Statistics

For this assignment I had to look for statistical information/data from both a government document and a scholarly journal source.  I looked for statistical information about the general onset of alcohol dependency for individuals in both areas.  
The government document I located on The National Institute On Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.  The document was entitled Twelve-month prevalence and population estimates of DSM-IV alcohol abuse by age, sex, and race-ethnicity: United States, 2001–2002 (NESARC)*. It focused on the age in which alcohol dependency can be seen as occurring in as well as what the ethnic/race group percentages where amount wise that could be seen as having alcohol dependency.  
The Scholarly journal I located was more so about the ages in which alcohol dependency can be seen to occur; it was from the PEDIATRICS scholarly journal and was published in 2008 in a study entitled Age of Drinking Onset, Alcohol Use Disorders,Frequent Heavy Drinking, and Unintentionally Injuring Oneself and Others After Drinking. 


In the government document it does tell you that the data was taken form the NIAAA 2001–2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NIAAA). Also that in certain ethnic/race groups that where studied age wise, some minority groups where included in that ethnic/race category. That is about all it tells you on how the data was collected/analyzed or what their intention was from this gathering of information in the first place. (Though if one would guess from the title it was to inform about the prevalence of alcohol dependency in certain age groups, ethnic groups, and genders of participants in the survey, which would mean they found something about this information to be interesting or of concern).  I suppose the reason that the government document did not list how they analyzed this information and why they found it to be important is because the subject and the variety of their participants and information they found was so vast that to limit down the information they gave to explaining one sole thing would be difficult to do.  So they want to allow others to interpret the findings to mean whatever they think the information is telling them about this population.


The scholarly journal on the other hand went into depth on where it was they got the information from and why it was they where collecting the information in the first place "From 2001 to 2002, in-person interviews were conducted with a national multistage probability sample of 43,093 adults aged 18 years older. From 2004 to 2005, of 39,959 eligible respondents, 34,653 were re-interviewed. The cumulative 2-survey response rate was 70.2%."(Hingson) And that their objective of publishing this journal was to "To explore whether early age of drinking onset is prospectively associated with respondents unintentionally injuring themselves and others when respondents were under the influence of alcohol, controlling for current alcohol dependence/abuse, frequency of consuming 5 drinks per occasion, and other demographic characteristics." (Hingson) So with the scholarly journal, why alcohol dependency based on age was thought to be an important thing to research was explained in the journal. The reason the data was explained in the journal is that the people who published it wanted to do a good job at explaining why they found this information to be important because it is a reflection of their work in the scientific community, so they would want to explain the smallest aspect of it to accredit the journal article.


References
Hingson, Ralph W. PEDIATRICS. Age of Drinking Onset, Alcohol Use Disorders,Frequent Heavy Drinking, and Unintentionally Injuring Oneself and Others After Drinking. June 1, 2009. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/123/6/1477.full.pdf. Retrieved April 10, 2012.


National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).Twelve-month prevalence and population estimates of DSM-IV alcohol abuse by age, sex, and race-ethnicity: United States, 2001–2002 (NESARC)*. 2002. http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/Resources/DatabaseResources/QuickFacts/AlcoholDependence/Pages/abusdep1.aspx. Retrieved April 10, 2012.


(Could not correctly indent reference citing because blog not like allowing one to us the tab button in certain places)

Checking in

For this blog post we are supposed to basically report how are semester research project is going and if there are any areas within the project that we are having trouble with.


The sucesses that I am having with my semester research project are that I for the most part have been able to find really good sources of information on my topic alcoholism. I believe I have found at least one source of informattion in the different formats we needed to cite (web, wiki, journal, blog, book, newspaper, ect) as sources for the information we have gathered which I am happy to have done. 


The only one which I do not have is a documentary since we have not yet gone over how to search for those, so I am a little nervous about that, but I am sure I will be able to find a useful one for my presentation. I am also a little unsure of as to what will go into the presentation I give, because I know we must include the 8 questions that must be addressed in our oral presentation, but not all of the information I gathered goes along with those questions (well it does but.... I may just have to look at where I could place it in the presentation), but I do feel it is interesting and relevant information to know about alcoholism.  So I suppose I will have to find a way in which to add this information to my presentation and hopefully my presenting time will not be to greatly extended from what it should be.


Some success I am having with an Ethnographic research project I am currently conducting in an Anthropology class I am taking is that through what I learned in IM 204, I was able to find an journal on Academic Research Premier that was similar to the Ethnographic research question we (my group) intend to answer through our surveys and interviews we will be conducting in that class.  And had I not taken this class I would not have thought to look on that site for information to help me in my research.


I suppose some challenges I am having with my research project I am doing (in my Anthropology 101 in particular) is finding relevant sources or research questions in books or online sources which are simular to our research question "How do the study habits of college students differ when they live on campus and off campus?" (I've found one as I said above but I would like at least two more) so that we can see if our results differ from this study conducted in the past.  We have to interview two people about their study habits and give 10 individuals surveys (40 in total) with questions on them about their studying habits and various things which maybe a factor which impacts those habits.  The challenge is which questions will we ask, because even though we might tell them that we will not share their identity with anyone else, we do not know for sure they are being truthful, which in some respects is difficult to assess. Because no one really wants to tell you they're failing or are not studying enough. So really we can only hope that the people we interview will be truthful for us and will bare all on the subject. (Such as grades and such in particular being a murky area of research)

Google

During our Google 101 introduction in class I learned so many new ways in which I could use Google to help me focus on what I was searching for and also giving me tools in which to help me narrow my search results even more.  I learned about how when you are typing in your search you can use + to help to expand your search results to include another thing you are searching for that goes along with it. You can use - to help you get rid of information that contains the thing you subtracted to focus on what you are searching for. I also learned that if you find a website you like you can copy it address into the Google search and then do : similar websites and it will help you find more resources that are similar to that site. Also that .gov country( wanna research) will give you government documents in your search for that country.  And can use a ~ to help you in your search to find words which are similar to the word you put ~ in front of it to expand your search.  I also learned that you can use Google searches from Google sites in other countries to help you if you think it would benefit your research.  Also I found that Google Scholar could be quite useful in finding material which was useful in your research because it would tell you how often the source was cited and that would in turn give you an idea of the relevancy of the article.  I also liked how under the Google search options it had a tool which gave you the reading level of the website, which could help you get rid of sources that where not up to the standards you may need in doing research.


I liked Google very much even before find out all of these new things about it since I use it multiple times each and every day. So learning more about the proper way to use it has made it even more appealing to me and I am happy that I was able to learn how to use it more efficiently since it will probably help me very much when I am looking for information online.


I will use Google tools/online research strategies such as the +,-,~ to help me expand, limit, and add to what I am searching for in a future class where I may have to do a research project of some sort or just find useful information on some topic to do an assignment.  I also think the use of Google Scholar will help me with finding the information I need while at the same time allowing me to know it is a fairly creditable source which I have found.  I will use it to find information I need, and because of it I will now probably be able to find things more quickly because of the limiting resources some of the tools have and information with is relevant to what I am searching for.  In real life situations if I am just searching for a topic and I get a whole bunch of results, these new searching methods and tools can help me limit my results down to what it is I am searching for.


So in all this was a very pleasant learning experience and I look forward to putting to use the things I learned.

Blogging about Blogs

Over the course of our time spent on our semester research project, there are 8 questions we need to address in our oral presentation we will be giving at the end of the semester to our classmates.



1. The human population that I researched was substance abusers with a focus on alcoholism in particular.  I wanted to be able to through my research come to a better understanding of what this population of people affected by alcoholism goes through.  I wanted to find explanations for their actions and why it is they even start drinking in the first place, and what makes them continue to do so even when they are able to see that it may be drastically impacting their lives and others in a not so positive way.


2. My assumption for alcohol abusers was that they are all to some degree misguided and lacking in control of their actions (because their body or mind have become so heavily dependent on alcohol to get through the day) and this in turn does not make them the most pleasant of people to be around.  People who are alcoholics are depicted by their bad decision making skills while drinking because they have become inebriated through the consumption of the alcohol so it is likely that they would not make the best of decisions while consuming it.  I assume that to some degree it is their choice whether they continue their chronic use of the substance, since for the most part they choose to start it (though I know they did not start out with the thought 'I'm going to start being an alcoholic today').  And I assume that alcoholism has a drastic impact on the lives of those who are victim to its use and to those whose lives are affected by the actions of the alcoholic.  I also assume that people use it to compensate for stress in their lives or problems they are having.


3. I found that people who are chronic alcoholics often resort to drinking because they believe it will mellow them out and make them feel better, but often it is not that they are only stressed but also depressed and because alcohol is a depressant it only makes ones depression worst instead of better.


4. I would have to say that some challenges this group faces in mainstream society is that they are assumed to automatically have more control over themselves and their actions than what they really do have.  For some alcoholics it is not just a choice of choosing to drink or not to drink, sometimes the amount in which their body has become addicted to alcohol is stronger than their rational reasoning skills.  So I would say people might to easily condemn them and think they don't want to change or they don't want to be helped, and for some this may be true but for others they have become victims to their alcohol use and just find it harder to stop.


6. I would say the challenges that people would find in doing library research and original research on this population is possibly finding information that deals directly with the factor of alcoholism that you are searching for.  And I would say that it can be hard to find information that is truly unbiased on alcoholism because I have come across a few books and articles that just completely labels them the scum of the earth, who are violent and nasty people.  And of course those sources are very biased in the direction that alcoholism is wrong and it should not happen, and that is in part what makes alcoholics underrepresented in society.  We have made it a legal thing in our society so in some ways one would think it odd that it could be so condemned when it is a substance that can be used without any legal repercussions (also long as you’re not belligerent on it)


7. After learning more about my human population the research question I have generated on them is “Why is alcoholism so prevalent in society?” and it is an ongoing investigation because I have been preoccupied with other research questions I came up with that are linked to that question, and I found it sometimes hard to search for information that dealt with that question but Professor Wexelbaum has given me some tips on which to help me with my research question search string.  So hopefully I will be able to gather more information on the subject.

Blogging About Blogs (Assignment 12)

Our assignment for this week was to look at blogs about the topic we are doing research for (in my case it is alcoholism), and from these blogs we have looked at, give our opinion on whether or not we believe blogs to be legitimate forms of scholarship or news. 

The opinion I have formulated through looking at different blogs (on alcoholism) are that I believe they are or I should say can be legitimate forms of scholarship or news if they are done in a way which is relevant to the topic the blog is about and it keeps a constant update on the subject with the possible use or paraphrasing of information from articles they have read on the subject to further enrich the blog post.  I think they can be legitimate forms of scholarship or news because if they done correctly and in a manner which incorporates their own views (though in the case of mine it is mainly just articles which do not include the bloggers own opinion on the subject, but who show they find it to be of relevant through their posting of the information) and experiences on/with the topic including relevant references to current news broadcasts or a recently published article on the subject to help get their viewpoint across to readers of the blog. This in turn helps explain what factors have lead this blogger to have a certain view (or why they find it important to contribute information on a topic) on a topic they are blogging about.

An example which shows that blogs can be legitimate forms of scholarship or news is the blog ALCOHOL REPORTS

http://alcoholreports.blogspot.com/2012/03/influence-of-geneenvironment.html

What this blog post does is list relevant information about alcoholism through its reference to a link of an article that focuses on alcoholism.  The blog allows you to see where this information was first gathered from, and it explains the information to the reader in a way which is understandable but still highly academical.  Also from what I have seen on this blog they update it multiple times daily with new information they find in journals, book, and articles in the news and so forth from all over the world and on many different topics which relate to alcoholism.  And from what I have seen through looking at numerous posts is that the bloggers really just re-paste these articles on their blog so they are not really altered in content of the intended message of the article at all which makes it in my opinion a very scholarly source of information.  I will say though that because this blog updates so often it can be hard to sort through which parts of it you would find useful to what you are looking for on your topic, also some of the articles are harder to understand because they use scientific language and are almost lab report summaries, but other than that it is a source which provides quite a bit of useful information about alcoholism.

References

ALCOHOL REPORTS. (2012, March 9). The Influence of Gene–Environment Interactions on the Development of Alcoholism and Drug Dependence [blop post]. Retrieved from http://alcoholreports.blogspot.com/2012/03/influence-of-geneenvironment.html

Search Strings and Databases

For our assignment in class this week we had to hone our skills in creating search strings to see how we could tweak them with the right word usages to provide us with the most relevant results on our search topics.  We also had to use the search string we created and apply it to another database other than Academic Search Premier.  And then we had to describe our experiences while navigating through both databases.

The subject specific database that I choose was PsycINFO.

And the database which gave me the more relevant results was Academic Search Premier. 

In Academic Search Premier you were able to narrow down your result through choosing what language the article was in, choosing to only search for scholarly journals, having the text in full format and in PDF format. It also gives you options on the left hand side of the screen after you have begun your search to help you further limit your topic down.  And I greatly appreciate all of these features because they are quite helpful when it comes to finding relevant information.  But in PsycINFO the ability to further limit your topic was very complicated, you could only limit the date publication range, choose to search for journal articles only, and you could choose to limit it by location and publication type but if you attempted to search for your preferred setting through their options they give you, you get an extremely long and confusing list of what formats you could choose from. And you were also able to limit your results through choosing your preferred language format.

For my search string I used (alcohol* OR drinking) AND men AND (power OR control) and my search did work but I felt that it gave me way to many results and irrelevant ones at that so I used (alcohol* OR drinking OR booze) instead, and then (power OR control OR dominance).

On Academic Search Premier with the search string I used above and through the use of its limiters I was able to get it down to 491 results, 4 of which I found to be relevant information on what I was looking for.  And on PsycINFO I was able to get 7730 results (this was very frustrating.....I could not easily limit it down any farther with the tools they provided) and I found 2 semi-relevant articles.

On Academic Search Premier 2 of the results where available in full text online, while the other two were not in full text online, where not available through FindIt and required getting an inter-library loan to get the material. And for the articles I found on PsycINFO in general they do not provide full text for any of their articles, and I was unable to locate the 2 articles in FindIt, so to get them I would have to get an ILL loan to fully read them.

Since working with databases my research questions have not really changed all that much.  I think this is because I am trying to stay focused on the material I view as being of potential importance to the information I will need for my in class presentation.  And I fear that if I deviate to much from my research questions my subject will not be concise enough and will be too broad of a focus.  Though if I do find information I deem to be of interest and importance I will be completely open to incorporating it into the material I gather.

I think the biggest challenge I have had in composing my research question(s) is determining if they are too much of a general topic on alcoholism and are not specific enough and asking myself if the questions are related to each other and are cohesive.  I think to overcome these challenges I need to just break them down to their bare components and think about the ways in which they relate to each other, and focus on why it is that they are relevant questions to ask on my topic.

Popular vs Scholarly Journal Articles

For our IM 204 class we where asked to find a popular magazine article and a scholarly journal article about the population we are searching for (mine being of course alcoholics/ism) and cite them using APA works format.

References

Bailly, R. C., Carman, R. S., & Forslund, M. A. (1991). Gender Differences in Drinking Motivations and Outcomes. Journal Of Psychology, 125(6), 649.

Study finds alcohol abuse or dependence causes depression, not vice versa. (2009). Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly, 21(10), 1-3.

The one which was cited first Gender Differences in Drinking Motivations and Outcomes is the scholarly journal, and the second one Study finds alcohol abuse or dependence causes depression, not vice versa was the popular magazine.  

In Gender Differences in Drinking Motivations and Outcomes the article focused on investigating gender differences in the relationship of power needs and drinking (basically men drink to show dominance and power and women drink more so to be assertive and sociable).   In the scholarly journal the article went into depth on the topic and used more of an academic language compared to that of the popular magazine article which was geared more towards presenting information in an easily understood manner for general audiences.  And Study finds alcohol abuse or dependence causes depression, not vice versa is quite self explanatory as to what it is about from the title.  The popular magazine focused more on brief non technical articles about alcoholism and drug abuse in general (because it is published weekly) so it does not contain a very specific focus on alcoholism alone.  The scholarly journal had its own research presented in the article, and contained charts to explain that information. And the scholarly journal had a list of references to credit the information it was presenting and authors who had wrote the article, while the popular magazine on the other hand had no references or authors listed  whatsoever.

Getting Ready to Use Academic Search Premier

Based on my review of the Academic Search Premier features my impression of the database is that it is quite a useful tool which helps you find material that you are looking for, such as in my case, scholarly journals and popular magazines (if you can find the way in which to locate them and refine your results to include them).  I liked how you where able to for the limit your results option on the advanced search page, it allowed you to limit your results right off the bat to search for scholarly journals which made finding that portion of our assignment much easier.  I also liked how you where able to limit the search through specifying the document type to article, and the publication type to periodical to help refine your results.  Finding a popular magazine was a little more challenging though than the scholarly journal because it did not have a limiter for that specifically.  But I found that if after you have initiated your search and you look on the left hand side to a bar which gives you options to help you refine your search, you can choose the option of magazines and that helps you find popular magazines you can use.


I have never used Academic Search Premier specifically, though during high school in my AP English class we where given the option to using it, (my teacher hinted at another database being easier to use) but I never did because I used a different type of database to find information I needed on the topic I was searching for.


Yes, I used another type of database for research in my AP English class in high school to do a research paper on Crime and Punishment in which we had to incorporate literary critics ideas into our paper.  The name of the database is Questia, and I found it to be very helpful when it came to finding books in general, and for the purpose of the class, books published by literary critics on Crime and Punishment.  Though it allowed you to search for things beyond the mere scope of books.


I do not really have any fears per say about using Academic Search Premier as a database to do research, more so am I nervous about being able to utilize it as a tool correctly and to its full potential.  But I think for the most part that will depend on my ability to specify what I'm searching for in my search strings and limit what I am looking for.  Also I suppose during some of my searches the results which where found were not what I was searching for but I think with honing my search parameters it will not be an issue.

Your Population

My population consists of substance abusers of alcohol, and I suppose my assumption of my population has changed very little after I have read more about alcoholism.  I think that when I did my first post about my assumptions of substance abusers it was widely spread since I had not limited my topic to a single type and there are so many substances which can be abused.  I think that the way in which my assumption has changed is that through my research I have found that some people and institutions classify alcoholism as a disease (which it can be hard sometimes to think of it as being so) in which there is a strong compulsion to drink no matter what the negative effects of doing so may be caused by it.  And therefore if it is a disease, a small part of me thinks that it is not in essence the fault of the individual whose brain chemistry has made them susceptible to becoming addicted to alcohol and are the victim of its lure.  But even so I do still feel that those who drink alcohol to excess should know the limitations of how much they should drink (though I suppose after a few drinks even if they did set a limit they are less likely to follow it because their judgment in impaired) And while I said I think substance abusers are for the most part “bad people” that may have been going a little far with alcoholics/ism as the subgroup I am focusing on for substance abusers. I think they are more so misguided and impaired and that the labeling of “bad” would for me apply to individuals whose lives are controlled by alcohol and have basically allowed it to tear every part of their lives to pieces and repeatedly resort to violence and abuse of some sort when they drink; continuing to do this even after they sober up and see how they have hurt the people around them.

I still what to do research about the brain chemistry of those who drink, and I think that will help me understand more as to why alcoholism is a disease.  I have been able to piece together slightly why it is the most accepted form of substance abuse which occurs in daily life, but I want to dig deeper into that idea more so.  And maybe even researching what sort or type of people it has more of an impact over (such as background, race, and gender)

I have found some basic information on why it is that people drink such as in one case people do so because they are depressed and they drink to alleviate that depression but what they do not realize is that alcohol is a depressant itself so it is just worsening their depression.  Also that people in certain social circles are more so pushed to drink than those in other social circles.  Also I found an interesting section in an encyclopedia that talked about how men who drink more do so sometimes because they associate dinking with having power and rationalize that if they drink more they will have more power.  And I have found other general tidbits about alcoholism as well, such as it is more likely that those who grew up around an alcoholic are more likely to abuse it themselves than a person who grew up in a family where there was no alcohol abuse present.