FINALLY!

I've finally decided on what I'd like to research for my project. I think it'll be a lot of work, but I'm excited to get started. It caused me a lot of stress not knowing what I was doing!

I am working with STAND: an anti-genocide student coalition. When I went to my first meeting I noticed they had about 10 people in attendance. I have read many public opinion polls that say the genocide in Darfur is a topic that many Americans care about and would like to see end. Based on this, I am planning on researching how to effectively teach people about current event issues in politics. Hopefully with what I learn I can help the group recruit more people and make a bigger impact on the students on campus.

My Google Trick

My favorite Google trick I learned was how to use the Advanced Search effectively. I used the first three lines, "all these words," "this exact wording or phrase," and "one or more of these words." I also changed the results per page from 10 to 20. When I searched " Janjaweed "Omar al-Bashir" Darfur OR genocide OR Sudan " I got 71,700 results. When I just searched "Darfur" in the basic Google search, I received 9,680,000 results. If I click News instead of Web results, I get 68 articles with my Advanced Search and 11,222 articles with the Basic Search. The first page of my Basic Search with web articles shows mostly support groups for Darfur, like savedarfur.org. There are also a lot of Q&A sites with basic information, and of course Wikipedia is at the top of my list. With my Advanced Search, Wikipedia was also the first two entires, but one for "War in Darfur" and one for "Janjaweed." The rest of the page had sites that were directly related to my topic, including some decisions made by the Sudan president Omar al-Bashir. I really like the Advanced Search and I'm going to use it to gather more research for my semester research project as well as my event project.

Critical Thinking Gone Wrong

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/19/chimp.cartoon.apology/index.html#cnnSTCText

The NY Times is being criticized for publishing a cartoon in its paper. The newspaper apologizes for the misinterpretatitions, but still defends the cartoon.

"The drawing is a reference to the mauling of a woman by a pet chimpanzee, which was then killed by police. In the cartoon, one of the officers tells the other, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."

The Post said the cartoon was meant to mock what it called an "ineptly written" stimulus bill.
"But it has been taken as something else -- as a depiction of President Obama, as a thinly veiled expression of racism," reads the statement. "This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize." "

Many readers felt the chimpanzee was intended to depict President Obama. They also felt that it was a racist reference to the past.

The decision made by the NY Times to publish this cartoon is a good example of critical thinking gone wrong. The appear to have not considered other interpretations of the cartoon. If someone had thought of the ways some might view this cartoon, they probably would not have published it and therefore would not have been in this position.

Research Challenge

I am having some trouble researching for my event. I've already attended my event, and I checked out 2 books to research my topic. I attended "I'm Not Black, I'm Coloured." It was really very interesting. It was about the struggle for equality between "coloured" people in Cape Town (not quite black, not quite white) and my job was to get background information about the coloured people in Cape Town or even the history of the region itself. The books I checked out from the Miller Center are not as specific as I'd thought they'd be, so I'm trying to find information online that pertains to my topic. Since I've already been to the event, I know what I need to look for. I just don't know how to find it! Once I find a good website, I also need to find a book and an article. I am taking 18 credits right now, and I'm getting overwhelmed with other classes. It's hard to spend a lot of time searching and finding nothing when I have a lot of other things to do! If I had more time, I would be able to find more sources. I'm struggling with time and sources. Hopefully this weekend I will be able to do some solid studying after my big chemistry test is over!

Campus Organization/Semester Research Project Progress Report

I am still working with STAND to brainstorm ideas for my project. I am leaning toward researching their methods for getting their information about genocide out to the public, and how people accept/reject their information and why. STAND recently held a campus event that had a short video and a discussion afterward, and I'm corresponding with the president of STAND to see how the event went. I was not able to go. The group won't meet until March 1st, so I've been contacting her via email. I'm also doing my own research about the genocide in Darfur so I will be able to more thoroughly help the group get their information out to the public more effectively.

Discussion #6

I learned that the Miller Center has a database! I've been using random databases through my high school's website, and I'm excited to learn how to use this database instead.

I searched "Darfur genocide" on the Great River Regional Library keyword search and found the same book I checked out for my topic! It's great to see that both librarys have similar books. I did not know if they would have the same books, especially not the one I got. It is smaller and older, so I figured it was pretty rare. I got 12 hits off of my keyword search on the Great River Regional Library website, while on the SCSU library gave me 20. It surprises me that there were only this many books, but it surprised me more that the SCSU library had more than the Great River Regional Library. Many of the sources found on the SCSU library website were internet sources, while the Great River Regional Library gave entirely books. I had not expected internet sources to show up on my SCSU search, but that's mostly because I did not know they had a database available.

New organization

I chose a new organization to work with. They are called STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition. I'm really excited to work with them, and I'll be talking with them tonight!