Week 4: Information Sources

Dear Reader:
    There were 5 practice research questions assigned that I will address here.
  1.  Is a vegetarian diet healthier than a meat-based diet?
  This question presumes that two dietary choices are possible: vegetarian, without stipulating the level of vegetarianism, and meat-based.  There are many gradations of diet possible.  However, I will address this question in a broad manner.
  One source I found that I would trust is to be found here: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/psychology/health_psychology/vegpage.html
  It was written by Higgins,Kristin, 1998 or 1999 (the precise date is not clear), Psychology Department, Vanderbilt University, Nashville.  It is carefully researched and thoroughly cited.
  2.  Target often forces musicians to alter lyrics in order to have their CDs sold in Target stores.  Is this cencorship?
  This would appear to be a question of opinion and less a question of law, so a periodical or some other source with public input would be a good source.  After opening the search box in Google I typed in the following: "Target stores" AND (music) AND censorship.  In the results I found a series of comments on the Target Mobile Site, found here.  There was also a link to Clark College Libraries, here, where there were ways outlined to define a search, which was helpful.  However, in my opinion the best source would be found here.  The author has carefully researched this issue, and looks to me to be the best source for information on this topic.
  3.  How much more can a college graduate expect to earn over someone with a high school diploma?
  For this question I decided to focus on earnings.  I opened Google and typed in "average salary high school graduates versus college graduates" and got 3,370,000 results in 0.41 seconds.  The best link to be found was here.  Click on the link and you will find the site for the National Center for Education Statistics where the facts are carefully laid out, including narrative, a table, and a list of sources and resources at the bottom.
  4.  Should educators use commercial services to combat plagiarism?
  For this source I would think an actual educator would be the best source.  A conversation with each of my instructors would be a good course to take.  Also, consulting a librarian or two would not hurt as they are actually educators at heart.
  5.  Is the current lack of sunspot activity effecting global warming?
  This question is of a scientific bend.  First I searched the open web for sunspot activity and found this site which gives an exhaustive amount of data on sunspots in this solar cycle.  It was quite apparent that there is no current lack of sunspot activity.  Then I typed the question in question directly into Google.  This rendered a lot of blogspot hits, which I ignored, and that allowed me to find this site which addresses global warming.

   Next I am going to try to identify the most useful information sources for three of the questions I posed in my last post.
  Question 1.  What uniforms were worn by enlisted and commissioned personnel in the era during which I served?
  The definitive source is a book, the United States Navy Uniform Regulations NAVPERS (number) of 1981, which was published by the United States Department of Defense.  In order to acquire this volume I would have to request to purchase one from the archives of the US Navy.  The easiest and fastest way to do that is to call their phone number, which I will do on October 22nd or 23rd.
  There is at least an online reading room with information addressing this question, found here:
 http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/readingroom.htm
  It connects to a digital archive of resources, but few of them are as current as I need.
  The book source is the best source because these were the regulations that were used as the standard for personnel inspections when I was serving.  The online sources, however are the most recent that can be accessed by civilians.
 2.  Why were the uniforms I wore in flux?
  The reading room link mentioned above has a link to the specific section of their database that addresses the history of US Naval Uniforms.  It is found here:
http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/uniform_history.htm
  This link does answer some questions as to why the uniforms changed.  However, it has nothing very specific, which is in keeping with the military tradition of information dissemination.  If they are not downright secretive then they err on the side of brevity.  The paramount consideration for the lack of specifics is "Need to Know": i.e., if you don't need to know, we won't tell you.
  3.  What was the historical context of the level of gender integration in the US Navy during the era that I served in?
  I found a PDF from the archives of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation site, which can be accessed here: http://www.history.org/History/teaching/enewsletter/volume7/images/nov/women_military_timeline.pdf
   It covers what women were formally authorized to do and when in the US Military's various branches.  However, actually finding out why these decisions were made might be a little trickier.  I've had no luck so far with confirming why decisions were made after the Korean Conflict.
  It would seem I need to go in to the library on campus and ask a librarian for assistance.  Hopefully there is an answer in an Academic Encyclopedia.
  I hate to do this, but I feel I must.  Wikipedia has a pretty good article about Women in the United States Navy, and it seems to be well documented.  It can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_United_States_Navy
  It has information about all three of the questions listed above.  I have only begun to research the veracity of the sources cited, but one at least does check out.  It is a book by Jean Zimmerman, an author of quite a few books.  She did indeed write "Tail Spin: Women At War In The Wake Of Tailhook", primarily about women in the US Navy, but other branches are mentioned.  It is well recommended by authoritative sources.
  Another is a publication by the Bureau of Naval Personnel, but the website is unavailable at this time, possibly due to upkeep, so I will check back later.
  "And that's it for this episode!  Tune in next week, folks, for more exciting adventures!"

Unit 3 Research Questions

Dear Reader:
  It has come to my attention that I need to compose three research questions which will be used later on in the course.
  To that end I shall included four in this post, just in case I need spares.
  Question 1: What was the historical context of the level of gender integration in the US Navy during the era that I served in?
  Question 2:  What uniforms were worn by enlisted and commissioned personnel during the era I served?
  Question 3:  Why were they in flux?
  Question 4:  What were the regulations regarding deployment of female personnel during my enlistment, and how did they change?
  That should satisfy the requirement for research questions.  At least, I hope so.
  -- Writer

Further ruminations

Dear Reader:
  After posting the previous information I found I still had other bits that I wanted to include, so I thought I would post them here.
  I queried Google scholar about the history of gender integration in the military.  There were a few good articles and a book or two referenced there.  The first that caught my eye can be found at http://afs.sagepub.com/content/26/2/229.short
entitled, "The First Wave: Gender Integration and Military Culture" by Regina F. Titunik of the University of Hawaii at Hilo, titunik@hawaii.edu
  It was published in Armed Forces & Society Winter 2000 vol. 26 no. 2 229-257 
This link included a link to a PDF of the full article.
  Another good was article, "The Citizen-Soldier Tradition and Gender Integration of the U.S. Military" by R. Claire Snyder of the public and international affairs department at George Mason University, rcsnyder@gmu.edu who's article was published 2003.
  Yet another source, and quite unexpected, was a blog post which can be found here: http://blog.usni.org/2012/07/14/on-midrats-this-sunday-episode-132-the-naval-author-with-r-l-crossland   This blog post was actually about writing, and using one's military background as reference.
  -- Writer

Unit 3: Exploring Topics

Hello, dear Reader!
  Today I have been learning how to do more thorough research using subject encyclopedias, different levels of the web, and other sources.  I shall document a portion of what I did on this blog.
  To be honest, I have been wanting to learn how to do this for some time.  The internet is a big playground, and navigating it is essential in this age.
  My research subject for this blog entry will be of a military nature.  For some time now I have been writing a loose memoir of my military experiences.  While doing so I have found that my memory of certain activities and terms isn't enough.  I need to be able to more accurately recall my experiences, and doing a little research into the attitudes and activities of the US Navy at that time is a logical step.  To that end I decided to use Women in the US Navy as my focus topic, with secondary focuses being the history of gender integration in the military, and the evolution of attitudes toward women in the military.  I also need to be able to recall all the vernacular terminology of the time.  The uniforms were in flux while I served my country, and being able to remember what uniform items I dealt with is important.  Personal grooming regulations were changed, too, so I would need to pin those down.  The ships I had experience with and the bases I was assigned to have also changed, and knowing a bit more about them would be helpful.  Lastly, the history of the political atmosphere would also be pertinent.
  To facilitate my research I started with good ol' Wikipedia.  However, I have long since learned not to use this site as a definitive source, so I only used it as a sort of compass: "The subject you are looking for looks rather like 'this' and is over 'that-a-way'." I also looked within Gale Virtual Research Library and Google Scholar.  There are also sites for Veterans that I have access to that I used.  Two are http://wn.com/uss_acadia_%28ad-42%29/wiki
which is a site set up to memorialize one of the ships I served aboard, and http://www.togetherweserved.com/
which is a site that allows present and past military members to connect with other military members.
  In Wikipedia I looked up the history of the US Naval Uniform.  The article I found was entitled, "Uniforms of the United States Navy".  The contributors to this article were many.  I shall cite some here.
Kube, Courtney (17 July 2008), "New Navy uniform goes retro", usnews.msnbc.msn.com/
United States Navy Uniform Regulations NAVPERS 15665 published by the US Navy at least once every two years.
"NAVADMIN 374/09: Navy Working Uniform Type II and III". Chief of Naval Operations. CDR Salamander. 4 January 2010.
  One article I found that is quite enlightening in GVRL is "Uniforms, Military" in a volume called, Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion
Ed. Valerie Steele. Vol. 3. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2005. p364-369. Thomas S. Abler
  I intend to continue researching so as to solidify my memories of that time.  I want my memories of that time to be easily understood by those who read my memoir.
  -- Writer

Unit 2: Plagiarism

I viewed all the videos and web pages referenced in the Plagiarism Video Fest on the Moodle course page at https://moodle.clark.edu/course/view.php?id=17973.  This might sound rather dry, but in truth was fun.  Those sources were carefully chosen to keep the interest of the audience, and to inform at the same time.

  I also went to the IRIS site for Clark College at http://www.clark.edu/Library/iris/ and went through all the information recommended by the instructor, including the quiz at the end.  That experience was a dry one, but not everything can be entertaining, so I did it and survived.  At least I had the satisfaction of taking the quiz at the end and knowing I was absorbing all the material correctly.

  The following are my responses to the “Safe Practices” exercise at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/04/.  This should be interesting.

1.  This first passage appears to be correct without the use of a citation.  The author is relaying to the audience personal experiences  while traveling, and only relays information about things in the realm of common knowledge.

2.       This passage needs a citation.  If memory serves me correctly, this author is paraphrasing the Declaration of Independence.  Such a citation in text, and in the MLA style, would look like this: (Jefferson et al).  It would of course need a bibliographical entry, which might look like this:

Jefferson, T., et all.  The Declaration of Independence.  Paragraph 2.  1776.  Print.

An argument could be made as to whether or not this information is in the public domain and as such is common knowledge, but to be on the safe side I would cite my sources.

3.       It would appear that the author of this passage is quoting a statistic.  As such, the source of that statistic would need to be cited in the text as well as in the bibliography.

4.       The author of this passage needed to cite his source within the text and in the bibliography because s/he is paraphrasing the previously mentioned passage from Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail”.

5.       This passage, also from the M.L.King. Jr. letter, is correctly cited, with the omission of one detail.  It includes the original speaker’s name, but the suffix of Junior was omitted.

6.       Again, the suffix of Junior was omitted in this passage.  Also, the paragraph number would need to be cited at the end of the passage.  Otherwise, this passage looks to have been done correctly.

7.       The author of this bit would not need to cite his/her source as it is stated in the text that this is only a friend, and the comment seems to be of a casual nature.

8.   The author paraphrased this passage from The Bill of Rights.  There should have been a citation in the text, as well as a bibliographical entry, which should include the title, authors, place, and year.  The publisher can be omitted from the bibliography as this document was originally printed in the late 1700s, and as such is now in the public domain.  However, even a document or book in the public domain needs to be correctly attributed.


  I wrote the preceding entry in Word, but when I copied it to here the formatting was changed considerably.  I've never had that happen before.  Next time I compose something in Word I will use as little formatting as possible so that it will copy to this blog more easily.

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate what I have learned.
  It's important to cite your sources, both in text and in a bibliography, so that it is clear that you respect the work of others.  If you respect the work of others then your work will be more likely to be taken seriously.  You should always state in your sources the title of the work, the name of the author, the publisher, the place it was published, and the year it was published.  I will, as I have always done, make every effort to establish all the facts I can about my sources and always cite them properly.
  -- Writer