Research Project Pitch

I have posted a lot about this lately, but this is my official pitch for a project idea. I am planning on compiling a list of resources and research tips for students with limited time and virtually unlimited digital access. All BYU students have access to the Library Writing and Research Lab which teaches students how to conduct research. However, this instruction focuses on books and databases of articles with tricky search engines. While these resources are certainly useful, I feel that students would be more interested in research if they learned more modern types of researching known as Library Research 2.0. I feel like this new type of research combined with tips on researching from professors, librarians, and experienced students can help to maximize research time. Hopefully, this will increase the likelihood of students conducting good research instead of typing something into a Google search engine and accepting the first link that pulls up. In fact, I am currently talking to First Year Writing professors and librarians in the Writing and Research Lab about incorporating this into the curriculum. We could also make a presentation to post for others to use.

Here is a post by Professor Burton on Library Research 2.0 to give you a little taste of this project. http://thedigitalwriter.blogspot.com/2011/05/library-research-20.html.

I have already conducted a lot of research on this matter and have compiled a list of bookmarks on delicious.com. If you are interested, please comment on this blog or send me a note through Google Plus with your email address, so I can share the bookmarks with you. I was planning on simply doing this on my own, but after researching the topic more, I realized that I would really appreciate some extra help. If you would like to influence how students research, please let me know, so we can do this project together.

Research for People with Lives

Earlier, I mentioned the importance of critically analyzing the information we consume. However, I realize that this is easier said than done because many of us simply do not have time to pour over tons of books and articles to find a few pages of good information. In order to make things easier, I have created a survey to gather tips from BYU students on how to maximize the time we have to gather good information. If you have something to add, please do so here. I also posted some helpful tips that I have learned over the years. 

In order to conduct good research, we need to focus on finding information  and not be fixed with the information we already think we have. For example, if you want to find out more about abortion, you should not conduct your research already thinking that abortion is evil. You should find all the information you can and form an opinion from what you learn. Research should be conducted without any pre-conceived notions or stereotypes. 

Another problem with research that there is usually too much information on the subject for you to process. the trick is not letting yourself be over-loaded and quickly sift through information by weeding out unreliable articles. How do you know information is unreliable? Simple. Just ask some self-check questions with an open mind and a drive to find correct information. 

When we find an article with any facts or statistics, we should ask ourselves these main questions:

1. What is their source?

2. What is their agenda?

3. How do they know? 

4. Who regulates their claims? 

5. Who might disagree?

6. What are alternative explanations or counter-points?

Hopefully, these tips will help you week out the garbage and find those few nuggets of good information on this huge source of information we call the internet.

How has the Internet affected our Research

This week, I had the opportunity to join some group members and give a presentation about how misinformation is running rampant in cyberspace. Unfortunately, we did not have time to touch on everything we wanted to, so here is my unspoken say in the matter.

Like I mentioned earlier, the internet is affected the way we think and act. Because we have information available with a click keyboard, we have become very lazy in the way we consume information. If I am curious about politicians, issues, or anything in general, I go straight to Google.com, and I doubt many people do any differently. Sadly, the information that pops up on Google is not always accurate, but it is the first that comes up, so we assume that it is the best information because we are too lazy to conduct further research. Even though our lives have become very busy, it is still important to conduct our research with credible sources. I am not saying to never use Google, but I am saying to use it wisely and think critically about the information we consume. It may be difficult, but the internet is turning us into a lazy society, and we need to fight against it!

Is Gamifying Voting Really the Best Thing for America?

I really wanted to post this after my Digital Civilization class on Thursday, but sadly, there was no time, so here it finally is! This is a really funny rant by Craig Ferguson on the Late Late Show about voting. This goes along really well with someone's comments in class about how voting is a duty.

What do you think? Should we focus on persuading America that it is their duty to vote rather than gamifying it? Does gamifying voting replace patriotism and a desire to participate in our country's government for a need to be entertained?

Is the Internet Scrambling Our Brains?

I am currently reading The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, which contains some very interesting arguments. As people have come to criticize or praise the internet, they usually base their arguments on the content transferred rather than the medium of information itself. According to Carr, the stance that it is the use of the medium that counts "is the numb stance of the technological idiot." The content of the medium, in other words the internet, is simply "the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind." We should be much less concerned with content and much more concerned with the effect the internet has had on our minds and the way we think.

Carr describes that the fast-pace information flow provided by the internet has warped his mind in a way he could not have foreseen. He can no longer read long articles, much less whole books. He merely skims for information before rushing onto the next hyperlink. He can no longer focus on anything for longer than a couple minutes. He describes this frightening process and his discovery of the issue. 

"At first I'd figured that the problem was a symptom of middle-age mind rot. But my brain, I realized, wasn't just drifting. It was hungry. It was demanding to be fed the way the Net fed it--and the more it was fed, the hungrier it became. Even when I was away from my computer, I yearned to check e-mail, click links, do some Googling. I wanted to be connected...the Internet, I sensed, was turning me into something like a high-speed data processing machine...I missed my old brain."


So is the internet changing our minds? I personally have found it harder to focus than I used to, especially with long books. I have no patience for reading long articles when I am looking for information in my research. Newspapers have become useless. Why would I read a series of articles when I can look at a news feed as I sign onto my Yahoo account? However, I still love to read novels, so I do not think I am nearly as bad as Carr claims to be. I think most of us can say we are in this realm, but should we be afraid of having our minds scrambled by the internet? I think that as long as we still read novels and take the time to ponder while we read information, we can be safe from this disease. However, I think we should still spread caution about this issue because sadly, reading has become more and more obsolete as summaries are becoming readily available for nearly every work. Spark notes have saved many high school students from reading novels in class. To be honest, people just are not patient enough to sit through reading 200 pages anymore. I never realized how much the internet has changed us, and frankly, this scares me.

Openness in Scientific Journals

I just wanted to start a discussion on this because it's really interesting to me.

As mentioned in my digiciv class, scientific journals were created to produce openness in science. However, now they are considered one of the worst examples of closed science. What changed?

My opinion is that we have changed our attitudes. We simply expect to get whatever information we want without paying a cent. Do you agree? Is it a good thing to insist on more open science or are we starting to get greedy?