Journal - Week 7

1. This week really was a doozey. I used the readings to help me complete the discussion assignment. For the Web Search assignment I wrote, clearly, how I completed it. In summary, I used INFOMINE for the virtual library, Google for the search engine, Dogpile for the meta-search, and Excite for the commercial web portal. I usually just had to use “Propaganda AND Iraq War,” but for the virtual library I had to refine my search to broader terms, and even this did not yield the best results for my topic. I used the websites found in these searches and the MLA citation guide to help me cite the sources in the Web Site Citations assignment. Then, I evaluated and annotated these sources on the Evaluating Web Sites assignment. For that assignment I relied on the websites’ “about” pages and the AllWhoIs.com site. This assignment required a lot of digging and searching on the sites to find just the right information required. On the next assignment, Advanced Google Search, I used Google Advanced Scholar and Google U.S. Government to search for “Propaganda AND sell AND Iraq War.” In both cases I found many useful results, but the Advanced Scholar search produced scholarly articles while the U.S. Government search gave me websites.
2. I thought the discussion assignment would be fairly straight-forward, but I was surprised I didn’t even think of the money factor. I’m even more surprised because I have visited sites in which I need to specifically log-on through my class or I haven’t been a member and it’s caused difficulties for me to figure out how to get the info, yet not have to pay for it. When doing the Web Search assignment, I found no good results on the virtual library, which makes me think I might have done something wrong; I even read the link that describes how to produce an effective search on INFOMINE, so this frustrated me. It also concerns me that I found my best results from the commercial web portal. After reading about searching the web, I wasn’t expecting these results, which makes me further think I did something wrong =(. Then, when I wrote my MLA citations, I got confused on whether to follow the citation guide or the hints given on the assignment. When in doubt, I follow the directions, so I went with the assignment’s directions and I hope that doesn’t end-up hurting me in the end. When I evaluated the web sites further, I realized how much information wasn’t given for my sources, and just how un-reliable they may be. I know it’s a common mistake to trust sites that aren’t necessarily credible, but it’s disappointing to me that I didn’t know that until I strictly analyzed it. Lastly, the Advanced Google Search assignment was educational to me as well. I never knew Google could be a tool to search for scholarly articles, and I found this a very useful search tool to remember. However, when using the Google U.S. Government search tool, there was no information on this tool and the information it yielded didn’t stand out to me more different than an average Google Search, so it didn’t impress me as a search tool.

On another note, I was grateful I didn’t have to re-do the Week 6 assignments. However, I’m disappointed in myself that I didn’t save all the assignments I posted and lost. I’m thinking this could end-up hurting me in the end, when I need to put the final project together.