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

Research Reflection

The LGBT population that I think I should do more research about over the course of the semester is either the Hmong LGBT community or on a wider range the Asia LGBT community as a whole.  I would like to know more about this community because when the LGBT community comes to mind, individuals from the Hmong population don't come to mind and neither do Asians in general come to mind. And I want  to know why this is.  Why are they so unrepresented?


What I assume to be true about this population is that their must be individuals who fall into this grouping, but  for some reason or another are not being readily represented in the gay community.  And if I would have to guess why, I would say it could be due to the culture and traditions of the Hmong and Asian peoples which could stigmatize LGBT and make it a taboo thing.


I learned this from an article I had to read in my past semester class that had to do with an LGBT Asian person who struggled with coming out to their family because of the strong beliefs that where rooted in the culture which shunned the idea of loving someone who was of the same sex.


I think the most difficult challenge I will have during this assignment is possibly finding information on the Hmong LGBT population if I focus solely on them or if I go about the route of the Asian community in general how will I collectively represent them with the information I gather.  I am more leaning towards the Hmong LGBT population than the Asian LGBT population though since it is so broad and unfocused.

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.

Encyclopedia vs Wikipedia

For our IM 204 class we have to compare an encyclopedia and Wikipedia to each other and talk about their pros and cons.  Then we were to describe how we used the Miller Library catalog to find an encyclopedia in the library on the topic we are searching for.  

When it comes to encyclopedias the pros of using them are they can contain information that focuses solely on the topic you are researching, which gives you lots of information valuable information if you choose the right encyclopedia.  Even if the topic you are researching is not the sole focus of the encyclopedia it can still give you useful information about the topic and possibly at the same time help you understand other aspects which are related to what you are looking for.  Encyclopedias can vary widely in what they focus on so it gives you many options to choose from to find what you are looking for.

But the cons of using encyclopedias are that (especially when it came to early editions) they can contain bias information (the opinion of the person who wrote it, so it is not objectively written) that may sway the reader toward a certain view point on the subject the encyclopedia is about.  Also as soon as an encyclopedia is printed it is already outdated because the world changes every single moment of everyday and those changes and new findings cannot be accounted for in the encyclopedia after it has been printed.

The pros of Wikipedia are it allows people to collaborate with one another by combining their knowledge of/on subjects and sharing it with those who have access to the internet.  It is free.  Since it is updated constantly, it is for the most part current with events and is not as dated as encyclopedias are.  And if you do not agree with the information on the site you can always change it.

But the cons of Wikipedia are that the writers of the articles are anonymous which makes it hard to identify if the author is knowledgeable on the subject and has creditable information about it.  Also while it can be constantly updated that does not necessarily assure that what information is given is indeed factual because people are able to insert false information as well as true information into the articles.

While searching for encyclopedias on alcoholism in the Miller Center Library catalog I found 10 print books on Alcoholism located in the library.  I found them through going onto the Miller Center Library homepage and clicking the advanced search option and typing in Alcoholism in the first search category and then encyclopedia in the second search category.  And then it popped up 13 results, 10 of which were print books.

Then to find an E-encyclopedia on alcoholism all I had to do after I had used the advanced search option and typed in Alcoholism and encyclopedias is separate search boxes was look at the refine the topic further option on the left had side on the page and click on E-Books/ Electronic books and it yielded 2 E-encyclopedias on alcoholism.

I think that the encyclopedia I found in the library: Alcohol Expectancy Theory vol 2 was more appropriate for my research presentation than the Wikipedia article on alcoholism I found because it better explained why it was that people where more likely to start abusing alcohol and provided me with other crucial facts that I wanted to know about alcoholism.  While the article on alcoholism in Wikipedia had many interesting statistics and facts on alcoholism I am always leery of using and citing it as a source of information since the material on it is not always trustworthy, while with an encyclopedia if it is a fairly current edition you for the most part don’t have to worry about the validity of the facts in the articles.  I will say that the one pleasant thing about the Wikipedia article though was that the information was focused on important key facts which had to do with alcoholism. So all of the important information on alcoholism is just in that one page, while in the case of the encyclopedia if you do not know what you are looking for, it could take a while to find what you need since there is so much material covered on the subject in the book.