Week 10 Discussion Question

November 2007
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November 3rd, 2007 · 17 Comments
Discussion Questions

This is a bit late, but will still count as week 10’s discussion question. Comments will be open on this post until after class Tuesday.

After visiting with Josh Been and participating in the GIS activity, do you have a stronger sense of how to approach research and the development of research questions? If so, what did you learn and how will you apply this information? If not, what research processes do you go through and why do you think they are more effective?

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17 responses so far ↓

1 Holly Rhodes // Nov 4, 2007 at 4:07 pm

The GIS activity really showed me how to narrow down a research topic to a more specific and better topic or theme. I think GIS would be effective in any class that requires you to conduct research. I will use the information that I learned to come up with much more creative research topics. I think you could also use GIS to make good visual aids for presentations. GIS will probably be most effectively used in a political science class but could be adapted to help in any subject.
2 Revin Wade // Nov 4, 2007 at 9:39 pm

In a way no just because I know how to get the information anyhow, but in a way yes because the system had all the information convienantly all in one spot. I found that the map would help in almost all fascites of school including pure boredom. I was interested to see the statistics during that time and what not as well as this could come of use in my politcal science project. All in all it was interesting, and what kept me interested was the fact you could go in more and more detail the more you narrow downed your “tabs”.
3 Phung Dinh // Nov 4, 2007 at 9:49 pm

After visiting with Josh Been and participating in the GIS activity, I have a better knowledge of where to start off when I am given a research project. I understand that first I need to think of a good question as a good research question and than after I have done research about it, I can than narrow the original question down to make it in depth. Knowing how to use the GIS, I can now easily do research on places and the history of it.
4 Melissa Jones // Nov 5, 2007 at 10:53 am

After doing the GIS activity, I learned how to narrow a research question without the use of books. The GIS seemed like an easy option for a research project. In the past, I had to just use books and waste a lot of time. Thanks to GIS, it won’t take me as long to write a research paper.
5 Ana Sanchez // Nov 5, 2007 at 11:02 am

After the GIS activity I felt that this would help in research questions concerning places and their history. I don’t feel that if this activity was before the due date of the paper that it would have helped. When I am in the process of researching for outside sources I remember books that I have read and relate them to the topic in my essay.
6 Kate Bowers // Nov 5, 2007 at 1:56 pm

I feel that learning more about GIS will help me in the future simply because I learned how to formulate a specific research question. Before the activity in the library, I thought you were supposed to ask a question first and then research and write a paper about it. Now I realize that, in order to create a good research question, you must research it first to narrow down the question and make it more specific and informed.
7 Erica Llaca // Nov 5, 2007 at 2:08 pm

I would say yes that the GIS activity was very helpful and could be used in majority of my classes. I think the fact that all the information being in one place helped because it was convenient and can keep things more efficient. With the GIS activity it showed me how to derive more informative and disscussion related questions than just having very mundane questions. I thought the activity can be helpful in many classes outside of english and that it showed how to pick an interesting research topic and help construct questions that are specific and meaningful.
8 Kianna Adkinson // Nov 5, 2007 at 5:16 pm

After visiting with Josh Been, I do feel like I have a better understanding on how to gather information. He showed me a more efficient way on obtaining information. Instead of getting useless information, I will now be able to get what I need. I think it was a great experience, and it was very helpful.
9 Duy Nguyen // Nov 5, 2007 at 7:16 pm

After visiting the library last week, it was quite insightful. Josh Been helped me understand how to begin a research. Before I would come up with a research question off the top of my head, usually it was very broad. I learned a research should be narrow and very precise to a topic I wanted to write. To do that, I should first research what I think about writing. Jotting down all the notes I could and from that I should formulate my question. In this instance, I would have a more understanding of what I am going to write about and my research question would be narrower. On top of that, I would also know there are topics that I could already use in my research.
10 michael bemus // Nov 5, 2007 at 9:49 pm

I definitely thought it was helping if you were gonna focus on some geographical or an aspect of your question was geographical, but other than that it would probably be hard to use it. i think it could be very useful in some research. i had never seen this before so i definitely appreciated it and realized it could be real useful.
11 Leigh Godfrey // Nov 5, 2007 at 10:09 pm

After the GIS activity, I learned how to narrow my search topics and move from maybe a more broad topic to a more pin-pointed and detailed. I also learned how to use maps to help me with my research and get a lot of information out of them. I learned how to ask more challenging questions in my research to come up with more interesting answers, as well.
12 Ana Matijevic // Nov 5, 2007 at 11:58 pm

I thought the GIS activity was really informing. It probably can be used for other purposes other than showing the Jewish population during WWII and after. It also showed me where I could go to get help if I needed it with any research paper, even those outside of English. I had no idea this research center existed!! All in all, it helped me find better ways to approach a research question.
13 Matthew Harper // Nov 6, 2007 at 12:41 am

honestly, i don’t think i gained any new research techniques through this study. Wikipedia already provides all the statistical information i will ever when it comes to population and movement of masses and it provides it in word format which requires almost no thinking at all. i’d perfer to spent my efforts fabricating a good theses and less effort on the research because an amazing thesis can make or break a paper but research and woutes only provide support for what youre trying to say.
14 Justin! // Nov 6, 2007 at 1:15 am

The GIS activity helped me become aware of different ways to display and categorize certain types data, such as the population data overlayed with locations of related sites. Visual aid! That’s what I’m thinking of. It really helped me grasp some aspects of the Holocaust that I hadn’t really thought of. I suppose that when it comes to researching a topic, the format of the information is almost as important as the information itself when it comes to actually understanding what’s going on. And of course, the more you know about a research topic, the better your research questions will be.

I’d like to add that in the case where relating the topic to geography really adds nothing to the discussion, GIS probably wouldn’t be very useful.
15 Chelsea Fine // Nov 6, 2007 at 6:55 am

I found the GIS activity to be very informing. Although it would not have helped with my Maus essay, the GIS program can be a very useful tool in researching either a race’s migration patterns or a specific country’s history because, while supplying the information needed, the maps also provide a visual aid to help understand the material.
16 Junichi Lockett Jr. // Nov 7, 2007 at 8:35 pm

I thought that the GIS activity was very informative and interesting because it allows you to really get indepth in your research. I think that this method really takes research to another level and is definitely many steps above any kind of research that I have ever conducted. I believe that I will use this method of research in my graduate studies and beyond. I would like to get more indepth on how to really use the GIS method so that I will not miss any information that will be vital to my future research.
17 Scott Hensley // Nov 7, 2007 at 8:48 pm

I thought it was a lame activity to be honest. I don’t see how the number of people who live in a country or particular place can help you write something thought provoking and informative. It is more effective to use the library search engine to find helpful sources.