Monthly Archives: February 2014

Homework 1

In reviewing the homework as it came in, I was a bit troubled with some of the work that was submitted. Because I want to make sure that everyone can master the basic skill of distinguishing between types of publications, I’m going to make a deal with you. Anyone who wants to revise what they submitted has until the beginning of class next Tuesday to do so. After class begins next Tuesday, I’ll grade what has been submitted. For those of you who submitted your work late for today (Thursday by 2:30 pm), I’ll be taking points off for being late and then grade what you have done by Tuesday.

I noticed that almost everyone made at least one mistake on the assignment by incorrectly identifying the type of source. Other people didn’t follow the instructions to have one of each kind:

  • magazine article
  • newspaper article
  • peer-reviewed article from a scholarly journal
  • book

Some folks didn’t include a sentence for an item telling me what kind of source it was or how it was connected to the ideas in Clay Shirky’s book.

Other folks had trouble with MLA-style citations. Here is advice you’ll want to look over and then keep in mind as you examine your citations:

  • you don’t need to put the URL for where the article was if you found it in a database
  • every initial letter in the title of a book or article should be in capitals (except for prepositions and conjunctions)
    • Incorrect
      • Doyle, William R. “The politics of public college tuition and state financial aid.” Journal Of Higher Education 83.5 (2012): 617-647. Academic Search Complete. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
      • Shirky, Clay. Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without organizations. New York: Penguin Press, 2008.
        • All words in the article title should be capitalized except for the prepositions (e.g., of) and conjunctions (e.g., and)
      • Doyle, William R. “The Politics Of Public College Tuition And State Financial Aid.” Journal Of Higher Education 83.5 (2012): 617-647. Academic Search Complete. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
      • Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody: The Power Of Organizing Without Organizations. New York: Penguin Press, 2008
        • Prepositions (e.g., of) and conjunctions (e.g., and) should never be capitalized
    • Correct
      • Doyle, William R. “The Politics of Public College Tuition and State Financial Aid.” Journal Of Higher Education 83.5 (2012): 617-647. Academic Search Complete. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
      • Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. New York: Penguin Press, 2008. Print.
  • if you found the text of an article in a database, then the name of that database must be mentioned in your citation (as is the case with the citation above for an article found in Academic Search Complete)
  • book titles should always be in italics (this is true for your citations as well as for any sentences where you mention the title of a book) and never in quote marks

Here are some tips that may help with distinguishing between source types:

Peer-reviewed journal articles in scholarly journals

  • they are long; if you’ve have found something that is under 5 pages, it is probably not a peer-reviewed article
  • some articles in journals are longer than 5 pages (not by much) but aren’t peer-reviewed journal articles but instead write ups of conferences that people attended or are multi-authored articles where each author is engaged in a conversation with the others; a peer-reviewed article offers results on original research, not news
  • a book review in a scholarly journal is not a peer-reviewed journal article

Magazine articles

  • magazines are published on a weekly or monthly basis
  • they usually have one-word names or names that are just a few words
  • magazine articles can be anywhere from 1-20 pages, though they tend to average 2-3 pages
  • some magazines that publish really long articles are scholarly in nature but the articles are not peer-reviewed (that’s something that only scholarly journals do)

Newspaper articles

  • newspapers are usually published every day (so you browse of a list of issues for a newspaper, you’ll see a new issue for each day and if you browse a list of issues for a magazine you’ll see list of issues for each week or month)
  • newspapers are connected to a city or town in some way (if you don’t see the name of a town or city in the newspaper, go to the website of the source you found to see if it really looks like a newspaper)
  • to get a sense of what newspaper names look like, check out this list of newspapers that begin with the letter N (the website offers a directly of links to newspaper websites from around the world)

If you are uncertain about the source type you are dealing with, you can always go to the website for it, as that will offer details about the publication (look for an “about” or “about us” section). Once you see what other kinds of articles are published there, you can usually get a sense if what you are looking at is a magazine (because all the articles look like magazine articles) or a scholarly journal (because the website mentions how articles are peer-reviewed) or a newspaper (because the rest of the articles look like news articles).

Smart Toothbrush

How advanced does your toothbrush have to be? Oral-B, a dental manufacturer has created a “smart toothbrush” along with an app on your phone that shows you how long you have been brushing for and how well you’re brushing. You get real-time feedback for two minutes – the amount of time each brushing session should be. When you finish, the app will rate you based upon time and distribution and even give you a score (either a frowny face or a trophy)!

It is definitely a cool invention in the dental and technological world but, is it necessary? How effective do you think this toothbrush and app will be? What are the chances of this becoming the next new trend?

Maybe in a few years, we will have robots to brush our teeth.

Be Aware of Native Advertising

As more and more news websites are made available to us, we can just stay home and know everything that is going on in the world. Timely information is also made available to us since news websites are consistently updating. However, while we read news online, we have to be aware of the credibility of the articles. Especially, be aware of who the author of the articles really is. Native advertising is a form of advertising used in news like articles. they are usually sponsored by companies for its own interest. To be more specific, when we see a news like article on a news website, it could actually be an advertisement article written by a company.

For example, Huffington Post is one of the news websites that employs native advertising. Link When most of us go on Huffington Post’s website, we expect to read news articles written by professional journalists. However, the article linked above was actually written by Netflix for its Thanksgiving promotion. If we did not pay attention to the “Presented by Netflix” above the article title, we could take it as an article written by journalist. There is definitely a difference between a news article and an advertisement because advertisement are usually biased by the interest of the sponsored companies.

Since native advertising can be easily confused with news article on a news website for readers, native advertising should be made more recognizable from news articles. As readers, we have to be aware of the existence of native advertising, so that we do not get “fooled” by companies’ advertisement. What do you think? Should there be regulations in place to separate native advertising articles from news articles?

Prof. Clifford Nass

Robles, Erica, Clifford Nass, and Adam Kahn. “The Social Life Of Information Displays: How Screens Shape Psychological Responses In Social Contexts.” Human-Computer Interaction 24.1/2 (2009): 48-78. Academic Search Complete. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.

I found this article by Clifford Nass who is a professor at Stanford University on Academic Search Complete Database. The article argues how people’s behaviors change under social influence.

Clifford Nass

Nass, Clifford.  “Media Use, Face-to-Face Communication, Media Multitasking, and Social Well-Being Among 8 to 12-year old Girls.” Developmental Psychology. Mar. 2012, Vol. 48 Issue 2, p. 327-336. Academic Search Complete. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.

Author activity 2/25

I found an article written by the MIT expert and professor: Dr. Sherry Turkle

Turkle S. The secret power of things we hold dear. New Scientist [serial online]. June 9, 2007;194(2607):50-52. Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed February 25, 2014.

I utilized the database: Academic Search Complete to find the article. Within the article, Dr. Turkle explains the connection humans have with objects, and how the connection to an object can symbolize a humans’ life.

clifford nass

Nass, Clifford, and Youngme Moon. “Machines And Mindlessness: Social Responses To Computers.” Journal Of Social Issues 56.1 (2000): 81. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.

Database: SocINDEX with Full Text (via EBSCOhost)

Turkle, Sherry

Turkle, Sherry. “Looking Toward Cyberspace: Beyond Grounded Sociology.” Contemporary Sociology 28.6 (1999): 643-648. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.

I used Ebsco Host to find the article.

Professor Clifford Nass

Pea, Roy, et al. “Media Use, Face-To-Face Communication, Media Multitasking, And Social Well-Being Among 8- To 12-Year-Old Girls.” Developmental Psychology 48.2 (2012): 327-336. Academic Search Complete. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.

Database: Academic Search Complete

Author Activity in Class

Prensky, Marc. “Students As Designers And Creators Of Educational Computer Games: Who Else?.” British Journal Of Educational Technology 39.6 (2008): 1004-1019. Academic Search Complete. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.

I found it in  Academic Search Complete.

Technology possibly ruins your relationship

In class, we talked about how technology has effected our everyday lives. In my other class, Communications, we also talked about this topic as well and how most people don’t communicate face to face anymore and that may cause misunderstanding when you try to say something important. For example, most people think it is okay to apologize to their friends through email, text, facebook message, and many other social media. Continue reading →