Hey everyone! As always, hope you’re thriving out there! Please let me know if you need any support at all!
So based on some questions that I got from you all, I realized that I might have gone out of order — or maybe I should have slowed down as we started our initial descent into the “writing” section of this course.
A foundational part of what is course is meant to show you, is that technical writing has different conventions than a persuasive essay or a book report that you might have done earlier in your academic career. Technical writing is a specific genre of writing (genre being a category, a type). So when I asked you to watch those videos and find an article, it was actually not about the content of the article and more about the components of it. I guess like a sample. If someone has a better way of describing this in terms that are familiar to you, please share it with me.
ANYWAY, very long story short, the second part of last week’s module asked you to use a datebase and find an article. I want to go back to that request and discuss research a bit. There are a lot of different ways that we can get information we need to support our writing. A simple google search is always a start, but if you’re going to begin there, I’d really like you to try out Google Scholar because it will give you access to only academic articles. If you’re accessing Google Scholar, or any database that’s not open source, you should do it through the CCNY Library link. Most of the research that you will want to use for papers in other classes will have paywalls and as a student you can use your CCNY login credentials to get articles for free.
Let’s also pause here a moment and think back to Science Under the Scope — how is research dissemination impacted by the use of paywalls? Have you ever considered who has access to research results and who doesn’t?
This is where arxiv, the database I mentioned in the last module, becomes really interesting. Arxiv is a “free distribution service and an open-access archive” that hosts scholarly articles without a paywall. Many of these articles are not peer-reviewed, which means that it’s helpful to dig a bit into the credentials of the authors, but it is still an incredible tool that shows the possibility of collective knowledge sharing not driven by for-profit publishing journals. Another note is that authors of paywalled articles see almost no money for the articles they write.
And how does one use a database? Personally, I like to take my time, I like to search a term, see what comes up first, look at titles, find something that interests me and then see who has cited it (might lead to more current research) and I like to see who they cite (works cited page can give you such rich information).
So for this week, let’s try to enter research from a different angle. Use a database of your choosing, find an article of interest to you, and share with us why you chose the article you chose and how you got to it. The naming of this process will hopefully help you remember in the future how to find articles you might need for different classes. I don’t need a summary of the article, this is really a look at the research process and not the content of the article.
Okay now that I’ve sufficiently confused you all, that’s all I have for this week! As always reach out with questions!
The article that I found is titled “The Unity of Consciousness and the Split-Brain Syndrome”. I found this article on Jstor, one of the databases of CCNY’s that is given to us to use. I chose this article because of my interest in the brain and the phenomenon that goes against the known expected functions of the brain and flips them into something entirely new. I wanted to find an article that really explains what a split brain is and how it comes to be one and all the outcomes that come in as a result of the procedure.
The article I found is called “The Patterns of Adaptation While Growing Up Under Parental Alcoholism: A Grounded Theory”, which I found while doing an assignment for a psychology course. I went to the CCNY Libraries website and I use this the most since it is easier. I chose this article because I was interested in the topic and I needed this type of theme for the assignment that I was working on. When searching for articles, I keep the search simple to just one or two words, but I filter my results. For filtering, I keep the results as articles, chapters, journals, and newspapers. I also filter the date to be within the last 5-10 years. To also make it easier for myself, I filter the results to being open sources and free access so that I can find them online and not have to wait to borrow it.
The article I took an interest in is called “Recalling Stress and Trauma in the Workplace: A Qualitative Study of Pediatric Nurses” written by Anna E. Kleis and Marni B. Kellogg. I found this article while scrolling through one of the CCNY’s library databases referred to as the “Nursing and Allied Health Collection.” This article caught my attention because its content was appropriate to my career choice. It is an article that talks about the mental health of pediatric nurses and how stress and trauma have caused an impact on their overall mental health. As a future pediatric nurse, learning about mental health in the workplace is really important because it gives me insight into how to handle my psychological and emotional well-being during certain situations. Before coming across this article, I went to CCNY’s library website and searched for nursing in the search tool. As a result, a list of different databases came up but I only focused on the first option (which was probably the most used one meaning it is more reliable). Within this database, I typed in “pediatric nursing” and a list of articles that were relevant to the topic of choice popped up. I chose an article that I found not only relevant but descriptive with accurate information. Overall, the CCNY library’s website is very credible and trustworthy when it comes to finding articles to support your argument in any given paper. It can also be used for any other purposes such as expanding your knowledge in a given subject.
An article that I sought out is called “Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Matsuo Basho’s Oku no Hosomichi”. I stumbled upon this article while trying to look for an in-depth analysis of Richard Flanagan’s novel. I came across this analysis through the CCNY library database. I searched “analysis of (title of the novel)” and filtered the searches to show peer-reviewed journal, and English, articles. This led me to a multiple selection of analysis articles that I could take insight from.
The article that I found interesting is BRAIN REWIRING: Some physicians using meditation, mindfulness to improve mental health. I found the article on from the cuny databases gale academic onefile from the topic on meditation in the psychology section. I found it interesting because it relates to my class on mindfulness in psychology. The article talks about the effectivenes of mediation used by physicians on patients to get them to focus on the present moment.