Thursday, March 5, 2009
Research Progress Report
There isn't much to report on my research project this week. I have been talking with my organization more this week and continuing to gather information from them as well as from articles, books, and etc. I have also started to work on my literature review, which I believe is a component of this project, and its a little hard to get started on but with more time I'm sure it will become easier.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Earth Day and Its Precursors
Webber, David J. "Earth Day and Its Precursors: Continuity and Change in the Evolution of Mid twentieth-Century U.S. Environmental Policy." Review of Policy Research Vol. 25 Issue 4 (July 2008): 313-332.
This article looks at the formation of Earth Day in the 1970's and how public opinions of the current presidency and congress led them to reevaluate how they looked at and treated the environment in the United States. The article looks at the positive and negative effects of the establishment of Earth Day. While it looks to protect the environment and raise awareness to the citizens of the United States, many believe that it often belittles the real natural dangers the environment is in and doesn't put a more thoughtful approach to fix them.
The purpose of this literature review is to reexamine the importance of the Earth Day and to see if it really is all that positive on the environment of the United States. It uses previous information, that is all cited so others can read it as well, and analyzes it to see if it was helpful to the cause or not. I think it is to be used by everyone to raise awareness that just by having a day dedicated to celebrating the Earth, is not necessarily helping the environment out.
This is a qualitative study because it is more a complete description rather than looking at numbers or surveys. The researcher collects data by having in-depth interviews with people closely related to the topic. This way of collecting data is sound because it helps to show the different sides of the topic by talking to the most informed people on the topic.
I think this article violates the rule about avoiding emotional reasoning. I think the research would have been better examined and presented if the researcher didn't immediately say how he felt Earth Day had a negative connotation. It put a taint on the whole article and was hard to overlook and to examine the other side to make an informed opinion on my own.
This article looks at the formation of Earth Day in the 1970's and how public opinions of the current presidency and congress led them to reevaluate how they looked at and treated the environment in the United States. The article looks at the positive and negative effects of the establishment of Earth Day. While it looks to protect the environment and raise awareness to the citizens of the United States, many believe that it often belittles the real natural dangers the environment is in and doesn't put a more thoughtful approach to fix them.
The purpose of this literature review is to reexamine the importance of the Earth Day and to see if it really is all that positive on the environment of the United States. It uses previous information, that is all cited so others can read it as well, and analyzes it to see if it was helpful to the cause or not. I think it is to be used by everyone to raise awareness that just by having a day dedicated to celebrating the Earth, is not necessarily helping the environment out.
This is a qualitative study because it is more a complete description rather than looking at numbers or surveys. The researcher collects data by having in-depth interviews with people closely related to the topic. This way of collecting data is sound because it helps to show the different sides of the topic by talking to the most informed people on the topic.
I think this article violates the rule about avoiding emotional reasoning. I think the research would have been better examined and presented if the researcher didn't immediately say how he felt Earth Day had a negative connotation. It put a taint on the whole article and was hard to overlook and to examine the other side to make an informed opinion on my own.
Foster Children
Orme, John G. and Buehler, Cheryl. "Foster Family Characteristics and Behavioral and Emotional Problems of Foster Children: A Narrative Review." Family Relations Vol. 50 No. 1 (Jan. 2001): 3-15.
The research done in this studies mainly looks at the growing amount of children being placed in foster children and what the effects, whether positive or negative, are on the child. The objective of the article is to review data and better link it to a large number of foster children and their families so it can "provide the best possible basis for practice with foster families and children." It looks at things such as the difference between parenting, home environment, martial functioning, demographic characteristics, temperament, parent's mental health, and social support for foster children and the general population.
This article was neatly organized to make it easiest to understand. It started off with a vague description about foster children trends since 1982. It then goes to give a description of what constitutes a foster child and their family and it looks at the positive and negative aspects that are generally associated with it. It then talks about the different groups that the information came from that they're going to look at to analyze. It then goes into a detailed description of each topic they looked at for the general population compared to the foster families and children. It also contained a well laid out table that shows how which characteristics were associated with each study they looked at.
The purpose of the literature review in this article is to analyze and better link the studies done on foster children and their families so it can provide the best basis for comparison to foster children cases now a days. It is to be used by practitioners who work with foster children and their families on a daily basis.
I don't think this article really violated any critical thinking guidelines. It was very unbiased and attempted to look at all interpretations. It also defined the problem right away and then examine all the evidence they could find. The only thing I would say that could have possibly been violated was be willing to ask questions. The article poses no questions for the reader or allows people to question what is being said. I am sure that in their research and the formulation of this article they did ask questions though so I don't really think that that is relevant.
The research done in this studies mainly looks at the growing amount of children being placed in foster children and what the effects, whether positive or negative, are on the child. The objective of the article is to review data and better link it to a large number of foster children and their families so it can "provide the best possible basis for practice with foster families and children." It looks at things such as the difference between parenting, home environment, martial functioning, demographic characteristics, temperament, parent's mental health, and social support for foster children and the general population.
This article was neatly organized to make it easiest to understand. It started off with a vague description about foster children trends since 1982. It then goes to give a description of what constitutes a foster child and their family and it looks at the positive and negative aspects that are generally associated with it. It then talks about the different groups that the information came from that they're going to look at to analyze. It then goes into a detailed description of each topic they looked at for the general population compared to the foster families and children. It also contained a well laid out table that shows how which characteristics were associated with each study they looked at.
The purpose of the literature review in this article is to analyze and better link the studies done on foster children and their families so it can provide the best basis for comparison to foster children cases now a days. It is to be used by practitioners who work with foster children and their families on a daily basis.
I don't think this article really violated any critical thinking guidelines. It was very unbiased and attempted to look at all interpretations. It also defined the problem right away and then examine all the evidence they could find. The only thing I would say that could have possibly been violated was be willing to ask questions. The article poses no questions for the reader or allows people to question what is being said. I am sure that in their research and the formulation of this article they did ask questions though so I don't really think that that is relevant.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Google Tricks
The google trick I found the most helpful in my researching was to put quotes around the words I was searching so it would look for them as one. Without the quotes I got a ton of results and had a hard time finding ones that actually related to my topic. By putting the quotes around the search words I was able to find things that were more closely related to my topic and to cut the number of things I found by a considerable amount. I am glad I learned this trick, as I feel it will be helpful in future projects as well.
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