The Final Week :(

As we approached our final week of Library Studies, a great amount of anxiety filled me as the time to present came.  I'm not the most outstanding presenter, but I was satisfied with how it went.  All of the other presentation topics were very interesting.  I especially enjoyed the horror films and Apple ones.
On Thursday, we reviewed a broad range of lessons that we learned throughout these past few weeks.  I now feel more confident about my researching skills.  I also feel confident with exploring the library and all of its resources.  I'm glad I took this class because it will definitely come in handy for future assignments and classes.
I'll miss Bonnie and Amanda and I just wanted to thank them for all the help and advice they've shared.
Have a good rest of the year everyone! :)

Amanda The Cannibal

This past week in class, we covered a couple topics such as using new media as resources and Amanda's flesh-eating fetish.  We were told that new media is no less or more reliable than any other forms of information that exist.  Amanda explained that we were allowed to use new forms of media when writing papers or doing presentations.  I was delighted to learn this because traditional essays and powerpoints are extremely boring to sit through.  We were also told that forms of internet sources can be taken down, so it is important to take screen shots or verify that they are posted by credible sources.  For example, to cite something found on Twitter, one would need to take a screen shot in case the tweet disappears in order to verify that it has existed.  Tumblr and Youtube are other sites that can also be used to find sources.  We learned how to distinguish the difference between reliable and non-reliable Youtube videos based on the username of the poster and the description of the video.  We also covered using information heard on the news.  Although you may think that the news would be a great source, it can actually be misleading because they choose to share what they do and do not want to show, which can be extremely biased.  Overall, the most efficient thing to use would be the library's resources because citations are already provided and sources are evaluated for reliability.

Bonnie's Back!

Last week Bonnie returned and we covered topics such as plagiarism, citations, patents and credibility.  We learned the consequences of plagiarism and reiterated why it's unacceptable.  I was surprised when Bonnie shared the story of her high school student nearly being sued for stealing a Disney character's photo to use for her website.  I now know to be careful not to steal a picture of Princess Jasmine and use it for any of my blogs or online presentations - thanks Bonnie!

It is important to give credibility to those who did work to avoid any issues of being sued or accused of plagiarism, which is why learning how to properly cite sources is valuable.  In high school, I used Noodletools and Easybib to cite all of my sources.  Bonnie introduced Mendely, Endrote, and Zatero to us this past week.  Although I feel most comfortable using Noodletools, I will start to explore the other options so that I can become more familiar with them.

On the day of the Library Open House, my English professor allowed my class to leave 30 minutes early so that we could go check it out.  Not only did I learn about the different sections of the libraries, but I also checked out the floor where the girl that Amanda told us about was murdered (BA in the stacks if anyone was wondering.)  Aside from small, crowded aisles, there was nothing too spooky about it.

Week Two

This week in Library Studies, we learned how to distinguish the difference between "good" and "bad" sources. I was a bit surprised when Amanda said that Wikipedia was not classified as a bad source since every single English teacher I had in high school stressed the fact that it was. I now know it should be used more for informative purposes than an actual source for a paper because it can be edited by anybody. Websites that end in ".gov" or ".edu" or ones that are run by national institutes are considered to be more dependable sources.

I was also surprised to learn that information given by books are not always correct. Prior to learning that, I always thought that most books were valid due to the fact that they had been published.

My favorite part of class was when we all answered the pole questions. Not only was it something different than just listening to a professor talk, but it was also interesting to see everyone's responses. Interactive activities like that help capture my attention.

After Amanda's lessons in class this past week, I am more confident in distinguishing good resources from bad ones.

Freshman Vent

Due to my horrible luck, my first few days at Penn State weren't anything like I had imagined they would be. On the very first day I experienced some sort of allergic reaction to something because I was sneezing up a storm and my eyes became irritable, itchy, and pitch red. To make matters worse, my roommate and I arrived to our dining hall for dinner 8 minutes after it closed. Hoping to find something more appetizing than the Ramen noodles we had back in our room, we went to the small food store in our commons building. I bought frozen pizza and ran up to my room. When I checked to see how much time to give it in the microwave, I discovered that it wasn't microwavable. At that point I was so frustrated that I didn't even care and decided to microwave it anyway. Big mistake. The cheese overheated and burned the rooftop of my mouth, which led to the skin in that area slightly peeling.  With red eyes, a stuffy nose, and a peeling mouth, I told my roommate that I was staying in and calling it a night around 10:30.
Then there were the first couple days of classes. I discovered that Math 140 was way too complicated for me and my instructor's teaching technique was not at all helpful. Another course, Integrative Arts 10, made me very nervous because my adviser told me that it's not recommended for freshmen. I looked more into it and asked around because it didn't seem like a bad class to me. I later found out that nearly half of the students who have taken that class have failed it. So I obviously feel like I have a reason to panic, but I'll see what happens. On a brighter note, two classes I am happy that I have at the same time are Library Studies and English 015. I feel that the skills I learn in L ST will highly benefit me when I am doing research and writing papers for English, so I'm glad I have chosen to take them this semester.
Although this blog entry seems more like it should be an entry in my personal diary, I feel better that I got it all off of my chest.
Has anyone else had any not-so-fabulous experiences at school so far?
And is anyone else taking L ST and English 15 that feels the same as I do?