Week 8 - Thoughts on Literature Review

Photo source:  scienceanonymous.com

Wow, we did it!  This class has been difficult and amazing!  I have learned so much.  I had some expectations when this class started and the knowledge that I have gained has far exceeded what I imagined.  I won’t say it was easy, because it was far from that, I found all of the projects to be time consuming – but also very helpful in the process of being a student.

Writing the literate review has been a very long and tedious process of reading, re-reading and evaluating all of the articles that I have gathered through this course.  The way that this has affected the way that I think about research in the future is that when I make a decision to use the literature that I find, I will take careful notes as I read through it.  I want to note things that I learned, make areas that are questions for me, and finally, I will note anything that brings up more questions.  I feel that doing the process like that, will help me to gain a better understanding of my literature, and will avoid double work.

The part that I found difficult with the literature review is forming my own thoughts and opinions, because I am (was) so used to paraphrasing or citing what the researcher discovered and thinks about what they wrote.

My topic question has evolved slightly, but overall the idea has remained the same.  What did change is the way that I approached the question, and how I answered it.  I had a concept in mind about how I would tackle the research and as I read more articles, I changed my keywords. 

Since my research question was to learn about neuropsychology vs therapy in the field of psychology, I think that there will always be question, and answers and then more questions.

Good luck all! 

~Belinda Echevers….signing off.

Plagiarism is Fraud and the punishment is not worth it...Be Original, Think for Yourself!!!!

Source for image: www.sodahead.com

“…plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward.” (plagiarism.org)

I wouldn’t knowingly plagiarize words or an idea, if I came up with the idea myself based on things that I have learned in the past, and along the way of life and education, then it is my idea.  What I fear is: Maybe I thought of a brilliant idea that was unique and all my own, only to remember at a later time that I did in fact get the idea from someone else, but I didn't remember.  

I have had issues with people stealing my ideas at work and I know how much it hurt and how angry I was, someone took the possibility of my ability to earn a raise because they took my idea, it's infuriating.  So knowing that, I would not want to plagiarize anything.   Even if a person wanted to plagiarize, these days, that is practically impossible because of all the on-line resources to prevent it.  I do have to admit; that in my earlier years, prior to having this in-depth knowledge about plagiarism, I have plagiarized, by using someone’s idea that I found on-line and re-worded it using my own words thinking that since it was my words, that it is magically mine, of course now I know that it is wrong and would never do that again.

There is an issue that I have with filing to “Patent” an idea or invention, maybe I need to look into the rules further because I don’t have the whole story? The way I understand it, when you file for a patent, your patent application and description becomes public information – then a “patent troll” can come along and steal your idea.  In any case, I think that people should get credit for anything that they do, invent, create and write. 

Here is a great website that explains plagiarism in detail:  http://www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism-101/what-is-plagiarism

The Development of My Annotated Bibliography

Hello classmates,

This has been a long and educational journey.  I would like to begin with my research question:

Neurobiophysiology verses psychotherapy, which field of study is more dominant in the field of psychology?

Ultimately my goal was to learn more about each field so that I could narrow down the path that I want to follow in my new career.  There are so many interesting aspects of psychology and many directions to take that even narrowing it down to the two branches was not easy, I wanted my research question to be more like “Neurobiopsysiology vs. psychotherapy vs. Interactive Therapy vs. Clinical vs. Forensic Psychology” but I didn’t think that I would be able to conduct all of the research necessary during the timeframe of this class (and I don’t think that Professor Macomber would have approved my question).  

In order to answer my question, I wanted to learn about the current studies that were being conducted, and understand the depth that each discipline follows.  The deeper I read and researched, the more amazing material I found, I could do this for a year and not run out of material, but I did have to stop at some point.

My search paths have a definite improvement from the way I started this class, I always thought that Google knew what I was talking about, so I would type my question and hope for the best.  Now I understand Boolean searches, using AND, and also quotation marks, plus I love the limitations I can add to my search such as “time frame” and “full-text only and “full download available”  Knowing this way to search has changed my world.  For this assignment I added my first key word, then changed my AND word, even added and additional AND word, I had to change my first word and then results were fantastic.  Even though neurobiophysiology is a real word, it’s fairly new to the industry and didn’t come up in searches.  From my first search in the beginning of this class of: “Oh my gosh, what the heck is this stuff? To my last search when I wanted to read every article that I found, I am a changed person thanks to this class.  I hit the jackpot when I found the last book:  Pioneering Studies in Cognitive Neuroscience.

The sources that I used are all credible because I used the CRAAP test (I still can’t say that without giggling).  I made sure that my information was current, it was related to my topic, the sources had qualified credentials, there was evidence to back-up the information and there were not any political or religious affiliations to my knowledge.

I was able to learn about the technological advances, studies that are being conducted today by some of the brilliant minds in the field.  Knowing what is current will allow me to (outside of this class) search, based on what I learned here, for research labs, and institutions in my area that are hiring for the work that I am most interested in.

With the understanding that the field of psychology changes with our culture, there will always be different things to study.  For example, learning about the effects of videos games in today’s youth was not a question on anyone’s mind in the 1960’s.  Also, today we know so much more about the brain, so the expansion of experiments and field studies increases exponentially.  References

Books:

Villalba, E., & Costa, A. (2013). Horizons in Neuroscience Research. New York: Nova Science Publishers. Roche, R. P., & Commins, S. (2009). Pioneering Studies in Cognitive Neuroscience. Maidenhead, England: McGraw-Hill Education.

Online Resources:

OGDEN PHD, J. So You Want to Be a Neuropsychologist? In-text: (Ogden PhD)

Bibliography: Ogden PhD, Jenni. 'So You Want To Be A Neuropsychologist?'. Psychology Today. N.p., 2015. Web. 17 June 2015.

BUCKS, R. S., OLAITHE, M. and EASTWOOD, P. (2013), Neurocognitive function in obstructive sleep apnoea: A meta-review. Respirology, 18: 61–70. doi: 10.1111/j.1440-1843.2012.02255.x

Peer Reviewed/Academic Journals:

Marlatt, L. (2014). THE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY BEHIND CHOICE THEORY: FIVE BASIC NEEDS. International Journal Of Choice Theory & Reality Therapy,34(1), 16-21.

Scarpazza, C., Braghittoni, D., Casale, B., Malagú, S., Mattioli, F., di Pellegrino, G., & Ladavas, E. (2013). Education protects against cognitive changes associated with multiple sclerosis. Restorative Neurology & Neuroscience, 31(5), 619-631. doi:10.3233/RNN-120261

My search process “Peer Reviewed Articles”

As I continue my research and get a better understanding of how to use databases, and refine my search criteria, I recognize that there is a lot more information already published than I realized in the beginning.  When I first started the research, I was getting a high number of results from the search engine, however, most of the results were insignificant or unrelated to my specific need.  It was a bit frustrating to learn how to navigate through the search process and learn how to limit the search criteria and use specific combinations of words.  The end result is so rewarding, because the final search that I did yielded over 900 results and I was interested in the first 60 article titles that I read, so I know that it was a good search, so I am going to save it.

My search process “Peer Reviewed Articles”

Neuropsychology AND Research à results 16,846

Changed second word to “Occupation” à results 93

That search gave me “occupational related neuropsychological disorders” (not what I am looking for)

The next search: Neuropsychology AND Studies AND Cognitive à results 12,715

After reading through the first 3 pages of results (30 articles) I realized that I am close, but I still do not have exactly what I was looking for.  So I decided to change my search a little.

My new search:

Boolean/Phrase: “Neuropsychology AND Research” à results 996

Neuropsychology AND research

Limiters

·       Full Text

·       Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals

·       Published Date: 2014-2015

At this point I was happy with the results (like a child in a candy store) and wanted to read every article I found.

A Better Understanding - More Research and A Glass of Wine

For this weeks assignment I wanted to learn more about the field of neuropsychology.  There are so many different paths to choose and when I decided which path I will take, I want to make an informed decision.  In my first search using the Leatherby Libraries, I tried searching just “neuropsychology” and of course, as expected, that search term was too broad, next I used one of the suggested searches from the drop down of “suggested search” – I will post my search path below.  I ended up finding an interesting study that I wanted to read about, even though it wasn't specifically what I was looking for, it did capture my attention because of the title.  Psychology itself is a very all-encompassing term, and neuropsychology follows that same broad spectrum.  I am fascinated with the field, and I think that I want to work in the research aspect of it, but the more I read, the less I know.  I wish I could study and work in this field over three lifetimes, but I know I can’t, so I am grateful to be able to take the time to do all of this research.  Now that I started using various libraries, databases verses search engines only, to learn more about my topic, it is definitely more pleasing to me, to find all of the scholarly articles  that are there for me to read and learn from.  The other thing that I am learning is that it is quite possible that I will want to do one kind of research in the first few years and then change the course of my career.  I look forward to doing more research and making a decision one day.