type of search engine. 

I am really impressed with the web and how informational it really is.  I had no idea that search engines were catered to specific needs, like mamma.com website that bases their posts on relevancy of the source, or a subject library that is maintained by professional librarians.  When it comes to research librarians are the at the forefront of Internet research.  Our ways of researching subjects have changes so much over the last 10 years, and the research that we have been doing in this class over the last 8 weeks, have really opened my eyes to all that is obtainable on the web. 

Megan Fletcher

Part 7, Finding Articles in Periodical Indexes

After reading through your comments left of the prior assignment.  I was a little confused on the " " marks and where to place them, but I feel that I have a good understanding of how us use the Boolean search tools.  I did play around with the " " placement and received more results.  I will only use the " " when looking for a specific keyword.  

Here are the 3 articles that I found based on Censorship in America:

The successful search term that I used was "Censor*" and "America"

Magazine article:

Adam Phillips.  "Publisher Who Defied US Censorship Laws Dies at 89. " Voice of America News / FIND  24 Feb. 2012: Research Library, ProQuest. Web.  25 May. 2012.

This would definitely be an article that I would use because it has a great historical back round on censorship in America.  Barney Rosset a free-speech activist worked his whole life defying the odds.  According to Rosset "I feel that if people don't have the right to express themselves, first of all, they are not going to be happy, and secondly, they aren't going to develop the creative abilities they have, as scientists, as bankers, as anything," said in an interview to VOA in 2009. 

Scholarly article:

"is it legal? broadcasting. " Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom  56.1 (2007): 27-30. Research Library, ProQuest. Web.  25 May. 2012. 

Here is another great article that I would use in my research paper.  This article talks about how the FCC determines what should be censored and what shouldn't be.  Billboard awards are being censored for the same things being said on the Today show, yet the Today show is not being censored.  The FCC is determining what is indecent and what is not, yet both shows spoke on the same subject. 

Since I was unable to determine if this was scholarly, so I found another article.  

"What Johnny Shouldn't Read: Textbook Censorship In America. " English Journal  85.1 (1996): 80-81. Research Library, ProQuest. Web.  25 May. 2012.  

This article is older but worth putting into an research paper.  It is based on the censorship of books in schools in America.  What should we censor from our children, and who should determine this censorship? This article is written regarding a book "What Johnny Shouldn't Read", and its influences in the teaching community. 

"What Johnny Shouldn't Read: Textbook Censorship In America. " English Journal  85.1 (1996): 80-81. Research Library, ProQuest. Web.  25 May. 2012. 

Newspaper article:

Amir Efrati.  "Twitter's Censors Provoke Backlash. " Wall Street Journal (Online)  28  Jan. 2012,ProQuest National Newspapers Core, ProQuest. Web.  25 May. 2012. 

A newspaper article based on Twitter, and American based company that is being censored in countries overseas based on its contents.  I liked this article because it talks about the freedoms that American have with their speech, but other countries are demanding a censorship of their citizens.  As American we have to respect what other countries have mandated for their citizens. 

For me this was a more difficult search.  I wrongfully assumed that since I have heard so much about censorship that it would be an easy area to find research, but it took me a while to find these few articles.  I didn't have to revise my search very much, but found that what i wanted to write about a history paper on censorship the articles may be older than I would like them to be.  

Megan Fletcher

Part 6: Database Feature and Searching Techniques

Part 1

Here are the 5 questions that I choose to use Boolean operators on:

1. Is a vegetarian diet healthier than a meat-based diet?
-"Vegetarian diet" and "meat diet"
-"Vegetarian health" and "Omnivore health"
2. Is the current lack of sunspot activity affecting global warming?
-"Sunspot activity" and "global warm*"
-"Sunspot activity" and "global warm* effects"
3. Does anti-smoking advertising by the tobacco industry lead to increased smoking among youth?
-"Anti-smoking advertising" and "increased youth smoking"
-Advertising and youth smok*
4.  How much more can a college graduate expect to earn over someone with a high school diploma?
-"College graduate earnings" and "high school graduate earnings"
-"How much college graduate earn*" and "how much high school graduate earn*"
5.  What breeds of dogs make good therapy pets?
-"Therapy dogs"
-"Therapy dogs" or "Therapy pets"

Part 2

So one of my research questions was, Does censorship infringe on Americans 1st amendment?

When I placed this entire statement into EBSCOhost I received 0 results.  
I placed 1st Amendment and censor* and received 56 results.
I placed Censor* and America and received 732 results.
I placed "Censor*" and United States I received 4712 results.

By using the Boolean search statements I was able to broaden my search tremendously.  I will definitely use these searching techniques when writing my next research or persuasive paper. 

Thank you,
Megan Fletcher

Digging into databases and books

2.a. Cannell Library Book Catalog

- music censorship

- Rosenthal, Beth. Should music lyrics be censored?. Detroit, Greenhaven Press. 2001.

- Rap music censorship.

- Circulating Book

- ML3918.R37 S56 2012  

- Author is published in scholarly journals, many cited sources, and reference material.  Has written a number of opposing viewpoint books.  

2.b. 

-Censorship in America

-Foerstel, Herbers. Banned in the USA: a reference guide to book censorship in schools and public libraries. Westport, Conn. Greenwood Press. 1994.

- Public Schools Censorship, Textbook Censorship, Literature Censorship.

- WSU Vancouver Z658.U5 F64 1994  

- The author has written numerous books on censorship in America.  A large works cited page referenced at back of book.  

- Material that came up first was subject encyclopedias instead of books.

 

2.c.

I had no idea that this type of database existed.  IT Pro was very easy to navigate through, and gave so many different ways to search for data.  I don't know if I would use it for all my research because I prefer to hold and feel my books, rather than reading online.  I did find information on my research topic of censorship, but it was very focused on Internet filtering.  I would probably not use this search for a research paper on censorship unless my paper strictly focused on Internet censorship.  

The search I used was the advance search with a subject of Censorship, in the additional fields I choose full text that contained the word music.  So far it was the easiest of the databases to search, but looks like the information might be limited. 

2.d.

- I had to refine my search a number of times to find a creditable book.  I searched under Freedom of Speech Censorship.

-Green, Jonathan. Encyclopedia of Censorship. New York, New York. Facts of File. 2005.

- Due to the nature of this book there was a ton of work sited, and reference material.  I would have no problem using this book for a research paper.  

To summarize this unit I would have to say that using the Summit Catalog, and the Cannell Library Catalog were that most useful.  At least I felt my search was done easier than on Google or IT Pro.  Summit Catalog is a college database, so you are going to get the most bang for your buck.  Almost all the books were subject encyclopedias or scholarly journals.  I would feel more that comfortable using the Summit database to obtain research information for a paper.  Also Cannell Library has so many other databases like opposing viewpoints that I also find very helpful when writing a paper.  It helps weed out the bias information, and give you a well rounded perspective on your topic. 

Thank you,

Megan Fletcher