Journal -- Week 7

Part 1. Reflections on Course Content

For the class discussion assignment, I used my knowledge of what I have learned so far in this class. I did the bare bones tutorial then completed my Web Search assignment checking out the virtual libraries, search engines, meta-searches and commercial web portals. For the advanced google search I used Google U.S. Government search and the Google Scholar. I used my knowledge again to complete my web site citations assignment. The evaluating web sites assignment I used what I had in other assignments.
Some observations that I spotted was using quotation marks around my keywords with AND in between each set was very helpful. This gave me far fewer results and then I did not waste time going through useless information. I think I need to personally work on finding some different key words and how to use them so that I can get some different results that are also helpful with my topic.

Part 2. Applications to your Life

Out of all the assignments that we did this week I really liked the virtual libraries because they seemed more helpful with my topic than the search engines. I really did not like the meta-search and was not really helpful with my topic. I especially enjoyed the Bare Bones Tutorial, I really learned a lot on how to narrow down my searches. The one thing I learned (and already knew) was that I need to make a hard copy of all my assignments. I had all of my week 6 assignments printed out but did not save them in my computer therefore I had to retype all of them but my revised research plan. I won't make that mistake ever again.
I followed my daily planner, schedule and calendars as well as I could. I worked on keeping up with my work as best as I could and I really enjoyed the assignments this week. I learned a lot. I ended up getting sick this last weekend and yesterday was the first day that I started feeling better. I had a bad sinus infection but once I got rid of that darn headache I was ready to go. Now I am just dealing with the cold and cough but am much better now.