Stats on my population

Bellow are two of my source in APA format. Both show summarized data and don't show how the data is analyzed
Nate Dorr. (September 2010). TRADITIONS AND ACHIEVEMENTS IN AMERICAN INDIAN EDUCATION. In Minnesota department of Employment and Economic Developement. Retrieved April 10,2012, from 
http://www.positivelyminnesota.com/Data_Publications/Employment_Review_Magazine/September_2010_Edition/Traditions_Achievements_in_American_Indian_Education.aspx.

Cross, S. L., & Day, A. G. (2008). American Indian Grand Families: Eight Adolescent and Grandparent Dyads Share Perceptions on Various Aspects of the Kinship Care Relationship. Journal Of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity In Social Work, 17(1), 82-100. doi:10.1080/15313200801906559

Original Reseach

I have never done original research. Original research could be survey, experiment or comparing statistical data. Library research can be used for preliminary research or background information before conducting the original research.

The disadvantage of library research is that information might be biased but the advantage is that previous original research has been done that might help you as start up

Analysis, reflection and interpretation could be the main critical thinking tools that might be used for doing both library research and original research.  For library research making an inference would be a challenge while for original research analyzing and getting information would be a great challenge.

Checking In

The successes that I am having with my semester research presentation is that I have all my questions done 

 

one of my Challenges are finding all the resources for my  all the assignments but I still believe that I have learned  enough to write my own research.

Also, another challenge for me would be the presentation. Sine we only have bullet points on the slides, it would be difficult for me to remember all the concepts I would need to explain them

Urvashi Vaid speech

My prior expectations to this event was that Urvashi Vaid was going to talk a lot about issues affecting LGBT communities.

 I was amazed when Urshavi mentioned the two lesbian couple from St. Cloud who were sitting the front row and she even praised.

 I believe that it made Urvashi Valid an authority on the topic she seemed very knowledgeable of all her facts and statistics in her presentation by sourcing where she got her information from.

 One thing that can assist me on my Alternative Viewpoints paper is at the beginning of her presentation on the movement as a whole and when she talked about post LGBT movement and I liked her view of acknowledging there is some disagreement among the movement. She even mentioned there is some discrimination and some of the colored people are not allowed in the leadership positions of the movement.

Intellectual Property

My definition of intellectual property is that it the ones creative work put into writing.
An expert's definition from http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/

"Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce."

Example of intellectual property could be books, news, magazines, stories and very much every creative idea put into writing, be it electronic or otherwise.

When manipulation and sharing of intellectual property happens, then,that is a violation of the copyright        law and it is against the law.

Google 101

I have used Google for so long and yet I didn't knew the many ways and tricks that I have learned  in this class. I have actually learned how to get exactly what I want in google.I will increase my usage in Google. I have learned many features that Google has, such as; Google News, Google Scholar. I am amazed the new feature of Google image where you can put an image into the search box and get more informaion on that specific image.
I will use Google extensively on my research paper and for my other classes.

Review of Semester Research Questions

My research population for the semester is The Chippewa Tribes of Native Indian in Minnesota, also known as Ojibwa. My research objective was to find the history and culture of this community and also to examine the assumption that I had towards this population.

As far as the background is concerned, I am still digging into resources I have collected so far. On the issue of my assumptions, I am seeing a relationship between The Chippewa/Ojibwa and casinos, even though not a solid relation.

Evaluating Blog

Blogs are frequently updated web pages that often times are free and where individuals or groups write about an array of topics used for various purposes; for professional or otherwise.

In my opinion, Blogs could be used as legitimate forms of news or scholarship. Nonetheless, there are a lot of blogs out there that are not relevant for academic research. It takes one to evaluate blogs critically and to identify whether or not blogs are suitable for scholarship or news.

For example, the blog APA format I have provided below is an example of a credible source of scholarships for quite some reasons. First, the author is a Native Indian himself and an educator of Indian studies for more than 40 years. Secondly, reading the blog further, I have noted the author primarily talks about the history of the Chippewa civil war veterans and does not indulge himself into saying something against other communities perhaps the whites.

Lastly, he credits the photo of the Chippewa civil war veterans and identifies the two veterans by name. Unfortunately, he does not have a reference of all the historical dates that he used in his writing

References

Big River Man News-Beaulieu Family History. (2010, June 2). Retrieved from http://beaulieufamily-bigrivermen.blogspot.com/

Research Reflection

I chose America: History and Life, as my subject specific database. I had more results than from Academic Search Premier .Both of the databases that I compared had the same features and both allowed me to narrow in terms of time, Geography, Scholarly reviewed. Infect, both have exactly the same features. My search string did work for the first time.

I found three articles on Academic Search Premier of which only one had a full text available and had one on Findit. On the other hand, I found four articles on America: History and Life database of which there was only one in full text and the other three articles were available in Findit.

My research question did not changed so far. My biggest challenge has been limiting my search string and by now, I know how to get accurately what I am looking for.

LGBT Population

I am interested and want to learn more about the Transgender population with in the LGBT community. I assume that most of the transgender people identify themselves as fameless rather than male or neither. Since I don’t know more about this particular group of people, I just created my own perception.

I think the most challenge I will face during my research will be the sexual orientation question. The stigma  associated of being transgender, by the societies we live in today, may render oneself hide their sexual identity.

Popular Magazine Vs Scholarly Journal Articles

I have found one scholarly journal article on my topic and The APA works cited format is;

References

CHONG, J. L. (2009). Cultural Practices and Spiritual Development for Women in a Native American Alcohol and Drug Treatment Program. Journal Of Ethnicity In Substance Abuse, 8(3), 261.

I have also found a popular magazine article on my topic and The APA works cited format is;

References

FENSKE, L. J. (2011). Winnifred Olsen At the Forefront of Bringing Minority and Native American Studies into Puget Sound Area Classrooms. Columbia: The Magazine Of Northwest History, 25(3), 10-13.

 The magazine I read about my topic had more of an opinion than researched facts about the topic at hand. It is more suitable for general readers. It does not have references, appendix and notes

While on the on the other hand the scholarly article was well written by experts on the field, had an abstract and of course had references and the works the author used.

For my research, I would need both.

Getting Ready to Use Academic Search Premier

After learning about the academic search premier and doing the troubleshooting for Academic search premier exercise I am impressed in how the academic search premier is organized and it  has a more in-depth feature than the OPAC experience we had used before.
I have never used the academic search premier before but I have had a 30 minutes training where the academic search premier was introduced to me. I never used any other type of database for any of my classes.

I don't think I have much fear about this database but getting many results would be one.

Encyclopedia vs Wikipedia

One of the main advantages of Wikipedia is that it is more convenient, free and editable by anyone. But the fact that it is editable by almost anyone raises an alarm. That is; facts can be easily manipulated and changed. On the other hand, Encyclopedias contain almost all subject matters that you are interested in, but since most of them are labeled as 'References" in bookshelves makes them hard to be checked out. In that sense, you can only use them in libraries unless otherwise you have one at home.

 I found out almost six different copies of Encyclopedia that cover my topic. I wrote “Encyclopedia AND Natives AND Minnesota AND Tribes" in my search string. I also used "Native Indians  AND       Encyclopedia AND Indians AND Minnesota AND Tribes".

When I was searching for E-Encyclopedia I typed “Electronic AND Encyclopedia AND Natives AND Minnesota AND Tribes" in my search string and found one E-Encyclopedia.

After locating and reading an encyclopedia and Wikipedia entry on my topic I am liking more on Encyclopedia than the Wikipedia because I think Encyclopedias contain more solid information than the Wikipedia, but I will be using both for my research presentation.

My Population

I narrowed down my topic to The Chippewa Tribe in Minnesota. So far I have not delved much into the topic and because of that, my assumptions on this specific tribe did not changed.

My main questions that I want to investigate about this population are;
1) What is their history and culture of this population?
2) What are the challenges and stereotypes faced by this community?

I have learned that the Chippewa community is consisting of six reservations that are all recognized by the federal government and there are the Bois Forte, Fond du Lac, Grand Portage, Leech Lake, Mille Lacs, and White Earth reservations.

I have also learned that they are very organized and their organization covers a wide range of aspects of life ranging from education through finance cooperation to human service.

The OPAC Search Experience

I have chosen Native Americans in Minnesota to be my topic of research. I’ll be researching the two major tribes namely; the Chippewa or the Sioux I am looking for both general background and specific information’s such as the challenges faced by this particular group of people. I first typed “Native Americans in Minnesota” but there no much results and then I tried “red Indians and Minnesota” then I got several books.

I looked up an E-Book and I found one and I like reading from online, even though I don’t have an E-Book reader.

I followed the same search steps as In Miller center OPEC system and I found couple different books on the topic.

What Do You Assume to Be True About ________________?

For this semester am going to write about the Red Indians. I don't know much about them and because of that I don't know what to write about my assumptions. I do hear some people say, Red Indians drink a lot and have high mortality rate. I don't want offend anybody here.

I believe as time goes and with much research, I will be able to learn more about them.

What is Critical Thinking?

My definition of critical thinking is this: It is the art of thinking where you criticize a piece of literature whether it is oral or written without a preconceived bias.

 According to this website  critical thinking is the thinking process where 'thinkers' are skeptical, active and open to new ideas and perspectives. Some of the particular processes or in other words, the qualities of critical thinkers that is outlined by the website are;

• Rationality
• Open-mindedness
• Discipline
• Judgment   
• Honesty   

                                                                                                                                      

The connection between IM204 and Critical thinking is that both would help you find out fact about the particular topic in hand. How is that possible? Well, researching about a certain topic helps you find the truth about that topic. While thinking  'critically' , based on the outlined qualities above, would also find out facts too.