Panning for Gold

     Have you ever gone panning for gold? After learning about the California Gold Rush in the fourth grade, my family went camping in gold country, right on the American River. I remember going to a gift shop, buying a gold pan, and thinking that I would spend an afternoon by the river and strike it rich. In my naivety, I spent about half an hour panning for gold on the river, and came back with nothing but a wet pair of jeans. In research papers past and continuing into my research for this research essay, searching for sources on the internet feels a lot like panning for gold. Without the proper searching tools, simply "Googleling" your topic will yield a wealth of information - much of it useless.

     I was pleased to learn from The Curious Researcher the proper ways to search for relevant information on a topic online and in library databases. I had no idea as to how much using proper searching techniques could narrow down potential sources - indeed, using keywords, connector words, and Library of Congress Subject Headings can narrow down your search results as much as six-thousand percent! I believe that the resources of the Boise State Library combined with what I find using search tools such as Ebsco databases and Google Advanced Search will yield sufficient information for my research essay, provided I use the research techniques described in The Curious Researcher.

     Of course, panning for gold made hundreds of men rich during the Gold Rush. In the same way, simply searching Google with the name of a topic can yield some excellent sources, and can even help refine your inquiry question. However, when it comes time to dig deep, to really mine for sources, one should know the proper techniques for striking gold.

What Type of Researcher?

When I research I feel like I'm a mixture of all three of these types. I feel like a lot of high school writing I've done I didn't feel like I had a lot of time to do in depth research so I wouldn't try super hard to find different sources and I didn't really care where they came from. However, I do often find my best sources accidentally because I don't use the same source twice more often than not. I just don't really keep track of where I get my information after I've finished my research. I also don't plan my research out, I just look and read then I read more and more until I've found information I can use for my paper. I can be pretty steadfast in my opinion at times but other times if I find a lot of information and it sways what I think I will change my mindset and change my paper if I need to. I don't know what kind of researcher this makes me but it's kind of interesting to dissect my research habits because I've never really thought about it before because it worked out well for me in high school so I figured why change it if it works? Now in college I'm sure I'm going to have to change my researching habits.

Reading Response

After reading the "What are your Research Routines" I would definitely classify myself as a fast surfer. It's not the I wait until the last minute to begin writing papers (most of the time at least) but I just want to get them done as fast as possible so that I can move on to the next thing I need to do. I definitely have a hard time suspending judgement while I research and I go into my topic with my opinion already taken. I am trying to work on that for this research project but am just not sure how well it all go.

While I do use some databases to look for information, I typically use Google just for the fact that I am comfortable with it. I know how to search for things easily and find what I am looking for. "Planning for the Drive" talked about using databases and how to use them to your advantage to weed out the information you do not want included in your search results. I am going to really make a strong effort to use different database in order to find the best possible sources. That was another topic in the reading and one that I never really gave too much thought too. In the past, I find good sources but I don't particularly look at them in depth. I find something that supports my opinion and includes a quote that I know would fit nicely, and I use it. That relates back what we read in "What are your Research Routines". I go in close minded and then have a hard time finding exactly what I'm looking for. This class is opening my mind to my flaws in my own writing process and what I can do to improve.

Helpful Hints

I found the “Planning for the Dive” reading portion very helpful.  Helpful hints are always appreciated.  A few hints were completely new to me.  First off, I did not realize the BSU library is organized differently.  A couple weeks ago I went in looking for a book.  I typed the author’s name in, confirmed the library had that book, wrote down its location number, and went searching for it. I got confused when I found other books by the same author but not the specific book I was looking for.  Once I spoke with the woman at the front desk she explained the books are not organized by author but by topic.  Then we found the correct book.  Knowing that now and learning about the Library of Congress Subject Headings will make finding relevant books a lot easier.  Also, reading about the little things that can refine Internet searches helped.  I now know how including “not” in web searches or parentheses can help narrow down the results.  At this point, my research question is too broad so hopefully these tricks can help me find a narrower subject. 

Research Exercise 2, pg 11

In all honesty, I don’t think I have ever written a true research essay before. I was always in classes where they would scrap the notecards or make you make a website or turn your information into something creative. Even if I did do a research paper one day, I don’t even remember it. I learned to BS my way through school at a young age which I might now regret. Now, back to the research topic:

I had a hard time understanding that this essay, “Theories of Intelligence,” was actually a research paper. I didn’t not see any facts, I did not see any sources in fancy MLA format but then I realized, this is a whole new idea of “research paper.” This is no longer Research and Regurgitation 101 (Junior High). This is “Research and Discovery 101.” I still learned many things reading this essay but, looking back, there wasn’t a single fancy factoid or number that I really didn’t care about, it was built on the foundation of experience and personal discovery. It was rooted in life, not statistics. When we research the holocaust, is it not more telling to read about the personal experiences in an autobiography than to read about facts that have no relations to us whatsoever? It is those books that make us change the future, it is those books that make us look at this time and try to find something about it. I will admit that there is a time and place for these facts but there is also a time and place in research for a little bit of everyone’s life. For is history not a collection of many lives? When we explore them, what should stop us from giving away a little bit of our own history? Nothing. Nothing should stop us. At least not in this class. Because here, we explore, we don’t regurgitate. How else will people hear about new history—us?

Recess during this all-nighter

Tonight, I decided to pull an all-nighter. Why? Because I literally have close to nothing done. I’m behind in almost every class and I am starting to question why. Then I started think about the research essay, which led me to thinking about junior high which led me to thinking about who I used to be. I was literally the crazy girl who would throw a fit if I didn’t get my 100%. I was the girl who spent 15 hours on a project for my health class to build something that showed myself off to the class when my friend made his in 5 minutes before the class started. Literally, during passing time. I was the girl who spent 24 hours making an American flag out of hundreds and hundreds of pieces of tissue paper and, in the end saying each represented troops who had died fighting for freedom. Who even knows what the assignment was, I doubt the teacher even cared. He just cared that this flag would never be taken down from his wall and he could always talk about it. I pushed myself so hard that I had to be ahead, smarter, better until my 8^th grade English teacher pulled me aside and said, “Taylor, you are going to burn out.” But that didn’t even begin to stop me. I went even crazier, I needed to prove I could win the battle against boredom and too much work and not enough sleep. But it won. I didn’t even realize until now that it did. She was right. I went from being this perfect, extra-mile, “shoot for the stars” student to being one who just wants to be done with school work so she can watch a movie. Or sleep. Or something that does not require anything like thinking. Bleugh.

                What I know now is that I need to find a way to fall back into love with school. I need to find a way to believe I can be that student who will get 100% and who will achieve high honors and who will do it all at once. One thing I miss more than anything, is my love for reading. My mother used to call me Belle because I used to, literally, never put a book down. I knew the floor plan of my house so well just because I would walk it again and again trying to get around while I was reading. I would sit at the dinner table and my mother would have to take my book away from me so I would eat and sit with nice European manners. But this is gone now. Somewhere between getting burned out once I hit high school and having a teacher who never assigned a single book and never gave us time in our lives to read a single book, I forgot to read and I forgot to keep on loving reading. I literally found every way to get out of reading but now I know that needs to change. I need to fall in love with reading and academics and standing tall and proud when you say “I am an honors kid and I am proud of it.” I need to remember what it was like to stand before that class with a project that took me weeks and see them tear up because, somehow, I made this project real.  So this is my all-nighter that I hope will change something.

Second Blog post, First topic

I know I am very far behind but I had a moment today when I just decided to catch up. So, sadly enough, here is my response to the first blog post requirement: “the Personal Essay.”
                I love the idea of this essay being about “an itch you can’t scratch.” Since I have already done this assignment before writing this post, I can see where I needed to write on this topic. I am one of those people who will get obsessed with something. I will have a hard core infatuation and then let it go. Sometimes it’s little things like my obsession with Cheetos which suddenly changed to Ruffles a few weeks ago, to my obsession with running which I still haven’t gotten over. I started my essay with the problem of “Infatuation” and how we might get too involved with our own personal infatuations, but I have recently found that I was obsessed. It was not just with my sport. It was with my race. I loved the 400 and all I wanted was to break 60 seconds in it. Sadly, though, this took me 6 years. It is time I reflect (since this was quite recent) and look at how I got out of that rabbit hole I was just running deeper and deeper and how I looked from above and from one side (the 200) and another side (the 800) and diagonally (pole vault, hurdles, high jump) and how I achieved it, not fell into it. Maybe I need to look at college like that? Maybe I should broaden the topic even more? Since I am done running, I ask myself everyday where I belong at this school. I need to find a way to climb out of this rabbit hole even though, every time I see a runner, I slip…maybe this personal essay should be my way of finding that foot hold and finally, hopefully, climbing out.