Anthony N. Maluccio (2000). The Future of Child and Family Welfare: Selected Readings. Child Welfare Vol. LXXIX, #1. Child Welfare League of America.
The research presented in this article relates to the overall well being of children in our modern society. Maluccio reviews several different materials relating to the state of our countries welfare programs, different outlooks for the future of welfare in the coming millenium (all materials reviewed are from the 1990's), and proposed revamping of current childhood protection and orphanages as we currently implement them.
The article is organized in several different subtopics headed by the specific material being reviewed. An example would be the second subtopic; The Welfare of Children. This section discusses The Welfare of Children by Duncan Lidnsey in 1994 and uses the authors prior viewpoints, research and proposals to help build his article's overall validity.
The overall purpose of the article is to "summarize selected readings in this area, ranging from examination of such broad topics as research and policy issues to indepth analysis of specific topics such as family foster care and child protective services."
I don't feel the author had any biases or violations of critical thinking, but rather forms an opinion based on prior research from reliable publications. He remains objective to the topic at hand; reviewing family foster care and child protective services. However, Maluccio concludes the article by stating that the state of child welfare is "optimistic". This isn't necessarily a violatoin of critical thinking, but is a complete opinion (granted the author has researched the topic) rather than a fact.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
Google Tips/Tricks & Friday February 27th
The one major piece of information I took away from last week's exploration of Google was the ability to use an 'advance search'. I found it very interesting that for how many years I've used this search engine for relavent materials involving different research projects and never thought to click that little link. After our class discussion and hands on use of Google, I definetly feel more confident in my ability to explore the search engine, dig through the "hits" and decide which ones are reliable, relavent and where they came from.
I also was unaware of using a matilda to yield more results, that could become a very useful tool in my current research project in IM 204 and future courses as well.
I know this is getting off the topic, but my understanding of a blog is a free lance writing outlet and let me say I had quiet an interesting previous Friday. I ended up missing two of my three classes (including IM204) due to the fact I realized when I went to leave my house, I had no car outside. Since there had been a heavy snow the previous night, I knew right when I walked outside what had happened; my car had been towed. After some very colorful language and calling around the city of St. Cloud offices, I finally got a straight answer where my car had been towed. Apparently there had been an "emergency snow removal" issued Thursday night and I was unaware of this and of course my car was parked outside on the wrong side of the road. In hind sight I understand why they towed my car, but it was still frustrating to have to pay $125 to get my car back and still receive a parking ticket from the city for another $20. My question now is, if I have attended SCSU for two and a half years and I'm unaware of the parking regulations in different parts of the city, how many other people have this same concern? I feel the city needs to make it easier for citizens to have access to the rules/regulations of parking in St. Cloud during the winter. Prior to last Friday, I have been parking on different sides of the street each night (previous nights it had snowed as well) without ever being ticketed or warned and then to one morning have my car just be gone is a bit disheartening. I had also never hear of a "emergency snow removal" where regardless of past violations or lack there of, your vehichle is towed. My previous understanding was if you were parked on the wrong side of the road, snowing or not, they ticket your car and then plow around you even if it means plowing you in. How is a college student, who is in his first winter in a St. Cloud house, where there are no street signs in his neighborhood and no official literature was ever mailed to the house regarding winter parking, expected to know policies and procedures? I feel ultimately I am the one who is at fault since it's my car and my responsibility to protect my property, but a feeling of anger and annoyance still lingers about this whole situation.
I also was unaware of using a matilda to yield more results, that could become a very useful tool in my current research project in IM 204 and future courses as well.
I know this is getting off the topic, but my understanding of a blog is a free lance writing outlet and let me say I had quiet an interesting previous Friday. I ended up missing two of my three classes (including IM204) due to the fact I realized when I went to leave my house, I had no car outside. Since there had been a heavy snow the previous night, I knew right when I walked outside what had happened; my car had been towed. After some very colorful language and calling around the city of St. Cloud offices, I finally got a straight answer where my car had been towed. Apparently there had been an "emergency snow removal" issued Thursday night and I was unaware of this and of course my car was parked outside on the wrong side of the road. In hind sight I understand why they towed my car, but it was still frustrating to have to pay $125 to get my car back and still receive a parking ticket from the city for another $20. My question now is, if I have attended SCSU for two and a half years and I'm unaware of the parking regulations in different parts of the city, how many other people have this same concern? I feel the city needs to make it easier for citizens to have access to the rules/regulations of parking in St. Cloud during the winter. Prior to last Friday, I have been parking on different sides of the street each night (previous nights it had snowed as well) without ever being ticketed or warned and then to one morning have my car just be gone is a bit disheartening. I had also never hear of a "emergency snow removal" where regardless of past violations or lack there of, your vehichle is towed. My previous understanding was if you were parked on the wrong side of the road, snowing or not, they ticket your car and then plow around you even if it means plowing you in. How is a college student, who is in his first winter in a St. Cloud house, where there are no street signs in his neighborhood and no official literature was ever mailed to the house regarding winter parking, expected to know policies and procedures? I feel ultimately I am the one who is at fault since it's my car and my responsibility to protect my property, but a feeling of anger and annoyance still lingers about this whole situation.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Research Challenge
The greatest part regarding this post was I finally knew exactly what I would write about, my history course. I take HIST195 and every class we have an assigned reading to do (prior to class) and write roughly a two page paper analyzing/reflecting the readings. The one problem though is the documents are written in old english; basically American history begining the semester with readings such as The Mayflower Compact and onward through slavery and the United States Constitution up to recent history. These readings tend to be lengthy, which doesn't bother me as much, and in grammar that doesn't allow for an uptempo reading pace. The vocabulary isn't something that you tend to read on a regular basis making these papers difficult for me. I often find myself rereading certain parts of articles and struggle to traslate into my own words often leaving me frustrated staring at my blank word document. In the back of my mind I know that these aren't supposed to be perfect papers but more or less our take on the reading, yet when I write a paper not specifically articulating the message I'm attempting to convey bothers me. I complete my papers, but I feel that I'm spending way too much time on them and I'm beginning to dread each one.....
Semester Reasearch Project
The biggest question I originally had going into this project was how would I reasearch the overall index of the Miller Center's multicultralism materials? Since that time I have become far more comfortable with the OPAC and database searches, but now I feel the next step in my reasearch will be difficult; finding other studies on similar projects. Questions that arrise to me instantly are:
Have there been similar studies previously conducted?
Would the article search be of use to me or would browsing the internet be more efficient?
What should my keyword search include?
I'm also thinking I need to narrow my search for the project. I feel trying to answer a general question of "is there any major area, community, and or culture that seems to be extensively insufficient/overly supplied in the Miller Center" would be far too broad and not give the research project enough direction. I would love some insight on possibly a certain culture or community of people that I would be able to focus on. Once this is accomplished it should be much easier to draw a conclusion and propose a theory as to what can be done for the Miller Center.
Have there been similar studies previously conducted?
Would the article search be of use to me or would browsing the internet be more efficient?
What should my keyword search include?
I'm also thinking I need to narrow my search for the project. I feel trying to answer a general question of "is there any major area, community, and or culture that seems to be extensively insufficient/overly supplied in the Miller Center" would be far too broad and not give the research project enough direction. I would love some insight on possibly a certain culture or community of people that I would be able to focus on. Once this is accomplished it should be much easier to draw a conclusion and propose a theory as to what can be done for the Miller Center.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Discussion 6; Miller Center OPAC vs Great River OPAC
What I learned from the Miller Center OPAC is basically everything. I have been a student at SCSU for over two full years and will be a junior (credit wise) after this semester; never have I ever utilized this tool! I believe in a communications class I took my first semester we did a library tour, but I never recall discussing the OPAC and the advantages it can bring when researching for a project.
Features that were the same between the two sites were the basic and advanced searches and the ability to search by title, author, keywords, etc. When I used the 'basic' search on both sites I used the two keywords "homophobia sports" and received varying results. The Miller Center brought back seven materials of information while the Great River site only yielded one. While the Miller Center's search did appear to produce a source that was a seemingly perfect fit for the desired topic, I was a little disappointed with only one result. I again tried a few different key words in both the basic and advanced searches, but still only the one book. The book was "Strong women, deep closets: lesbians and homophobia in sport"; the description is fitting but more variety is needed.
Features that were the same between the two sites were the basic and advanced searches and the ability to search by title, author, keywords, etc. When I used the 'basic' search on both sites I used the two keywords "homophobia sports" and received varying results. The Miller Center brought back seven materials of information while the Great River site only yielded one. While the Miller Center's search did appear to produce a source that was a seemingly perfect fit for the desired topic, I was a little disappointed with only one result. I again tried a few different key words in both the basic and advanced searches, but still only the one book. The book was "Strong women, deep closets: lesbians and homophobia in sport"; the description is fitting but more variety is needed.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Miller Center Library; finding a book
The topic I drew last week was "Homophobia in Sports" and began to research relavent materials through the LRTS website. Using this site my search consisted of two key words; "homophobia sports". Just by entering these two key words, in the basic and advanced search, I found only 7 total results. This was a bit surprising since it seems to be a prevalent topic in modern sports, yet luckily I was able to find a book that's description seemed to fit perfectly; IN THE GAME: Gay Athletes and the Cult of Masculinity. This material was located in the basement of The Miller Center. The book details accounts of personal stories from the author ( an openly gay track coach of a California HS squad), stories of other gay athletes (some openly and some not) and different aspects and trends of homophobia in sports. I would assume that not all searches for topics would yield this few of 'hits' and would take more time to dig through to find the most effective one.
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