Quick Access Ch 28, 30 and 31

28:
Chapter 28 is telling the reader how to be organized while preparing to write a research paper. It begins by advising the reader to develop a "search strategy". These strategies outlined in the book seem to have one common goal of moving the process of searching towards a specific topic. In my opinion the Expert Method and Chaining Method are both good choices. They lead the writer or the research paper to ask questions that go deeper into their area of research. However I am under the impression that the Questioning Method is quite useless. Instead of delving deeper into the subject matter, this method only covers broad topics that relate to the area of research. Instead of going towards the core of the matter, this method seems to get at everything around the chosen topic.

The chapter continues on to describe the difference between primary sources and secondary sources. This is very useful information, because many people skip over the importance of including primary sources in their work. One thing I don't agree on is what the chapter had to say about the point of view that secondary sources might have. "However, you need to evaluate secondary sources carefully to make sure that what's being relayed to you isn't distorted or biased in the process." I would argue that statement because having a good secondary source with some spin on the topic is what a lot of papers need. Without a biased source, much of what we would consider research topic-worthy would be a waste of time, because no one could argue a side. Aren't research papers supposed to be about presenting a side to what is hopefully a controversial area? Or at least the thesis is supposed to make a claim about a controversial topic. Without a biased, there would be no different points of view to debate. So I think that including a slightly distorted source can be beneficial to a paper. However, if the statement is so distorted or warped that it loses its original meaning...well that's another story.

30:
Chapter 30 discusses how to use the internet as a source, something that can be very tricky for most people. With the introduction of advanced technologies, students are turning away from libraries and text books; they are now headed towards the internet for their information source. What this chapter is trying to do is inform readers on how to use the internet properly so any information found on it can be a legitimate source.

The first thing people do is use search engines such as Google or Yahoo. These sites are great for starting to search for articles and journals. Students do not have any problem with using keywords or subject directories, after all they have grown up with the technology and it is nothing new to them. The problem that they run into is choosing a valid source. Many times students will turn in papers with many, if not all, internet sources. These sources often end it ".com" and that alone causes a suspicion in the reader. Websites ending in ".com" are not all bad, but students often have a hard time in distinguishing valid sources. They often will site a blog about an issue and not realize that it is not the opinion of an expert. Instead students are told to focus on web sites that end in ".gov", ".org" and ".edu". These sources have a little bit more claim to them than others because of who they are sponsored by.

I am not trying to say that one sponsor is better than the other, but students do need evaluate their sources. Blogs are not sources, instead they need to find journals or newspapers, something with merit behind them.

31:
Chapter 31 addresses plagiarism and how to avoid it. Simply put, plagiarism is using someone else's work and taking credit for it. The chapter is taken up entirely with examples on certain types of plagiarism and ways to get around it.

I think it might be me but certain types of plagiarism seem perfectly acceptable. In cases where quotes are required, I think that makes sense, but paraphrasing or summarizing seems a bit of stretch. On page 201 the book shows how to write a correct paraphrase. What I don't get is that if you read the correct paraphrase and the unacceptable paraphrase they both have the same information. So it seems pointless to me to have a correct and incorrect way of paraphrasing if you're just going to have to cite your source anyway. After all, at the end of the paper you usually have a works cited, regardless of if you paraphrased correctly or not it still has the same information and it's still cited.

Another thing that I haven't taken a liking to is the use of ellipsis in the middle of quotes. Ellipsis (...) are used to take out phrases or sentences that aren't necessary. The problem is that some people have used ellipsis for other purposes. Some use it to make a quote mean something else entirely. For example if someone said , "The ice cream truck stopped for all the kids who wanted to buy chocolate ice cream for their parents."Instead they might include ellipsis and make the sentence say, "The ice cream truck...wanted to buy chocolate ice cream..." which is completely different form the original sentence. In that sense, anything can have a biased, so it's important to find the primary source to make sure the meaning hasn't been construed.