Public Transit

My topic for the final was Public Transit. Because this is such a broad subject, I decided to narrow it down to the transit available in the Bay Area: the BART. This is my essay on the subject and what I learned.
The first thing I did was go to the Academic Search Premier, being the database I am most familiar with. I looked up the word “BART” and “public transit.” From this I got only one result. Fortunately, this was very helpful. The article was called How to get Around Busy Cities by Harriet Baskas. It was taken out from the USA Today and written on October 14, 2004. The article talks about public transportation in different cities and how it can be a nuisance. I learned that besides the BART, other transportation cable cars, historic streetcars, buses, trolleys, and light rail, which is different than the BART.
Next I went to a disciplinary database. For this database I used the Business Source Premier. This time I typed in the words “BART” and “Bay Area” to see how many results I would get. I used this database because I believed the BART plays a major part in the Bay Area’s economy, giving the area a lot of business and money; however, this was not so, as I found out in the article, Without Full Funding, Bay Area's Rail Extension at Standstill by Jackie Cohen from the 358th volume of the Bond Buyer, published on November 15, 2006. The article states that there is a $5.8 billion shortage of funds and, without those funds it impossible to extend the Bay Area Rapid Transit as far as San Jose. This makes it hard for business because they cannot extend the BART to San Jose, which would make it a lot more profitable for the business.
After that, I went to the World Wide Web, and who else gives you more results than Google? So I went to Google. First I put in “BART.” The first result was the official site for the BART. I tried typing in “BART” and “public transit,” but it gave me the same results. I decided to go into the website, since it is the best place to learn about the BART. In the website, I found all the places and times where/when the BART stops. There was also a section where it shows you how to purchase your tickets. I thought this was of some help, since the first time I went on the BART I had no idea what to do or how to purchase a ticket. I also found out that as of January 1, 2008, there will be new fares and schedule. Last thing I found out is that on December 22, 2007 all kids twelve and under ride free, thanks to Kaiser Permanente.
Lastly, I went to the Catalog. I found a book where that talks about the history of the BART. The book is called A history of the key decisions in the development of Bay Area Rapid Transit : BART impact program. It was located in the oversized stacks of the library. Its call number is HE4491.S49 M37. This explained how the decisions of the BART idea came to be back in 1946. It gave the history of the BART in a timeline manner, according to the decisions that were made.
Throughout my search there were times when I did not find anything or I did not find what I wanted to find. This happened to me particularly when I was looking under different disciplinary databases. Some databases showed zero results, no matter how much I changed my words. Other times, all I had to do was add or take away a word to give me the results I wanted. Other times, like when I looked on Google, it gave me the same results, and none of them stuck out. I would continue my search by asking the following questions:
· How did the BART system help expand the Bay Area?
· How will the State come up with the $5.8 billion needed to expand the BART system?
To find this out, the two databases I would use would be:
· America: History and Life
· Britannica Online

Self-Assessment Essay

This class has been a very helpful one. I was able to recognize and articulate information needed by doing all the homework exercises. In each of the homework assignments, we had to look for new information on a certain topic. In my case, I chose a very complex subject: Socrates; However, thanks to this, I was able to formulate a research question. This was not always easy because the information I found on Socrates was repetitive, but I always did my best by asking a new question every time I found something new. By formulating a research topic, I was able to develop and apply appropriate search strategies. These include putting in search terms relevant to the subject, not putting in conjunction words (such as “and,” “in,” etc.), and using different databases and search engines. Depending on my results, I was able to evaluate strategies and results, and revise them. Many times I found myself changing my search terms and databases. These databases are found in the Library section of the university’s website. This I found very helpful when searching ceratin topics. Something that I found somewhat difficult was to describe research processes and communicate results. It is very hard to do this because when searching for something, I usually do not keep track of what I do. Communicating results is really not hard at all, if you find what you are looking for. What makes this hard is that I think that some of the information is not worthwhile, so I discard it. Lastly, it is important to understand and apply principles of information ethics. This will help us find information a lot easier in the future, not just in school, but in life as well.
Like I said before, some things were particularly hard for me. I think this is partly because I had a complex topic. I also did not know what I wanted to find out, which was my mistake; I knew I wanted to find out about Socrates, but I did not know what I wanted to find out about him. For this reason, I kept finding the same information, and most of my blog entries had the same information. Another mistake I made was to keep researching the same search terms all the time. If I wanted better results, I should have changed my search terms around.
For the most part, this is a very good class that I think is very helpful. Though I knew many of the things that were discussed, some of the things were new to me. I know this class will stick with me throughout my years in college. Even now I find myself going into the school library databases and searching terms for my other classes. The database that has helped me the most has been the Britannica Online and the Academic Search Premier. I go into those all the time now, instead of just using Google. I will continue to grow because, after all, it is a life-long process. The most important thing that I learned in this class is not to give up searching, just change my search terms a little bit. I also learned not to “discard” any information because any information is important. Overall, I learned researching a topic is harder than anyone would think!