Monday's (9/24) Blog Post

In class I do not believe we talked about the peer-review process which makes this blog seem like a summary of the article on CourseDen.

Apparently, peer-reviewed material can be wrong. This is something I did not know which makes me kind of mad honestly. What is the point of narrowing my search to only peer-reviewed articles if it is not correct information?

Why is peer-review important?

From what I understand, it really isn’t. The information can be invalid regardless whether an article is reviewed or not. This is crazy because I have searched only peer-reviewed articles in these data bases provided by GALILEO for years. There would be hundreds of articles available but NONE would be peer-reviewed. The ones that were peer-reviewed usually didn’t go with my topic.

-What are some ways that you can tell if an article is peer-reviewed, or scholarly?
First: Search Galileo, those tend to be scholarly. Second: check the peer-reviewed check box in Galileo. Third: Check their references. The source you get your peer-reviewed article plays a large part in its credibility.
-When do you want to use peer-reviewed research in your work?
You would use it when you can but it is not essential to the process of research. If you have a basic idea of what you are researching about you should have a general idea when something is far-fetched.
-Also think about in what ways YOU engage in informal and/or formal peer-review in your personal and researching life
I don’t think I engage in peer-reviewing in my personal life. In my researching life, I am often flying solo so peers do not tend to review me. If someone presented me with a topic, verbally or written, I would give them my thoughts on their concepts but not formally.


Word Count: 297

9/17 Blog Post

In our research on bullying, I would not necessarily include newspaper articles unless it included cited information or centralized information (such as a community paper featuring the death of a student most likely as a result of bullying). Countrywide newspaper articles are more trustworthy in accuracy but are often bias to certain political views. Government documents would be an excellent source when citing any sort of bullying prevention laws. Government documents are trustworthy and unlikely to be afflicted with bias. A scholarly journal or book would be perfect for our research though. Having a magnitude of information about one topic in one place would be spectacular, but finding it would be difficult. I am sure we can find scholarly articles on GALILEO or something but I am one of the few people who prefer hardcopy books. 

 Here is what we talked about in class:

Scholarly journals are written for scholars. They are written by other scholars that can be useful for scholars like us. They do not always contain pictures but graphs can be used to help explicate the author’s point.

Newspapers are written for the people of the community. They are written by “qualified” writers that can best suit the community’s needs. There are also advertisements by the local community that can influence how the paper runs. The newspaper can often be biased because of their sponsors and political views. They feature current news events and are generally short in length.

Scholarly books are written for anyone interested in the topic that has general background knowledge about the topic. It often contains terms that only people who know about the topic would know. Scholarly books are written by experts in the topic rather than many different people like a scholarly journal.

Government documents are written for anyone who is politically minded or someone who is doing legal research. These documents are certified by the government officials, not really given credit to a single author… though secretaries do count, they act on the behalf of the government, not themselves. There are often many charts and the length varies tremendously.

Word Count: 349

September 12

Did you change your research question since Monday? How? (Did you narrow it? Did you make it broader?) Why did you decide to change it this way? Also, start brainstorming the kinds of resources you might need to answer this research question (books, interviews, statistics, photos, etc)

Monday, our topic was about suicide and bullying. Our topic was rather basic so we started breaking it down. First we tried to identify who. We agreed upon children in the USA and the age group being children in grades 6-12. Grades 6-12 should be guidelines but not a restriction. Suicide would logically be caused by self esteem. So, self esteem and bullying. From there, we tried identifying outside factors of self esteem like social class.

We also started breaking down bullying. Not only in grades 6-12, but by the types of bullying. There are many different types: emotional, physical, mental and even spiritual (ex: in my small town, anyone who wasn't Christian tended to be shunned). There is also bullying differences between boys and girls, between peers and teachers (or other adults of authority). Bullying can be broken down in many ways, but at the same time, it is broad enough to research.

The research types we would need would most likely be found in psychological studies and educational psychologists. Teachers can even comment about the bullying they witness and we can compare and contrast bullying through age groups. I have a particular interest in teacher bullying students though. I feel like teachers are held to a high standard and bullying can be either overlooked or unintended… which brings up another topic: do bullies realize they are bullying?

Should be interesting,
Kayla Ciliberto

Word Count: 229

Bullying

What is your research question (as of now) and why do you think it is a good research question? What knowledge did you gain about your topic as a result of the research you’ve conducted so far? What specific aspect of your topic do you want to research further?

Our research topic is, as of now, the effects of bullying in kids grades 6-12 (in the USA). I think it is a good research question because there are plenty of effects we can find interests in. Rashaad wanted to look at suicides especially and I wanted to look at self esteem. Bobby and Michelle did not seem to mind the topic either. 

The knowledge that I gained thus far is more about narrowing the topic. Personally, I have experienced bullying so I do not want to read about the heartbreaking experiences other people have had. Instead, I looked up various laws states have designed to stop bullying and make school a safe academic environment. How effective are these laws though?  

 

This video honestly made me so sad because children, especially the mentally handicapped, do not deserve this from a teacher. What kind of teacher calls a child a bastard? That is horrible. I know teachers are under a lot of stress, but they should be ADULTS and handle their stresses in ways that do not harm others.

Bullying comes in a large amount of varieties and when my group is all here on the same day, perhaps we can actually narrow this down onto something we can all agree upon.

Sincerely,

Kayla Ciliberto

Word Count: 214

Topics

What topic did your group choose? Why do you think I had you choose a topic this way (pulling from news sources)? After doing some presearching, what aspect of this topic is most interesting to you? 

Our group, minus Megan who was not here, chose the topic of bullying in grades 6-12. I think you had us choose our topic this way to give us limited options to save time and to give us experience looking up credible information. As a third year, I feel as though I already know a lot about researching topics but I learned my interests do not appeal to the general audience. Not a big deal though, psychology doesn't appeal to everyone. The aspects that appeal to me are the ways teachers are trying to prevent bullying, the self-esteem issues caused by bullying and overcoming them, why the bullied becomes the bully, etc. I understand schools have new laws in place to prevent bullying but how effective is it really?  What are the statistics that prove that bullying is being subdued? How can they even create the statistics if these teenagers are afraid of being a “snitch”? How can bullying be assessed in these environments? Is bullying only limited to physical violence toward peers? I believe bullying is more verbal now than it ever was but at the same time teenagers are becoming more desensitized to these harsh words. I only know this because I have two teenage siblings and the way they talk to their friends is almost mind boggling to me. Over all, this project should be interesting though it needs to be narrower at this point.

Word Count: 238

Brainstorm

I am not sure if I did this right but here you go! http://www.news10.net/news/article/207053/2/College-students-packing-on-pounds-via-drinking-overeating Who: By Nanci Hellmich, writer for USA Today What: College students packing on pounds via drinking, overeating When: 7:31 AM, Aug 29, 2012 Where: College Why: Because, not only freshmen deal with weight gain when becoming independent. Proper nutrition is something everyone has to learn. Personally, proper nutrition is something I struggle with and this topic may be beneficial. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/study-forcing-a-smile-genuinely-decreases-stress/260513/ Who: By Lindsay Abrams, Lindsay Abrams is an editorial fellow with The Atlantic Health channel. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times. What: Study: Forcing a Smile Genuinely Decreases Stress When: Jul 31 2012, 7:00 AM ET Where: Everywhere? Depression is everywhere. Why: Because I have seen this study work! It could benefit everyone knowing just smiling, forced or not, will make you a happier person and ease the grip of depression and sadness. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shawn-achor/happiness-tips-research-chronic-illness_b_1798183.html Who: Shawn Achor, Author, "The Happiness Advantage" What: Achieving Happiness Despite Everyday Challenges When: Posted: 08/27/2012 12:02 pm Where: Huffington Post? Happiness within everyone? Why: Because everyone wants to be happy, or at least content. Why shouldn't people have the proper mental tools to make happiness feel like an achievable goal? Happiness is not for the privileged few. It is something everyone could use in their life. Word Count: 221

Acronym

ASAP
Author- Credible and/or established
Sponsors- not influenced by money
Audience- Age and background
Point of view- Unbias facts