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!