Research Reflexion 2

Since I am doing a research on Gay parents and their children and that I am working already on a
“LGBT" population, I would like to emphasize my research reflection on a particular aspect on either gay parents or gay men.  I believe I should learn more about what are the circumstances which push them to wait during many   years before coming out clearly about their sexuality.  For this research, I will focus more about gay in Minnesota vs. Atlanta because I assume that here in Minnesota laws are different compared in Atlanta where this population is numerous and may be well developed.
I assume laws, people, and believes are different based on those gays may coming out more easily or not.
My assumptions are based on "said" from friends and relatives. Also, once I read on a magazine that the number of gay men is numerous in Atlanta. Another point I would like to learn about is the migration of gay men or lesbian in Minnesota. Why they are moving from certain regions to another such as Minnesota? It is due to the fact that laws state are more favorable to this population or simply because they fell safer, more secure in certain parts than others.
As any research, the most difficult challenge will be to find information on the topic of choice. I think that I am already one step ahead due to the fact that I know where and how to find resources since I went over the entire step in previous research. However, do people write much regarding comparison of gay men in Minnesota vs. Atlanta? I will see how it will work and hopefully let you known

About the Popular Magazine Article and Scholarly Journal Article on My topic

     The popular magazine article I found is entitled "Get a Room!" Webb-Mitchell, B. (2008). Get a room! Advocate, (1011), 19-19.
The sholarly journal article I found is "Growing Up in an Same-Sex Parented Family: The adolescent Voice of Experience" Journal of GLBT family studies [1550-428X] Welsh yr:2011 vol:7 iss:1 pg:49 -71. 
     The former focus on  a gay father who has two children. He is talking bout his family experiences while his children are going to school and progress through their career  from middle to high school ; while they are growing up and talking to him regarding thier sexuality and attraction to the opposite sex. 
      The latter talks about voice to a special group of young people who are out going in public eye amid a storm of polical, legal, and social change but rarely observed and engage in the debate about their sexual development as they have been raised by same-sex parents.  A total of 14 adolescents who range from 13 to 18 years of age were interviewed.  According to the author,this qualitative method of study allowed for each participant to explore their thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, thus creating an opportunity to assign meaning to their experiences. Special questions are asked to them while they are interviewed such as  (1) Family Concepts, (2) Development of Self, (3) Tough Times and Tough Transitions, (4) Coming Out, and (5) Communities of Understanding.
      By comparing both articles , I will say they talk about the same topic: gay family and their influence in sexual orientation, education, and development of their children in a society where it is difficult to either themselves or their children to find a place in the society. However, the articles are quit different because the magazine is focus on only one gay family and voices are coming from the all family includes their two children. The scholar is more focus on a group of young people who are between 13 to 18 years old while they are reserved regarding their home'lives  in one side but out going  where observed in public.

Getting Ready to use Acadmic Search Premier

Academic Search Premier is a search engine that you can use to search a variety of different journals and magazines on various topics. This scholarly collection provides journal coverage for most academic areas of study, including biological sciences, economics, communications, computer sciences, engineering, language and linguistics, arts and literature, medical sciences and women's studies.

Academic Search Premier features:

·         contains indexing for 8,175 publications

·         Full text for more than 4,700 titles

·         PDF back files to 1985 or further are available for well over one hundred journals

·          Searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,000 titles.

·          Over 1.4 million company records from Dun & Bradstreet

·          Coverage of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Christian Science Monitor

·          Over 1,000 journals with images       

·         This is an EBSCOHost database, and can be search individually or in combination with other EBSCOHost databases.

·         Coverage

·         Indexing: Varies by title, 1985-Present

·          Full Text: Varies by title, 1985-Present

·         Information Type:

 Citations? Yes

 Abstracts? Yes

·         Full Text? Yes

·         Frequency of Updates:

Daily

·         Help & More Information:

List of included journals and magazines

·         Related Databases:

·          News and Current Events  

Based on those features I believe Academic Search Premier is a good search website to find articles and databases on my topic.

I have already used the search engine in another class when I took cell biology one years ago.

I was searching for an article talking about the experiment I was doing. It was not easy. I should have taken IM 204 before enrolled into any science classes which required to handle a researh paper at the end of the semester that will made my life easy. I really do not remenber how I used the search premier database website. I remember asking to the librarian for help.

I did use another database to do my research for the same class ,it was ACS Chemistry Journals  because the paper I had written had some chemistry aspects that I had to develop. I remembered click on the "articles and databases" and typed couple keys words. Basically, it is easy to do it when you are searching for scientist research. In my case because I a scientist. All you have to do is, type the name of the experiment and from the abstract you can see if in the experiment researchers or professors (or who conduct the experiment) are using the same chemicals or similar ones and decide if you will use it or not.

I wonder if I will  find good information regarding my research topic like I did on chemistry matter subject. English is hard and communication more harder. It is easy to find for me something in science fields and understand it right away compared to searching on sociology or social humanity matter. I hope be lucky and using skills I have acquired here in that class.

Research Reflection

1.       Since working with databases, have your research question(s) changed at all?  Why or why not?

After working with databases, research questions are changing and may change later again dependent on when I will finish reading all the resources I have found.  I just realize that gay parents do not affect much the sexual orientation of their children because “we are what you are and only you know what you need and want”.   I still reading the articles, magazines, and journals I found. I will update my work later on and clarify exactly on what type of questions I will focus.

2.       What has been your biggest challenge in composing your research question?  How do you think you would be able to overcome those challenges?

I did not have much challenge I expect to have.  It was pretty easy to me to use academic search premier and databases compared to OPAC.  The information are different and more specified in academic searcg premier. You have more opportunities to read information regarding your topic by using academic search than OPAC.

A search on Academic Search Premier Vs. a search on a subject specific database

What subject specific database did you choose?

I choose: First, Education, Psychology, Recreation, and Sport-------PsycINFO------            

Gay Parents AND child* AND Sexual orientation

Second, Ethnic and Gender Studies ------- GenderWatch------Gay parents AND child* AND Sexual orientation

2.      Which database provided more relevant results for your topic?

Ethnic and Gender Studies gave me more relevant information regarding my topic

3.      How are you able to narrow down results in Academic Search Premier?

Library main page-------Article and Database--------advanced research --------Gay parents AND child* AND Sexuality orientation

Sholarly (Peer reviewed) Journals (on the left of the page)--------Select date from 2000-2012 (on the left of the page)

 How are you able to narrow down results in the subject specific database?

Second, Ethnic and Gender Studies ----- GenderWatch -------Gay parents AND child* AND Sexual orientation

4.      If your first search string did not work, what synonyms did you use?

My first string works pretty well

5.      How many relevant articles did you find from Academic Search Premier?

About 102 from 1985 to 2012 but I end up with 72 after narrowed information from 200 to 2012.

  How many from the subject specific database?

About 309 but I end up with 16 after marked what I found interesting about my topic.

6.      Of the relevant articles that you have found, how many were available in full text?

All of the 16 articles found were available in full text

7.       How many were available via Find It through other databases?

3 of 16 where accessible also follow “Education, Psychology, Recreation, and Sport” string research.

8.       How many were available via Find It in print in our collection?

None

9.       How many were not available at all, and required an ILL request?

All 16 articles required an ILL request

 Ps: ----- means  one step to another

Encyclopedia vs. Wikipedia

n  Both Encyclopedia and Wikipedia have pros and cons which differ from each other.

Starting with Encyclopedia pros, I found that information from this resource is more reliable and provide more information regarding any type of subject.

In addition to this point of view, the information provided is large and concrete, and because of it, you end up with a better understandable of your subject. And if you are doing research that will help you to build up more convinced arguments.

 However, encyclopedia has some weakness because while I was searching on my topic and population, I found that the earlier encyclopedia are kind of different compared to the newest. What I mean is that information change based on the period of time and on people ages when they had been written. I believe that is normal since literature changes based on society generation concepts.

n  Information from Wikipedia is more rapid to be found and it is free.  Also, there is a variety of information on a topic and all of them because writers research on the subject among diverse resources before they start publish a topic or concept on the website (at least it is what I believe).

n   However, I am not sure about who verify the publication. It seems like anyone can come and write something about a topic. Because of this point, I will say that is not good at all and those information are not reliable. As one of my professors said one day in class: “never cited Wikipedia in a research papers always go back to the references if you find something good and double check yourself.”

n  Based on my population I found 10 prints encyclopedia from the Library selves. To find those, I went to the library page and I typed Lesbian gay. From this, I found 737 resources which talk about LGBT. To have better sources, I narrowed my resources by selected on the left side of the page “Reference (in-Library Use Only). Then, out of 737 only 25 where located. Then Out of the 25 resources I found 10 encyclopedias talking about LGBT. Actually, I a little bit sad or I do not know how to look it on that type of resources, but I did not find any of them talking about my topic. I mean by that I could not find anything with gay parents and their relation with their children.

n  I went to the main page and under “Research Assistance” I select “LGBT” among of the numerous subject Guides options provided. Then I scrolled down on the page and fount this E-encyclopedia : http://www.glbtq.com/

n   I will go with an encyclopedia instead of Wikipedia because I found Wikipedia kind of nor consistent. I do not like the way it works in the fact that it is a summary of another summary. On other words it is a small group of people who review and rewrite information based on other information and references. What you keep in mind is the concepts of someone who thinks that something is right and good about something.  In addition, I am not sure about if they fix the recent issue they have with authorities about Wikipedia to be a plagiarist website. In contrast, encyclopedia have an original side and dependent of the publisher I can choose to give  more credit to the one I want to get my work done. Even E-encyclopedia is better organized than Wikipedia regarding my topic.