Filter Bubbles

A filter bubble is a website's way of catering to the user's preferences. It is not just in search results like Google but in Facebook too. You do not have to search anything but when you start liking photos, when you start showing preferences, Facebook will take full advantage of it. Thinking about it, filter bubbles like this is brilliant marketing because they aren't treating everyone the same. They are taking your individual preferences and applying them to make your internet experience better.
A potential personal drawback would be is that you do not get a healthy balance of things you like and dislike and things Facebook and Google does not think is important. For example: I was on my Facebook page and I like to keep up with people from my high school senior class. I like knowing who is pregnant, engaged, married, etc. The problem is that my senior class is full of people I did not necessarily get along. Just because I didn't get along with them, doesn't mean I want to find out a girl in my class is pregnant until she is showing in photos. The majority of my news feed is pictures, which explains it. I don't like that Facebook hides statuses from me that I do not choose to be hidden. 
In academia, filter bubbles can really damper research. I didn't realize that there were so many factors that went into a simple search. It sort of bothers me honestly. If I try to tell someone how I found a source "Oh, I was on Google and I searched these words then clicked on the third link" I do not want them to find a different link. It makes internet navigation more difficult and frustrating. What if Google acknowledge that the person is a history buff but that person is doing a paper on a current event? Filter bubbles can really hinder presearching and maybe even research itself.

Word Count: 325

Plagiarism

Plagiarism, to me, is claiming an idea that belongs to someone else and claiming it as your own. It may not be just the idea of someone else, it could be a strange fact that wouldn't be considered common information. Like the average United States Citizen life span is

male: 76.05 years

female: 81.05 years

That would have to be cited (cia.gov).

Things you can do to prevent plagiarism is

A) Understand that the sources used are not intended to be used as direct quotes that stand on their own. A quote needs to support your argument, not make it for you.

B) Do not look at your sources when writing your paper. If you aren't looking, there is a very small chance you'll phrase it the same way but STILL give credit in the end.

What surprised me:

In elementary school, middle school and even high school I did a lot of word switching and even copying and pasting. As a kid though, I think my teachers knew I was not intending on stealing from the authors. I did credit them as a source at the very end in my Works Cited page but not in the text like I should have. Other Plagiarisms almost seem picky picky picky. Metaphor plagiarism? That sounds, to me, like something that could be done accidentally depending on how you learn the material.


Good night all,
Kayla Ciliberto


Word Count: 235

Rhetorical Devices

I was not here Monday for personal reasons and had to go to tutoring Tuesday during the presidential debate. So instead I watched this:

http://www.colbertnation.com/full-episodes/wed-october-17-2012-tyler-perry

I am going to be honest when I say I am not sure what I am doing but here we go:

• Charles Krauthammer (spelling?) is used as an "Appeal to Authority" rhetoric when he said there were low expectations for Obama.
• Romney sitting on a bar stool during the debate because he is Mormon and doesn't spend a lot of time in bars. "Yes, only people who go to bars know how to sit in stools." I suppose that is an Ad Hominem.
• The idea that anyone on Obama's team would hide information about the terrorist attack on Libya is "offensive" would be an Appeal to Emotion I think. Not in gaining sympathy but to appeal anger toward Romney for saying what we all know is true, "our government is corrupt".
• The idea that the culture of violence is caused by children not having a mom and dad in the household... A CLEAR example of False Cause. Though in my public speaking class, we did talk about diversion as a great alternative when you can't answer a question.

That is just four I saw early.

Ciao,
Kayla Ciliberto

Word Count: 213

10/10

My research question is: What are the long-term effects of bullying?

My argument will focus on both the positive and negative aspects of the human experience of being bullied (can you tell I took humanistic psychology?). Negatively, I can argue a sort of mild PTSD depending on how traumatic the bullying experience is. Positively, I can mention that bullying can be humbling.

I can, if necessary, talk about how to resolve the negative effects. This part would be the most interesting for me but it would be time consuming. I would have to research in a few weeks what psychologists have been studying for decades: breaking down the self esteem in to parts and boosting each part individually.

Other kinds of information we could use would include specific examples to reveal how “real” bullying is. Not just elementary teasing, but social aggression in its extreme cases as to gather my audience’s attention. Extreme cases involving verbal aggression, physical aggression and emotional trauma. Those would most likely be found in newspapers and websites dedicated to the victims or even videos. There are plenty of youtube videos about bullying but those cannot be validated as true. I know of makeup artists that can create bruises and scars just as easily I can photo-edit it.


Word Count: 214

10/8

   My major discipline in GALILEO is psychology. Upon searching for one I have never worked in before I realized that many of the sources use ProQuest and EBSCOhost. Both databases I know I’ve used before. I found one call “web of knowledge” it is a Thomas Reuters website that is apparently “Is the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals” according to their about us page (http://thomsonreuters.com/about/). I searched “baseball” since I am currently writing about my Steve Blass Disease project. You would never guess what one of the key words in the title of the first link was “Decision taking under pressure: Evidence on football manager dismissals in Argentina and their consequences”. Football? No, I said baseball. 

What is kind of funny is that the seventh source mentioned the word baseball and the nifty database highlighted the word baseball for me. That could be useful during research.

The difference between subject specific databases and the Discovery tool is that the subject specific database is great for something directly relating that field. Like baseball does not directly relate to psychology. If I searched something like PTSD, a psychology database would be preferred over a literature database. If I wanted to search baseball I would choose the Discovery tool because I could use information that could fall under any category (history of baseball, baseball in the media, etc).

10/3

Scholarly:

ADAMS, FRANK D., and GLORIA J. LAWRENCE. "Bullying Victims: The Effects Last Into College." American Secondary Education 40.1 (2011): 4-13. Academic Search Complete. Web. 4 Oct. 2012.

The following terms to describe the characteristics and lasting effects of bullying: safety, exclusion, isolation, abuse, alienation, lonely and a rite of passage.

I plan to use this source as a major reference because it is a comprehensive study about the lasting effects of bullied people.

Popular:

Bhanoo, Sindya N. "Effects of Early Bullying Don't Last in Birds." New York Times 28 June 2011: 3. TOPICsearch. Web. 4 Oct. 2012.

This is an article that says that birds that were bullied by their hatchling siblings showed no difference in aggression when intruders invaded their nests.

This is a counter argument that could possibly be used to break down my argument about bullying, but I can argue that humans are more sophisticated than birds. These birds are going off instinct. Parents protecting their children wouldn’t differ if they were bullied at a young age, so it is not surprising a bird would be similar.

Word Count: 181

10/1

GALILEO is an acronym for Georgia Library Learning Online. This I did not know. GALILEO is an online library, not a database. GALILEO contains a large variety of databases though. The hierarchy goes Articles within Journals within Databases within Disciplines within GALILEO similar to how the library organizes books within bookshelves within call numbers within a library. Databases are defined as “a comprehensive collection of related data organized for convenient access, generally in a computer” by dictionary.com. It organizes information typically by related topics such as social sciences or medicine. GALILEO is an excellent online resource when looking for sources about a topic and do not have the time to stay in the library all night hunting down a relevant book on a very narrow topic. For example: I am doing a research project on the “Steve Blass Disease”, but the official book about Steve Blass’ “disease” is not available by the library, is not recognized as a real disease (because it is not) and the synonyms are not attracting large peer-reviewed results. For those who do not know, Steve Blass was a pitcher for the Pittsburg Pirates who after winning the World Series, suddenly could not pitch. It is a curious phenomenon that I have to write a 10 page paper on for my Sports Psychology class. By using GALILEO, I found plenty more reliable sources. GALILEO has many uses and is beneficial for any kind of research.

Word Count: 239