Trolls

Trolls

 

I learned the definition of a person who intentionally disrupt established trends of thoughts on discussion boards by making inappropriate statements. This person is called a “troll”. A person who injects negative or rude remarks usually instigates flame wars.

Two Useful Apps for Students

Two Useful Apps for Students

There are two mobile apps that I use all of the time. They are The Free Dictionary by Farlex and Google Keep apps. I use The Free Dictionary almost daily. Not only does this app define words, but helps with vocabulary by suggesting new words to learn every day. In addition to a word of the day, this app features an article of the day, a quote of the day, the current day in history, the birthday of someone in the news or history and the holiday of a place in the world. In addition, this app gives the weather, your horoscope, and three interactive word games.

The Free Dictionary by Farlex is free. I use it on my android phone and tablet. This app sync bookmarks in both devices and tracks my vocabulary profile. I highly recommend this app to any student who wants to increase his or her vocabulary. One may log in via Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, or your web browser. The web address is www.thefreedictionary.com and can be downloaded from Google’s Playstore.

 

Another app that I use with my phone that I think will be beneficial to a college student is the Google Keep app. I depend on this app to stay organized. It allows me to create notes and have the ability to assess them anywhere by using my Google account. I can speak a voice memo and the app transcribes it to text and catalogs it for me. It has a very simple “to-do” program that I like very much. I often sync with my tablet. This app is free and can be downloaded from Google’s Playstore.

Unit 2 Assignment 2

Unit 2-Assignment 2

  1. http://www.justfacts.com

Currency-The information found on the Just Fact site seems to be current information on topics that may be of value to a researcher to investigate. There are many topics on this site serving many different interests. There is a Just Facts Daily category on this site, but the most current date I found was May 13, 2015.

 

Relevancy-Although there are many topics on this site, none give the depth nor breadth needed to do successful research. Many of the articles have tags, some even credible, but not enough for one to spend time here.

 

Authority-This site relies on the work James D. Agresti and Stephen Cardone. I cannot find ther credentials anywhere on their site. The two researchers depend on the work of other researchers. The site does not give the qualifications of Agresti and Cardone as researchers. Most of their work is opinionated.

 

Accuracy-The accuracy of the information in this site is dubious. Most articles are not verified. Little references are given. There are too many personal views submitted in its articles. No peer reviewed articles found. This site also refer to its own articles for references that are not confirmed.

 

Purpose-The site states that, the mission of Just Facts is to research and publish verifiable facts about leading public policy of our time. I find the site entertaining with some thought provoking ideas on certain topics. I do question the validity of most of its articles. There is biase in its works. This site claims to be a non-profit, but true research doe not solicit funds to “shift public opinion”.

 

  1. http://www.factcheck.org

Currency-I find the most of the articles to be current and fairly up to date. The most current was June 19, 2015 (Where Does Clinton Money Go?).

Relevance-This site is rich in statistics that would be relevant to me if I need to investigate a topic. The statistics relates to the topic. Most articles have tags that lead to other sites that strengthen the facts given in the article.

Authority-This site is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. The URL of this site contains a “.org”, which in most cases gives it some credibility.

Accuracy-Because of the statistical nature of this site and the background of it authors, the information in its articles will more likely than not be true.

Purpose-Factcheck.org aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics by monitoring the accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. Their goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding.

 

Unit 2: Assignment 1

 

I did my search on genealogy and slavery. I am in the process of undertaking our family history pre-1886. This is the date of my earliest born relative. Google, Yahoo, and Bing were chosen as the individual search engines and Dogpile, WebCrawler, and Ask were the chosen meta-search engines.

The similarities that I find between the two search engines is that they both attempt to direct the researcher according to the key words placed in the string box. In placing my query, all of the search engines referred Ancesty.com in at least the top five results.

A major difference is that the relevance in the individual search topic appeared more readily and more information was given in the individual search engine. There also seems to be more URLs with domain names that appear to be more credible. Some meta-search engines have questionable references or do not immediately address the search unless one of the Boolean Operators is used. I also find quite a bit of ads in some of the meta-search engines which makes me want to question the sites purpose. This is not to say that all meta-search engines are not useful. In my investigation, I found Dogpile.com to have as much CRAAP as Google. Many of my classmates found the opposite. Certainly the search inquiry may have a lot to do with it.

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