10 Minute Fastwrite

10 Minute Fastwrite #1

My past experience with notetaking is just what I have had to do for school. In high school I was in the International Baccalaureate Program, which is like advanced placement, so there was a lot more notetaking than regular classes, which had me much better prepared for college. I also took an English 101 class where the professor did things a little bit differently, what I mean is that the class was not focused on grammar, like most English 101 classes, it was more of reading, writing, developing intellectual thought and writing a 6-9 page paper. Note taking does not help me much, when I read something and I know Ill want to use it later in a paper then I just remember where it was in the source and refer back to it when it is time to use it. I like to do it this way because if I take notes and change some of the authors words i might unintentionally plagiarize when I try to reword it in my paper, so I feel its best to just refer back to the original. What I just mentioned is the only way notetaking would have got in my way in previous research projects. The only notetaking that I do that I would consider beneficial would be in class lecture note taking, without lecture notes, I may have been in some trouble.

Task 21 Developing Knowledge

1. I have been searching for more information concerning my topic, The Electoral College, using the search engines, Google, Proquest, Gale, and the Opposing Viewpoints Center. I found about 4 more sources that I think are credible enough to use in my paper:
www.uselectionatlas.org
www.caclean.org
www.learnnc.org
and a book posted on
www.sup.org

One dead end I found is Proquest, which is my favorite of the afore mentioned search engines, so I was disappointed that I could not find anything useful there.

Really useful Search Terms would have to be:
"Electoral College U.S."
"Changes Electoral College"
"Abolishment Electoral College"
"Electoral College History"

I think I found plenty of information about the Electoral College, and the only thing I really need help with is grammar in my Final Research Paper, I've got search engines down.

Task 13: Playing with Search Terms

My research question is: Is the Electoral College Objective?

Search Terms:
The Electoral College
Electors
Fairness of The Electoral College
Electoral College Controverses
Electoral College Reform
Electoral College Democratic Republic
Electoral College Fairness
Electoral College Peridential Candidiates
Swing Vote
Popular Vote vs Electoral Vote
Why do people vote?
Electoral College History
Electoral College Creation
Electoral College Issues


That was just a few search terms I have been using/Brainstormed, If anyone else can think of any search terms, be sure to let me know!

Ok So I am Back to The Electoral College....

Ok, I am back on the Electoral College as my tenative topic.

What I Already Know

• The basics of how The Electoral College works.
• The Electoral College needs to be capitalized like I have done, but for the rest of this blog I am going to refer to it as the EC.
• The EC was first started because of transportation issues and the general lack of intelligence of the American People.
• CA is currently in the process of a reform attempt of the EC.
• The majority of the controversy is based on equal voting rights and unconstitutionality
• Most people do not appreciate the EC.
• The EC is somewhat outdated.
• When the Electors vote, they do not have to go with the general public vote, it's which ever way they want to vote.
• The EC is based on the Roman Republic, and we all know how that ended.

Possible Questions About My Topic

• Do most Americans know how the EC works?
• Do they have an opinion on the EC?/How do they feel?
• Does the EC create a biased vote?
• Is the EC Fair?
• Does the EC fit into the catergory of a Democratic Republic?
• Why do we need it now?
• Why are people for the EC?
• What do politicians/presidential candidates think about the EC?
• Why is the EC still around?
• Who are the electors?
• Who chooses the electors?
• Why isn't this subject talked about more?
• Why isn't there more information widespread?
• Why don't people care about the EC?
• Are there more areas of controversy for the EC?
• Do presidential candidates pay/wine and dine the Electors?
• Are the Electors deeply involved in the EC
• What is a Swing Vote?
• Why do we even hold a popular vote if it doesn't count for anything?
• How come people don't care about their right to vote?
• Why is voting considered boring?
• Why hasn't the subject of change come up more bluntly?

Anyone have any more questions to add???

Research Paper Topic #2

OK, so I've been thinking about the topic that I wrote about in my fist blog, I'm not a passionate political type, I don't even belong to/want to choose a respective party, and I feel like The Electoral College is an easy topic because there is so much information out there, and where it does intrigue and interest me I feel a lack of passion. I am really interested in health and fitness, but I feel like I can't use that topic because this paper is not supposed to be a "how to.." as stated in the choosing your topic document posted on Blackboard, by Gale. I also feel like it is hard to find a controversial health/fitness topic. I would really love to talk about obesity/nutrition/sedentary lifestyle, I can see how obesity is a huge problem, with several very different avenues of resolution, so I can see the possibility of a controversy, but the only real controversy I can see is losing weight the right way or the wrong way, or the failure/denial of people to notice that their weight is a problem. But then I feel like I've come full circle back to the forbidden "how to.." paper. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated, I will also send this to Gale.

Thanks
Jen

Tenative Reseach Paper Topic

Is our Election Process Fair?
My interest in this topic streams from our ever-failing government's lack of consideration of the choices we as a people make.
There are several choices to make about how to write this research paper, but the stance is clearly for or against. I think I have made my choice to possibly leave mine elusive to the reader until the final sentance.
***What do you think? Do you think Gale told us it was ok to voice our opinon and use "I" throughout our essay because we have the option to or because she wants us to?

My working knowledge of the Elcetoral College is somewhat up to date, but here are a few tools I like to use:

I really love the search engine, google, I know it's not the most reliable seach tool, but if you read over the URLs on each result in search of .org or .edu it usually turns up some credible leads.

I also tried the Gale Virtual Library as Gale suggested. It was very infomative and gave me some great leads on published books and encycolpedia entries, concerning the Electoral College.

I also tried Google Scholar, it wasn't as helpful as the two pevious but, it did turn up some reliable sources.

An interesting fact I found was that California has landed the "Californian Fair Elections Act on their ballot for June 2010!

If any of you have any advice on this topic it would be greatly appreciated, any thoughts, ideas or suggestions.
Do you think that I will be able to come up with enough information to write 10-12 pages?
Do you have any ideas as to what I should use as paragraph topics, or any points of interest or argumentative ideas? Please Comment.

Thanks, Jen