The Future of Accessing Information!

As we have discussed throughout this entire course, there is an endless amount of information you can access of the World Wide Web!!! Within the global economy, the web has made it possible for people all over the entire planet to be connected. It is crazy to think that ten years ago you would have to make a long distance phone call to talk to someone a few counties over from you. Now, you can see and talk to people on the other side of the globe because of the internet and video products such as Skype! 

The Internet currently has around 2 Billion users! These users are mostly in what we refer to as the "Global North", meaning they are industrialized countries where internet is expected to be accessible in every day life. Countries who are not as dependent on the Web and do not have every day access are known as the "Global South", and these include Africa,  Latin America, and many others!

I believe within the next ten years, however, that many of these countries will become more globalized and be part of the information pool! I think in the future we will be run-over with information overload, because there will be so much information that can be transmitted by the click of a mouse or an enter key!

To see a distribution of how many people use the internet around the world, see the following link:

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

Plagiarism in the University Setting

In response to the scholarly article on plagiarism which was distributed in class, I agree that plagiarism is an issue in our universities today. However, I do not believe it is as big of an issue as the article makes it out to be. Because of software such as safeassign, where students are required to submit their work through a reader which monitors and points out plagiarism, I believe plagiarism has declined in recent years. The main thing that keeps students from plagiarism, I believe, is the fear of being caught!

It is important to note, also, that as a college student gets closer to graduation, they are less likely to plagiarize. Not only because they have more on the line, but also because they value ownership in their work and take pride in the papers they have written. The shift from high school to college can be a rough transition for many, because in high school teachers teach to the test. This promotes students to copy answers straight from a textbook. In college, these same students must shift more towards the end of critical thinking, and for freshmen and sophomores, this can be a tricky task. It can also be a misleading transition because all professors have different standards on what is acceptable in terms of plagiarism. 

To read more on plagiarism, see the following link:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01/

My New Addiction

There are tons of neat websites out there in cyberspace that we all get hooked on. At first it was Xanga, then myspace, then facebook, and now twitter. We are always getting attached to something new! Well- I have found my new addiction! PINTREST! It is the coolest thing ever. It is like a social network, but not like Facebook or Twitter. People "pin" things they find online to their "boards", which are categorized! There are very interesting, neat ideas for household crafts, cool food ideas, and other things! I love it, and I continuously find myself wasting time on it! ha!

I advise everyone to check it out!! :D

pinterest.com/

Cite your Source!

When writing scholarly papers, it is VERY important to cite your sources! This is usually done on a works cited page at the end of the piece. There are many different formats you can use when citing your sources, and the professor will usually inform you of which one he/she wants you to use. 

So-you may wonder, why is it so important to cite your sources? This should be common sense! So you do not get slammed for plagiarism! You need to give credit to whoever you obtained your information from! Afterall- they spent all that time researching in order to find it in the first place!

The formats are rather specific in how they want the source cited! Everytime I have had trouble, I find the following two websites very useful and helpful!

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/

http://www.calvin.edu/library/knightcite/

The end of software ownership- and why to smile!

In today's day and age- you rarely see people owning hard, physical copies of their works. Most people have their music, pictures, and even books online where they can access them through the internet or their PC. This is what the article "The end of software ownership-and why to smile" addresses. In the article, the idea that "emotional attachment of ownership" comes with having a hard copy of your materials. And I agree, it just is not the same having all of your stuff on the computer! I learned my lesson the hard way. A few weeks ago, my Dell laptop crashed and I lost all of my music and photos. This was devastating, and now I will make sure to print out hard copies of all my photos. 

The article also addresses sharing electronic copies of works that one may purchase.If you go out and purchase a hard copy of a book or CD, it is completely acceptable to loan it to a friend. However, it is somewhat frowned upon by many if electronic copies of materials are shared through the web. So the question is- where do you draw the line? There is so much gray area, that it is hard to determine! 

The following website is an example of how some books and materials are public domain and can be used by any!

http://projectguttenburg.com/

How to Boil Eggs!

I love eggs! They are one of my favorite foods! I like them in any form, whether it be scrambled, over-easy, sunny-side up, poached, or deviled! However, my FAVORITE way to eat eggs is when they are hard boiled! When I moved out of my home in Marshall County to go to school in Murray, I had to learn how to cook my favorite food all of these different ways! Scrambled was the easiest, but what I found the most difficult is boiling them! :( It is so confusing to know how long to leave them in the water! I am super picky, and have to have them just right! If they are undercooked, they are gooey in the middle and don't do well on salads or in tuna! And if they are overcooked they turn a weird color and they don't look or taste right! So- I googled how to hard-boil eggs and tried it last night! It works perfect! See the following link for some expert advice! 

:D

http://www.incredibleegg.org/recipes-and-more/recipes/basic-hardboiled-eggs

LOR 101

Throughout my past five semesters of college, I have learned there is nothing more important than staying on top of things! Throughout this course, I have found it relatively easy to keep up with the class work and assignments. The readings are what I have the most difficulty in finding time for, because some have been rather lenghty. However, the blog assignment has been very fun for me! I enjoy blogging and am thrilled it is 180 points of our grade in the class! I have kept up very well, always making sure to do AT LEAST 3 posts per week! Whenever I don't feel like studying for Anatomy and Physiology or Clinical Phonetics, I always resort to blogging because it is a stressfree assignment and I am still getting something done! The response papers have been fairly simple for me because I treat it like an extended blog post. The midterm was very fair because everything that was on it had been covered pretty extensively in class discussion. I tend to learn the most in classes where attendance and participation are key, and usually find them the most enjoyable! LOR 101 has been a very helpful course in teaching me how to do research, and I am very glad I chose to take it!
The library link has been the most helpful piece of information I have gained throughout this course!
http://lib.murraystate.edu/