Revised: June 15, 2003
Outline for Adv. Research, Internet, and Presentations Course
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Introduction to Advanced Research, Internet, and Presentations
Welcome to Advanced Research, Internet, and Presentations. This course is designed to teach you the many ways of finding, collecting, organizing, analyzing, and presenting useful and necessary information. It is important for you to realize that there is no one best way to always find information you are looking for. What is important is that the information you collect be reliable, useful, and accurate, and that your search is efficient and effective.
You need to be confident that the information that you are presenting is GOOD (accurate and appropriate) information.
For this to happen you might have to change your understanding of what research is. You might have to think less like an academic researcher and think more like a librarian, a journalist, or even a private investigator. Your job will be to find and present that information and to defend your results and your processes. Use the most practical and efficient tools for the job. Sometimes that is the telephone, the computer, the library, or ask an available expert.
In our first week (Unit One) we will make sure that you are on-board, that you know what to expect, how to retrieve assignments and course material, and how to send your work and discussions to your instructors and the learning group to which you have been assigned.
Since this is an on-line class, we need to set up digital communications that will take the place of traditional discussions. Please follow these rules to ensure your success:
1. The proper use of email is essential. You should check your primary email address daily and reply to all messages from instructors and learning group members within 24 hours. This is a requirement.
2. Assignments will be assigned with the assignment name, the due date, and maximum number of points that you can earn for that assignment. Respond with the following information in the subject line. CollegeName Group# FName LInit AssignmentName. Repeat this information at the beginning of the body of the email and include the due date and submitted date. Include the questions that you are answering with your answers.
3. Grades for each assignment will be based on five criteria. To receive the maximum number of points, your work must be 1) original, 2) clear, 3) persuasive, 4) on time, and 5) grammatically correct. All factors must be present in order to get a good score.
4. Digital pictures will be taken at our organizational meeting. If you are unable to attend, you must make arrangements to have you picture taken and send us your digital picture within two weeks. These will be posted and sent to all class members.
Overview: In our first week we want to make sure that everyone is comfortable working in a distance learning atmosphere. You will be invited to attend an organizational class where you can meet your instructor and other class members and become familiar with the school's resources for on-line learning and research.
Introduction: This may or may not be your first on-line class. In either case we will need to make sure that you know what will be expected of you, explain the class objectives, and to answer your immediate questions.
Instruction:
There will be Library Seminar, with a demonstration of the on campus and dial in resources that will be available to you during the course. At this time we will also discuss the resources of your local library and the Library of Philadelphia.
The syllabus will be distributed, learning groups will be determined, and the format for this course will be explained.
Exchange the following documents and information:
· Syllabus
· Your resume
· On-Line Learning Guides
· Digital pictures
· Learning groups
Overview:
Most of you did a good job on Unit 1. If you sent your assignment on time, you should have received feedback from us. As always, if there are any questions, including questions about your grade, please let us know this week.
Unit 2 will be a continuation of the work we began in Unit 1. You will be asked to review the web sites that you explored last week to look for useful information you might have missed. If you do discover something you consider to be especially valuable, let your instructors and your learning group know about it.
Introduction:
You will be researching some sites that will give you new knowledge or a review of basic information about browsing the Web, using efficient search tools and techniques, and evaluating sites and information that you find. Read over the information for things that you may not know. Sometimes filling in the gaps with the basic information can go a long way to improving understanding of a topic even after we have a basic comfort level with it.
Instruction:
1. Review the web sites that you explored last week to look for useful information you might have missed.
2. Browse and read the following Web Sites:
·1 "A Basic Guide to the Internet" at http://library.albany.edu/internet/internet.html
·2 "Checklist of Internet Research Tips" at http://library.albany.edu/internet/checklist.html
·3 "Conducting Research on the Internet" at http://library.albany.edu/internet/research.html
·4 "The Deep Web" at http://library.albany.edu/internet/deepweb.html
3. Some of the files that you will be sent are in .PDF format and can be read with a free software program called Adobe Acrobat. You can download this file at www.Adobe.com (or it may come up automatically when you double click the filename). In either case, you will need this program to read some of the material for this course. Download it and read the Unit2.pdf file that was sent to you.
4. Write a one page report (250 - 300 words) describing what you believe to be the most important information about this week's readings. What was most interesting? What knowledge and skills from your readings are essential? Why?
If a good portion of this information is new - great. If it is a review and you can go through it quickly with good understanding, you might want to go back and spend additional time in the university library searches that you conducted last week. We'll leave that up to you, as long as you understand that you are required to be familiar with both sources of information and how to access it.
Assignment:
Name: Unit 2
Points = 5
Due Date:
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Assignment Name: Unit 3
Points = 5
Date Due:
Overview:
In this unit, we will continue to explore ways of finding useful information on the Internet and elsewhere. Now you should be developing a feel for the vast amount of information that you can find on-line on the public Net and private university or public library.
Keep up the good work; most of you are doing well. It is important that you stay current with your assignments and that you continue to answer your email messages in a timely fashion.
INTRODUCTION:
You will receive several files this week that are designed to further enhance your comfort with the course material. First, you will receive a .pdf file that contains the class pictures that we have. If we do not have your photo, we would ask you to submit it with your next assignment. In addition, we are sending you part of your final exam project. We are doing that for a couple of reasons. First, we're trying to get across the point that there are fewer secrets than you've been led to believe. Secondly, we want you to get an idea of what type of information you can get quickly and easily with a little bit of investigative skill. So, why would we make the final exam/project a secret?
INSTRUCTION:
(Do this part last because it's not required for this week.)
1. Here are five questions that might seem difficult to answer. By the end of this course, we would like you to be able to find similar information quickly and accurately. There is a reporter's slant to these questions. We'll talk about why that can be helpful at a later time. In the meantime, try to come up with your own theories. (Do this part last because it's not required for this week.)
1. Adjust for inflation. Babe Ruth's salary was $80,000 in 1931. How much would that be in today's dollars?
2. Match a name to a phone number. Caller ID tells you a tipster called from 215-831-1234? Without calling the number, find out: Whose phone number is that?
3. Check your law. A 9-year-old child has been killed riding her bike. She was not wearing a helmet. What is your state or city law on bicycle helmets?
4. Prep for an interview. In 10 minutes you'll be covering a speech by an author named Gary Price. But you have an early deadline, so you have to do the interview before the speech. The book has "Web" in the title. What is the exact title? What five questions do you want to ask him before the speech?
5. Source a quotation. Who said “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”?
We would not only ask you to attempt to answer these questions, but tell us about the process that you used to find the answers. How much confidence do you have in your answers?
(source: http://PowerReporting.com)
2. If you have not yet downloaded Adobe Acrobat Reader software, go to www.adobe.com and complete the free download. Install Adobe Acrobat Reader. Then open the file you have been sent with this assignment. It is a .pdf file containing the digital pictures of your classmates. Familiarize yourself with the names and faces, especially those of your learning group. It will be helpful for most of you to put a face with a name.
3. Read chapters 1 and 2 of textbook and answer the assigned questions in the body of your email.
4. Read the contents of the following website: http://www.brightplanet.com/deepcontent/tutorials/search/index.asp
ASSIGNMENT:
Assignment Name: Unit 3
Points = 5
Due Date:
1. Review the .pdf file you have been sent. You may need to download Adobe Acrobat first at www.adobe.com or the website might pop up automatically when you double click the file.
2. Look over the five questions similar to the ones in the Final exam. You can try to find some of the answers and if you do, submit them with the assignment. More important is the process you used to look for the answers. Describe that to us. (NOT due this week.)
3. Read chapters 1 and 2 in your textbook and answer the following questions in the body of your email. (DUE this week.)
Chapter 1 textbook questions: Include the questions with the answers in the body of your email reply.
1. What is hypertext?
2. What is TCP/IP and what does it do?
3. What does FTP stand for and what does it do?
4. What is the difference between the Web and the Internet?
5. Who created the Web? When was it created?
6. Write a topic sentence and topic paragraph that summarizes the most important information in chapter one of The Invisible Web textbook.
Read Chapter 2 in the textbook and answer the following questions. Include the questions in your answer and email your responses in the body of the email.
Chapter 2 – Questions
1. What is the difference between Browsing and Searching on the Internet?
2. What does the term relevance refer to? Why is it important for you as a researcher?
3. What is a Web directory and how do they work?
4. List three important issues pertaining to Web Directories.
5. Are all search engines alike? How so or how not?
6. What is meant by the term "Internet time"?
7. Why is there a bias toward text on the Visible web?
8. Compare and contrast Search Engines and Directories.
4. Read the contents of the following website: (optional) http://www.brightplanet.com/deepcontent/tutorials/search/index.asp
5. Browse the following three web sites. If you find anything interesting, report it to your instructors and your learning group.
http://www.journaliststoolbox.com
http://www.infospace.com
http://www.journaliststoolbox.com
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Assignment Name: Unit 4
Points = 5
Due date:
Search Engines: Learning to use them Efficiently
In this unit, we will be exploring Search Engines. We like the engines listed in the following section based on their rating by knowledgeable users, respected publications, and our experience using them. You may have some suggested engines of your own and we would like to hear about them.
In this unit, we are going to explore some of these well-known information treasure finders. And remember, finding a site is not enough. You must evaluate the site for evidence that the information is useful, practical, and easy to navigate. Some of these include the following sites:
google.com
altavista.digital.com
37.com
go.com
yahoo.com
about.com
askjeeves.com
teoma.com
alltheweb.com
We will be asking you to explore the basic searches and advanced searches on these sites to get a feel for them and to develop an opinion about them. You should do one focused search pertaining to a subject in your major field of study and another pertaining to your employer or a competitor company.
Basic searches are simple. Just type in a word or phrase. See what the search engine comes up with. How may hits did you get? Were they relevant? Browse a few of them to develop an opinion about the quality of the search and the search engine.
Next, explore the advanced search techniques. There is usually a page that describes the techniques for the most efficient searches in that particular search engine. Review the Boolean terms (AND, OR, NOT, NEAR) to see how they work. How does the search engine recommend that you put in ‘phrases’? Should you use quotes around the terms? Should you use + or - signs in front of the words? Now try to get a better search for the topics you chose before but this time try to get fewer, but more hits that are relevant. What did you find? Which are your favorite three search engines? Have you become proficient and comfortable with their use?
Review:
Make sure that you understand these terms and their applications. You will understand them better if you experiment with them in your searches.
Boolean Search (AND, OR, NOT, NEAR).
Symbol Search (+, -, " ")
You will have two reading assignments in addition to the work you have done with the various search engines listed above. You should read the following article and keep the information foremost in your mind as you browse some of the sites you find when doing your searches. Knowing this information will help you to evaluate the search engine that brought you to these sites. You will find the article that explains how to evaluate a web site at the following URL: http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/evalcrit.html
Read Chapter 3 and 4 in the textbook and answer the following questions. Include the questions in your answer and email your responses in the body of the email.
Read chapter 3 of the textbook and answer the following questions:
Chapter 4 questions
Addendum:
You do not have to, but you can if you wish, explore the other features in Google.com (groups, images, etc.). We will be looking at them in another unit.
As part of your assignment, send a brief description of what this site contains and an explanation of how that might be useful to you in your chosen career.
Name: Unit 5
Points = 5
Due Date:
Parts 1 and 2, ???
Part 3 = Project One, due June 12 at noon. Send your responses in the body of an email.
Overview:
This week we would like you to concentrate on three things:
Introduction:
Use of Newsgroups (Google Groups): what are they, how to reach them, search them. Go to Google.com and do a search, but this time search the Google Groups. You might not have noticed them before but above the search box you will see a link for Groups – Click there.
Here you will find many people who have an interest in communicating in this way over the Net. These used to be called, and sometimes still are called, discussion boards. They resemble the discussion board on BlackBoard.
The purpose is you can ask a question or make a comment that others can see, read, respond, agree to, or disagree with. This is a great place to reach others who have the same interest as you and, very often, they have a lot of knowledge in that particular area. Be careful, sometimes they know a lot less than you do, but that doesn’t stop them from giving advice as if they were an expert.
You’re not required to post a question in groups this week. I would be happy if you get comfortable with lurking. I would like you to get a real feel for the types of uses you might have for this type of searching activity. The advantage is that the people who come to look and communicate here, have an interest and reason for being here. You could get some good information from a real expert who could guide your search to areas that normally would not be available to you.
Find 2 groups that might have useful information that would be helpful for your career, hobby, or school work.
Textbook Reading:
Chapter 5 questions
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For each project you must:
· Present the problem or situation as you see it, in your own words.
· Create a plan for systematically gathering and organizing information. Decide which sources are likely to be best suited for the project.
· Analyze the information for availability, efficiency of research, relevance, and reliability.
· Defend your plan and decisions to your learning group and your instructors (include executive summary to instructors) before getting too involved with the project.
· Upon completion of the project, present your findings, not only what you found, but how you found it, to the learning group and the instructor.
· An Executive Summary includes only the primary facts, without the supporting information. It is usually not longer than one typed page (250 words).
Make sure you keep track of the following information during your research
1. Date
2. Source
3. Info Collected
4. Reliability Index (your rating from 1 -5)
5. Relevance to Project Index (your rating from 1 -5) &nbbsp;
6. Next Step/s
Your first project: please report your progress by June 25, noon
Project 1 - Research Your Company
You are being asked to gather information on the company you work for and at least one competitor. Investigate each of these companies electronically to get some general information. What are the prospects for growth over the next few years? What is their chief economic purpose? Are they making money or losing money?
Do as much research as you can electronically. Look over the annual reports of your company and your competitor company.
You may contact knowledgeable individuals at your company and your competitor company.
Determine what your company is doing better than your competitor and vice-versa.
Present your information to the learning group.
Formulate a Plan A and, if necessary, a Plan B advising someone else to gain employment in one or both of these companies. Defend your methods of research, your choice of experts, and your plan to your learning group and your instructor. You must also send an executive summary to your instructor.
What's new on Internet (lii.org)
Assignment name: Unit 6
Points = 5
Due date:
Overview:
In this unit we will be exploring the concept of getting useful information from an available expert. This information is not always, or even usually, published. Yet it is information that should not be overlooked because it is important and can add a great deal of expertise to your research efforts.
Introduction:
Finding Information from an available expert begins with knowing what an available expert is and how you can locate one. An expert is someone who has specialized knowledge in an area that you need to research. This person is available if you can find and question them, and they are willing to truthfully answer your questions. This research, as all research, begins with the question, “What is it you want to learn”? To find the information you need, you will sometimes want to do an effective search on the Internet. Sometimes you will want to pick up and read a book at the library. And, sometimes you will want to ask questions of someone who can answer your specific questions, which might lead to other questions that they will be willing to answer.
Knowing when to search for such a person, knowing where to locate them, knowing how to contact them, and knowing how to interview them effectively are important skills in this facet of your research.
Where do you find such a person? That depends on the type of information you are looking for. Academic, social, and professional groups offer a good start. A search on the Internet or in the phonebook might get you the phone number or email address of a person who is knowledgeable and who might be willing to communicate with your via phone and email.
Instruction:
Begin your search by brainstorming for possible resources where you will find likely leads. This means getting all possibilities down on paper. A search on the Internet might bring an article written on your particular subject. The article will often have quotes from knowledgeable people. The article might also give you a way to get in touch directly with an available expert. If not, the next best thing might be to contact the reporter who wrote the article. You might try to email the reporter. Perhaps he would be willing to share information that they learned with you or might be able to point you to a promising lead that either appeared, or for some reason did not appear, in the article.
Try contacting a college or university teacher who has expertise in a particular area. A call to a few of the local colleges might lead you to someone who not only knows the subject you are researching but also is very good at explaining it in easy to understand terms. He might also be able to give you additional leads to material and experts.
You should do some preliminary research before attempting to interview any expert. He will appreciate it if you are prepared so that he will not have to explain the basic information that you could have read in an elementary textbook. Remember, his time is as valuable as yours is and you should be mindful of this. Be prepared to ask pertinent questions that get to the point and be ready to record answers to your questions with pen and paper or, with their permission, a tape recorder. Have a prepared list of questions ready but listen and be ready to ask follow-up questions to their responses. Sometimes it is helpful, if you have time, to interview by email. This allows for more thorough answers that will be recorded for you. Remember, be careful not to intrude; ask for permission each step of the way.
Two of your final questions in any interview should always be: “Is there anything that I should have asked you, and did not?” and “Is there someone else that I should speak with to get additional information or another point of view?” These questions could lead you to an information gold mine and an introduction to another expert who was previously unavailable.
Listserv Resources:
Next, you’ll want to become aware of listservs on the Internet. These are groups of knowledgeable and interested persons who are computer and topic specific literate. Finding, joining, and lurking (reading, but not posting) on the listserv is your first step. Read over the following URL to get a good introduction to what a listserv is and what it does.
http://www.state.vt.us/srs/fcwc/listserv2.htm
The important thing about this resource is that you will have a ready list of people who know about a particular topic, are interested enough to get information on that topic each and every day, and are willing to help others with their questions and comments. The people who belong to listservs are generally much more knowledgeable than those who contribute to groups like Goggle groups. Once you’ve learned something about listservs, explain the difference, as you see it, between groups and listservs. Can you find a list that might be a good one to subscribe to. Remember, you can unsubscribe at any time. Be prepared to delete much of what you get without reading it all.
Assignment:
Chapter 6
Read Chapter 6 and 7 in the Invisible Web and answer the following questions.
Questions from Chapter 6
1. What would you say to someone to convince them to use the Invisible Web?
2. When should you use the Invisible Web?
3. Name five Invisible Web categories.
4. What will you not find on the Invisible Web?
5. Of the sites that allow you to stay current with the Invisible Web, which would you recommend? Why?
Chapter 7
Read Chapter 7 in the Invisible Web and then present your own, original case study that would be relevant to your current profession or field of study.
Research these sites-as part of your assignment, send a brief description of what type of information these sites contain and an explanation of how that might be useful to you in your chosen career.
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Overview:
This unit will cover three aspects of Advanced Research, Internet, and Presentations and will give you a great deal of material with which to analyze and present your study of a topic. It will include a section on statistics, a section on using a reporters tools to investigate and report information, and a section Excel and uncovering government statistics. In addition, we will be reading in the text and investigating a few more interesting and information-packed web sites.
Introduction:
The effective use of numbers is essential to any competent and professional researcher. Fortunately, you do not have to be a mathematical wizard to use numbers effectively and there are plenty of tools on the internet to help you do the correct calculations. Excel and PowerPoint are the premier tools in most peoples toolbox to analyze, organize, and present ideas, text, and numbers. If you find your skills lacking when using software packages such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, it might be a good idea to take a course or workshop in each of these programs. Most colleges and sometimes businesses offer workshops and courses. Using these programs can make your presentations look professional and save you a lot of time in the process.
Instruction:
There are a few sites that you should explore to see the power of the topics that are covered in this unit. For the treasure hunt and final test questions and answers, check in at http://powerreporting.com/treasure.html. For a fairly simple statistics lesson (take this one as far as you can and don’t forget to bookmark it), try http://www.robertniles.com/. And for a mountain of reliable statistical data to practice on, try www.census.gov.
Assignment:
Check out the three URLs listed above. Read through the Internet treasure hunt and send us your answers to the questions and, more importantly, what you learned from reading through the exercise. Find the answers the easy way, but learn from the experience. Read through RobertNiles.com, at least as much as you can comfortably handle. Bookmark these two sites, as well as the census.gov site. They all contain a wealth of information that you can come back to, possibly for years to come.
Read one of the chapters in 9 through 27. Pick the chapter in chapters 9 through 27 that most closely match your career goals and objectives. Follow the directions that follow.
Chapters 9 – 27
In chapters 9 through 27, pick the chapter that best describes information pertaining to your professional goals and objectives. Write a 200 word abstract that describes to an intermediate Internet user and professional in your chosen profession, what you learned from studying this chapter.
Send file (slideshow) that describes how to use Excel.
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Project 1 - Research Your Company
You are being asked to gather information on the company you work for and at least one competitor. Investigate each of these companies electronically to get some general information. What are the prospects for growth over the next few years? What is their chief economic purpose. Are they making money or losing money?
Do as much research as you can electronically. Look over the annual reports of your company and your competitor company.
You may contact knowledgeable individuals at your company and your competitor company.
Determine what your company is doing better than your competitor and vice-versa.
Present your information to the learning group.
Formulate a Plan A and, if necessary, a Plan B advising someone else to gain employment in one or both of these companies. Defend your methods of research, your choice of experts, and your plan to your learning group and your instructor. You must also send an executive summary to your instructor.
Project 2 - Investigate a Problem or Perceived Problem within your Company or School; then write a proposal.
Become a consultant. Companies pay big money for advice from consultants because they offer solutions to problems. Managers are interested in ideas that do the following things for their departments or company: increase profit, reduce costs, increase efficiency, improve morale, improve customer satisfaction, etc.
Research a situation in your company or school that you have observed or that has been mentioned to you. Find out the background of this situation. How did it develop? Has the problem grown over time?
Develop a solution to this problem. The plan should include the steps, the cost, and the obstacles that must be overcome.
Who would you need to sell your idea to to get it approved?
Write your proposal to improve a situation at your school or company. Include the background, detail the problem, suggest the solution, and include the costs (both financial and man-hours). Explain how your plan will improve profit, reduce costs, increase efficiency, improve morale, or improve customer satisfaction.
Submit your report of research and your plan to your learning group and your instructors. Be sure to include your rationale for research decisions. Also, send your instructor an Executive Summary.
Project 3 - Research your school
Overview - look at your school through new eyes. Beecome a prospective student again, but with all of your experiential knowledge.
Look at, read, gather, and organize information on the school's web site that is of particular interest to you as if you are thinking about going back in time and re-applying to the school. Pay particular attention to information about you major and extra-curricular activities.
Locate a printed catalog. Research the information in the catalog that pertains to your interests. Does it match the catalog? Is the information accurate and timely? How is it presented? Was it easy to find?
Speak to someone who is involved in the admissions process - directly or indirectly. What have you learned that would make it easier for you to get in this time and perhaps earn more scholarship or grant money?
Project 4 - Find a problem, situation, or trend that is happening in the town in which you live (i.e. increased in traffic, decrease in number of businesses, increase in quality of life crimes, increased or decreased political corruption, improved or decreased educational statistics, etc.)
Find evidence in electronic, published, and/or anecdotal form.
Make sure you double-check the facts to make sure you have not been mislead.
Talk to interested parties to get their impressions of the facts.
Report your findings to your learning group and your instructor.
Optional Bonus Assignment - devise a proposal that might be considered to help increase a positive trend or eliminate or decrease a negative trend. Submit your plan to some individual or group who could help set your plan in motion.
1. Research the Nominal Group or Delphi Technique. What is it used for, when would it be useful to you? What is your source? Is it reliable? Verifiable? Describe the technique in one or two pages.
2. What does the K stand for in K-Mart? What is your source? Is it reliable? Verifiable?
3. What actors who played major parts in the Wizard of OZ are still alive? What is your source? Is it reliable? Verifiable?
4. What happened to the Original Love Boat? What is your source? Is it reliable? Verifiable?
5. Who is the author of "How Teachers Can Avoid Being Sued"? Hint: this information can be found on the Deep Web in a site known for it's many educational resources.
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Textbook Questions
The Invisible Web Chapter Questions
Chapter 1
Chapt. 2
Read chapter 3 of the textbook and answer the following questions:
Chapter 4 questions
Textbook Reading:
Read chapters 5 in the text and answer the following questions:
Chapter 5 questions
Chapter 6
Read Chapter 6 and 7 in the Invisible Web and answer the following questions.
Questions from Chapter 6
1. What would you say to someone to convince them to use the Invisible Web?
2. When should you use the Invisible Web?
3. Name five Invisible Web categories.
4. What will you not find on the Invisible Web?
5. Of the sites that allow you to stay current with the Invisible Web, which would you recommend? Why?
Chapter 7
Read Chapter 7 in the Invisible Web and then present your own, original case study that would be relevant to your current profession or field of study.
Chapters 9 – 27
In chapters 9 through 27, pick the chapter that best describes information pertaining to your professional goals and objectives. Write a 200 word abstract that describes to an intermediate Internet user and professional in your chosen profession, what you learned from studying this chapter.
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Advanced Research - Final Exam
The Final Test: (without answers)
1. Adjust for inflation. You're editing an article that refers to Babe Ruth's salary of $80,000 in 1931 (when, as he said, he "had a better year" than President Hoover). How much would that be in today's dollars?
2. Match a name to a phone number. A tipster has passed on a terrific lead on a federal investigation of your mayor. Caller ID tells you the tipster called from 202-965-3515? Without calling the number, find out: Whose phone number is that?
3. Check your law. A 9-year-old girl has been killed riding her bike. She was not wearing a helmet. What is your state or city law on bicycle helmets?
4. Prep for an interview. In 10 minutes you'll be covering a speech by an author named Grossman, who contends that video games are a cause of school shootings, because they condition children to kill. But you have an early deadline, so you have to do the interview before the speech. The book has "killing" in the title. What is the exact title? What term did he coin? What other books has he written? What town is he from, and why might that be interesting? What five questions do you want to ask him before the speech?
5. Source a quotation. When the nominees for president pick women as running mates, we'll have to be careful with that saying, "politics makes strange bedfellows." Who coined that maxim? And isn't there an earlier use of the phrase, "strange bedfellows"? Who said it first?
6. Background a business executive. Melvin J. Gordon just gave a huge contribution to your art museum. All you know is that he runs a company in the U.S. Who is he? What company? Besides its namesake product, what else does this company produce? What is his annual salary? What was his total cash compensation? How much is he worth (at least in company stock), as of today? What basic bio information do you have on him?
7. Find an unnamed person. AP is reporting the first ID of a victim of the Amtrak train crash near Bourbonnais, Ill. There's no name, but she was a grandmother and owned a bed and breakfast in Nesbit, Miss. What is the name and phone number of the B&B? Without calling the B&B, find her name. And why was she well known among a certain group of people before the crash?
8. Background a Web site. Matt Drudge has some gossip about your editor on his Web site, at http://www.drudgereport.com. You need to reach Drudge by phone. All you know is his Web site address. From that, find his phone number. (It's not on his site.)
9. Spot a trend. It's bridal story time. What has happened to the age at which people get married for the first time, over the past 100 years, in the U.S.? (Hint: Not quite what you think.) When you find the overall answer, look for several angles on the story: What is the trend in the past five years? What might be new this year? How has the difference in age between men and women changed? What is the phone number of the demographers who can help sort out the reasons for these changes?
10. See where you rank. Estimates of poverty in every school district in the U.S. are made every few years by the U.S. Census Bureau. You can find this file on the Census site, but for convenience a copy is on the training files page at http://PowerReporting.com/files/ under "poverty." You can view the list in a Web browser, but it's darn inconvenient: The districts are listed in alphabetical order, and only the raw numbers are given, not the percentage of kids in poverty. (This is typical of government Web sites.) You want the schools in rank order, with percentages, so districts are fairly compared. For this task you need a Web browser, a spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel is the easiest and most ubiquitous), and 10 minutes. So the questions: (a) How do the 20 biggest school districts in the country compare in percentage of children in poverty? (b) How does your school district rank, among those in your state, in percentage of children in poverty? (c) How does your school district rank among its peers, which for this purpose we'll define as the 10 districts in your state that are closest to yours in raw population of the district?
Bonus question. Math for journalists. The Web won't help you here.
After the Amtrak train "The City of New Orleans" hit a truck at a crossing near Bourbonnais, Ill., the National Transportation Safety Board measured off the distances at the crossing. The investigators told reporters that the truck driver could have seen the train approaching in the darkness at no more than 644 feet from the crossing. NTSB also said that the train was traveling at 79 miles per hour, the speed limit on that track. So, how many seconds before impact could the driver have seen the train? And if the crossing gates are timed to come down 27 seconds before the train reaches the crossing, what's the story?
Source: http://powerreporting.com/treasure.html
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Finding public records...
Q. JJ Jackson asks: "...how to access public records in other states to ascertain legal information such as drivers license info, mortgage, divorce info, personal info, etc...
A. Although more and more government agencies are allowing access to public records online, a great majority of these databases cannot be found and indexed by search engines. This makes it difficult for the average web searcher to locate public records online. On the other hand, locating the web sites that help you access public records isn't difficult at all.
A quick search on Google for "public records" reveals a site called "Search Systems Public Record Locator." You can visit the site at: www.searchsystems.net. This site is one of the largest, and most well known public records web sites on the Internet and has been operating online since 1997. It has a searchable interface that allows you to access over 14,000 public records databases in both the United States and Canada. Searches can be restricted by state, by U.S. territory, or by Canadian province.
Although there is no fee to use the search service at this site, it should be noted that some of the databases that it searches do charge fees to download records. (These listings will be marked with a "pay" designation so that you know if you're expected to ante up before you visit.)
Additionally, a search of the Yahoo and Google directories show plenty of listings for free public records web sites, including public records sites for the UK and other countries. Most sites are similar to the one linked above and simply serve as search interfaces to a larger collection of documents, but searching within the government categories for each state (or country) will reveal direct access to specific database web sites.
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