successive searching

As a part of my English course I had to do this exercise from The Curious Researcher.

The exercise consisted of searching databases on an ever more-focused scale and then putting the results in a bibliographic format.

The first search engine I used was Bing, and after a moderate length of time I found a useful article:

"Forests." Scientific Facts on. GreenFacts Initiative, n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2014. <http://www.greenfacts.org/en/forests/ind

The next place I searched was HotBot and once again found an article without too much trouble:

Agvei, Yvonne. "Forests." Scientific Facts on. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2014. <http://web.mit.edu/africantech/www/articl

Next I searched Dogpile and the search took a tad longer but I ended up with a good article:

Roberts, James. "How Western Environmental Policies Are Stunting Economic Growth in Developing Countries." The Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation, n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2014. <http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/01/how-western-environmental-policies-are-stunting-economic-growth-in-developing-countries>.

Lastly I used Noodletools.com to find a site and this was by far the hardest to find a relevant article:

Lindsey, Rebecca. "Tropical Deforestation : Feature Articles." Tropical Deforestation : Feature Articles. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2014. <http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Deforestation

The process was a very informative process for me because I learned how to use other search engines that I had not used before, but more than that the exercise gave me several good sources.  I was however dismayed at the length of time it took to complete this.

An inquiry into the Deforestation Dilemma

Here is my research topic outlined using exercise 1.5 in The Curious Researcher.

What real effect does deforestation have on a country, a community and an environment? Having grown up in a developing country I have seen a lot of deforestation in person, and I would like to explore in more depth the pros and cons involved in such use of forests. Some of the questions that need to be answered are: What good does deforestation bring? What people are benefiting from this? Who is being harmed by this? And, is such poor management of natural resources a normal part of the progression process that countries go through? I have entered this inquiry with the tentative idea that deforestation is a part of a country's maturing process, and that the countries experiencing the most acute problems are in the same stage of their development that many Western countries experienced during the nineteenth century. I have entered into this research with a reasonable amount of personal experience with the subject of deforestation. Frankly, I must admit that my preconceived ideas about economics and history make me inclined to think that deforestation is not as much a problem as many would like to say it is. Still, I grew up in a rainforest, and have noticed in my own lifetime the changes occurring in the area around my home. In the last ten years I have seen the forest get less dense and begin to shrink; when I was small the trees came to within a hundred feet of our house, and then the three hundred foot tall wall of vegetation just rose abruptly from the ground. Now, the forest is at least three hundred feet away, and there is no more wall, just a sort of gradual fade into short trees and brush that leads eventually to taller trees. As any reader can see, I have my feet planted on both sides of this topic, and I am very interested to find out the truth about deforestation in developing countries.

Writer's Block

Teachers often allow quite a bit of variety in topic choices for research papers, and this can be very nice. Unfortunately for many of us, choosing what to dig into from the huge variety of material available is daunting, even petrifying.  I have this problem quite often, I remember in eleventh grade trying for weeks to decide on what topic I would write about, but always being uncertain.  Finally I sat down with a notebook and pencil and put down by category what I could write about.  It worked!  With my thoughts down on paper, I was able to eliminate most choices until I finally decided to research the Huns.  

I have now discovered that this process has a name.  It is called "building an interest inventory" (Ballenger 25).  Here is an example of an interest inventory that I made for my English Comp class.

Places:                                                        Trends:

Acapulco                                                    The move away from missionary newsletters

Cambodia                                                   Getting married later in life

Heaven                                                       Artificial hearts that don't create a pulse

England                                                       Health food

Newzealand                                               “Organic” farms

Yap                                                            Anti-vaccine movement

The Mariana Trench                                    You-tube

Calcutta                                                      College

Moscow                                                     The move toward smaller cars

Northernmost Japanese Island                     Starbucks

Transylvania                                                Bottled water

Glacier National Park                                  School Vouchers

Moravia

Kentucky

Akron, Ohio

Brazil

Guadalupe

Cush

Mt. McKinley

Rhodes

Palestine

Turkestan

History:                                                            Hobbies:

Norman invasion of England                             Reading

Norwegian discovery of America                      Medieval Combat Reenactment

Early American civilizations                              Studying History

Architecture                                                      Hunting

Indo-European Languages                                Sketching

The Forty Years' War                                        Inventing board games

The Huns                                                          Biking

The Lusitanians                                                 Debating

Roman Invasions                                              Pen and paper RPGs (role playing games)

Civil Wars                                                        Tabletop strategy games

The evolution of modern missions                      Working out

Missionaries' effect on a country

Angor Watt                                                      Jobs:

Chinese Cannons                                              Mechanic

The Punic wars                                                 Plumber

Vandals                                                            Technician

Bishops of Hippo                                              Salesman

Petra                                                                 Physician's Assistant

Bonnie Prince Charlie                                        Farmer

The Netherlands' Revolution                              Manager

The War of the League of Augsburg                  Performing artist

                                                                         Secretary

                                                                         Accountant

Questions:

Artificial hearts that do not create a pulse:

Why are pulse-less hearts used?

How do they benefit the user in comparison to regular artificial hearts?

How could they be harmful to users?

What might be the effects on the body's rhythm?

Why would someone choose not to get one?

How will these hearts affect the medical industry?

How do doctors react to these machines?

How could these hearts be produced on a large scale?

What do the inventors say about them?

How much do they cost?

Why would people want one over a different type of artificial heart?

Can these hearts deal with physical exertion?

Works Cited

Ballenger, Bruce.  The Curios Researcher.  7th ed.  Boston:  Longman, 2007. Print.

Organizing Thoughts by Quick Writing

 Quick writing is a method of collecting ones thoughts on a topic. Many subjects can seem to complex to try and figure out what our opinion is, and that is why quick writing can help. Quick writing is the term used to describe a time of constant writing on a subject of a brief period of time, in order to stimulate thinking. It is a great exercise, to go through every once in a while especially when one's thoughts seem disorganized.

The purpose is not to sound good or elegant, or even get a lot written, as you can see from this assignment I did for my English Comp course, based on the first exercise in, The Curious Researcher.

Part One:

Being objective is extremely important to good research writing. If the author of a research paper does not keep all of their paper objective than the paper can easily seem irrelevant. A few examples of this are, Phillip Nitschke in his article Euthanasia Hope you never Need it But be Glad it is There. Nitschke ignores other view points and only presents his ideas without any fairly represented objections. This takes away from the paper he wrote, and makes readers get annoyed with him easily.

Part Two:

There IS a big difference between facts and opinions, and I must say many people do not seem to notice it. Many people say that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and then use that to say no one is ever right about anything. These people are correct in their first statement but they are completely wrong in their second statement. The difference between fact and opinion is that facts are undeniable bits of information, and opinions are things that one person believes and another person does not. So everyone has the right to their own opinion because opinions are flexible, but no one has a right to their own facts because facts are truth.

As you can see there does not seem to be a lot of focus, or even a point to the ramblings I produced, but the very act of writing on these subjects has allowed me to focus my thoughts in a new way. Basically quick writing is an exercise that can seem unorganized or pointless, but can be used as a personal means of organizing your thoughts into something you can coherently analyze.