Blog Post 4-Kevin is Glad he's a Student in the Digital Age

Like Andrew, I find myself using JStor and Summons (as well as MLA and Muse) almost daily (especially for Engl 5014). As such, I found Modules 2 and 7 particularly helpful, since they provided great detail on the use of each; I feel more adept at navigating databases generally, particularly more efficient at using those aforementioned.

Module 7 came at just the right time--as I gird my mind for the onslaught of impending due dates in 5004, 5014, and 5024; having completed the tutorials on advanced searches, I feel much more prepared to complete the 3 upcoming projects (all of which involve plenty o research).

As Nial mentioned in Blog Post 1, Wikipedia has plenty of faults, but I think it can be useful as a jumping off point; future incarnations of this course could focus on it briefly and cautiously in that context. However, students should definitely be actively discouraged from ever citing it.

Generally, I am glad to be a student during a time when access to information is opening up and becoming more convenient to access. I often suspect that I would have been a mediocre student (at best) in the age of longhand (I often have trouble reading my own writing) and journals in print only.

Blog Post 4 - Rittenburg

I believe that this class has shown plenty of different ways to access information in the extensive online libraries of the world. This has given me the opportunity to try different programs and judge their strengths and weaknesses. By doing this I have been able to gauge which search engines will serve best in certain situations. I find myself using JSTOR, EEBO, and Summon on an almost daily basis. They have all aided in my research, particularly for 5014.

Like Robert, I found the module 3 readings interesting in their discussion of 'the meeting place of market and humanism'. These readings are quite relevant to my current situation, and will only become more vital as time goes on.

Mike Roche - Blog Post 4

I would say the resources for this class are definitely complementing the research I have to do for my classes. For example, for a research paper in my “New Woman Fiction” class, I needed to find biographical information about an obscure Australian writer named George Egerton. Had I not been familiar with the in’s and out’s of conducting research with Summon's advanced search feature, I would not have found the entry for her in the Gale Dictionary of Literary Biography; nor would I have been able to have figured out how to gain access to the Literature Research Center.

One topic I think I would have benefited from learning about earlier in the semester is bibliographic management tools. Like Michelle, I have benefited from using a citation manager, though not Endnote. Prior to last week’s module, I had no idea that tools like that were available for use to students. Using an MLA handbook was my somewhat dated way of making sure I was making proper citations. Zotero seems perfect for my research needs, and has already started to make source citation considerably easier for me. Had I known about this tool earlier in the semester, I would have been able cite more quickly and easily in the (admittedly few) papers I’ve already had to turn in.