Blog #3
After conducting research for this project, I have learned how not all sources are actually reliable. Before, although it was naïve of me, I would find sources that seemed to talk about my source and id read it. After reading it, if it sounded educated and there was something backing up the author I would think it was perfect to use and even scholarly- right foolish. But with this project needing both scholarly and non-scholarly source it forced me to pay a little more attention to what made these sources reliable and usable. For the scholarly sources I took a different approach than I used to; instead of simply googling whatever was the topic of my essay an combing through the internet, I searched up related topics and ideas within the online library data base at FSU. With the online data base, I could add parameters to the search and ensure that I would find the correct scholarly source and there was usually plenty to pick from. I also went to the actual library and found hard cover books to use- something that seemed to be ancient to me. In all honesty, I didn’t really know how to find hard covered books necessarily at the library and from this project I can now say that is a new skill of mine, text me if you need help. Although, true story, I did spend an hour on the wrong floor looking for one book without even realizing I hit the wrong number on the elevator.
When it comes to the actual sources, I have come to find comfort in the acronym CRAAP. This is where you evaluate the sources currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose. I think looking into all these things helps you find a source that is the most reliable and accurate source in supporting your argument. And it has helped me tremendously in this project and for sure will follow me to my next projects. By researching those things, it makes you the best researcher in my opinion because it forces you to pay attention to the source and what it is trying to convey and even how it conveys it. I also never really investigated how my sources could relate or synthesizing them. I normally would just find quotes from the sources I liked and just worked them into my writing, but I never would look for commonalities when I easily could. For this project we needed 10 sources so there were plenty of times when my sources shared the same ideas and information so I could talk about how they backed each other.
These skills don’t only come in handy in an English class, as one might assume, but can be handy in all classes in college. College obviously entails work and most classes it means lots of writing and research. Using these skills can advance your writing in all classes and allow for your work to be properly supported. Also, these skills can be used for just about anything for example, when looking at a retail site online. There are plenty, and I cannot stress this enough, of scams hidden online. So when you click onto a not too well known site you can check for things like when was it made, the source of the information printed- is the maker reliable or even the content, or even the comments at the bottom lol.
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