Blog #8 (reflection)

-I actually didn't learn everything that I was hoping I would learn. I kept changing/ narrowing my topic so I had to keep look for different sources that covered different aspects of my topic. First I started looking at the control on concealed carry permits which then was narrowed/ changed to, why do people get conceal carry permits. After that I almost completely changed my topic to, elderly people with any mental problems should not be allowed to own a gun or have one in their possession. Once I landed on this topic I learned many new things that I would have never imagined. I was surprised by many of the stories and stats that I found in my research.
-One of the benefits of doing this assignment in phases was that it kept me organized and focused on finding sources and making sure they were credible. But one of the drawbacks was that I felt as though I was just finding sources because I had to for the assignment. Another thing that was not so good was that there was too much time in between assignments which allowed me to forget what I read in the last assignment. I felt as though I was starting over every time I did a new phase. But again I did like how we had to show how each source was credible and we had to summarize and respond to each source. I know that if I didn't have the specific assignment I probably would have skipped a few of the steps.
-I will most definitely approach research in interesting topics in a different way. In the past I just did a generic Google search and looked for anything that wasn't Wikipedia, but after doing this I will probably use the schools data base more often and even go to specific news articles and maybe even the occasional blog just to get someone else's point of view.
-I think in some ways this assignment has helped me so that I can confidently discuss a topic with someone. One way is that I now can think of better questions to ask that will either broaden or narrow a topic of discussion. Over all though, I don't think I will always be able to confidently discuss any topic. In order for me to do that I would have to either already be knowledgeable in the topic or have time to do a little research.
-The most important thing I learned about research was that just because a source might look credible doesn't always mean it is. It is important to do a little background research on the author and the source itself because anyone can put information on the internet. If the source doesn't have an author it doesn't make it automatically bad, but there does need to be research on the publisher of the source. If I don't use credible sources in a paper then I'm the one who loses credibility.