Self-Gratuity Essay

Again and again, I am requested to regurgitate information from rote memorization and cite evidence of said memorization. Again and again, I purposefully include logically-reached opinions because I care for an education; (GASP) more than I care about a graduation plague. Although unpopular (even for my mom), I would rather learn how to live well, than learn how to live for a paycheck. While we are free to pursue happiness; few realize that happiness is a form of the mind. As happiness is clearly insignificant to every human being, (again and again) teachers only ask students to exercise the intellectual capacity of computer memory. So much for happiness.

Anyways, information is a cornerstone of human civilization. From instruction manuals to blueprints, information is highly practical. Information can also be strongly theoretical, such as concepts or ideas. The mass quantity of information has led to the need of organization of it; libraries and databases are products of this need. However, an understanding of information, its organization, and its ethics is helpful in maximizing its usefulness.

There are no information "needs," but only informational wants. We want to have libraries. We want databases. We want to easily access information. We want blueprints, schematics, and statistics; because we want to continue having mansions, nuclear weapons, and stereotypes. Just like how we want to continue having comfort, hospitals, and social-awareness. But, what we want the most is to cheat hard work. We want it so badly that we have nicknamed it as a "need." And what we want is to learn what took others years to discover... but within the lines of a journal article. An example from my portfolio is unnecessary to illustrate this; the volumes upon volumes waiting upon library shelves are far more examples than I can ever cite.

I did not learn how to formulate a research question in our library class; I learned how to formulate research questions in our library class. I learned not how to create an initial research question; I learned how to broaden and narrow the initial research question to discover more research questions. An example of a broadened and narrowed initial research question is found on my research log entry from October 11, 2007. My initial research question in that log entry is, “Do we profile people based on their age?” I broadened that question by asking, “What is profiling and how do we use it?” And I then narrowed the question by asking, “Do people of differing ages, in general, treat each other differently?” Yet more, I learned how to strategically explore my question.

Formulating a research question is not practical enough; one must be capable of exploring a research question with haste and dexterity in order to meet practicality. Simplifying research terms is an easy way to increase the number of results. Let us simplify, "The connection between the body and the soul" to the simpler, "soul and body." By doing this, a search engine such as Google will limit the search to results with the words "soul" and "body," rather than searching for websites that include the words and phrases: "The connection" and "between" and "the body" and "the soul." In a database, there are the Boolean operators "and" and "or." If the Boolean operator of "and" is used in a database search with the terms "body" and "soul," results with both the terms will be identified. I used the terms “justice” and “philosophy” in this manner to find sources that contained both terms for my research log entry on October 18, 2007. The Boolean operator of “or” serves a different function. A database search that uses the Boolean operator of "or," with the search terms "body" and "soul," will show results that contains either of the words. However, these strategies should not be applied for the sake of application.

Search strategies should be carried out with intents; not because they are strategies. Humans talk in order to communicate; not because humans are humans. If I were to limit a database search of the terms "body" and "soul" with the Boolean operator of "or," I should not do so for its own sake; I should do so because I want to find results about only the body or just about the soul. Strategies should be executed with intents, but also revised to meet the intents. My research log entry from October 18, 2007 records my use of the Boolean operator “and” to find results containing both the terms “justice” and “philosophy.”

In order to effectively use traditional and new library resources and tools, an understanding of how to use them must be developed. To find a book using a call number, an understanding of what a call number represents is helpful. An understanding of Boolean operators is useful in a search for both the terms “body” and “soul.” My research log entry from October 18, 2007 illustrates my understanding of the Boolean operator “and” to find results containing both the terms “justice” and “philosophy.”

The aim of research is to find sources with authority, angle, and topic relevance. Research processes are used to carry out this aim. In addition to my search term “justice,” I use the search term “philosophy” to find sources with philosophical angles in my research log entry from October 18, 2007.

We also have a thing such as information ethics. The purpose of things such citations and bibliographies is to give credit to the author of a work. But if anything, information ethics is an information code of honor. A strong value of our current society is ownership. It is not the pen that I use; it is my pen. It is not the house that I live in; it is my house. It is not the information that I discovered; it is my information. Commercialism only further encourages our attraction to ownership. Not only is it my pen, but it is my pen that I bought. Not only is it my house, but it is my house that I bought. And not only is it my information, but it is my information that I can sell. Information ethics exists not to ethically share information, but to appease the owner's ego. Developing author's rights movements, such as Creative Commons seek to eliminate the commercial aspect, while continuing to note the author of a work. However, it should be noted that if the many were asked if hard work should be acknowledged, the many would cry yes. Although, if asked whether the author’s honor or information is useful to more people; it would be clear that information is useful to more people. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that every author will train himself or herself to reject ownership, therefore movements such as Creative Commons are practical for allowing maximal access to information while preserving the author’s ownership.

My only significant failures involved using too specific or too broad search terms, which often resulted in no results or too many results. The Golden Mean is an appropriate solution to these problems. I quickly solved these problems by broadening search terms that were too specific, or by narrowing search terms that were too broad. However, I do not understand how successes or failures can be “solved” (as stated in the rubric). So, I will also write on behalf of my successes. I believe these can be “solved” – or further explored – by developing new research questions that are raised by the results of the initial research question.

Clearly, I am capable of memorizing and citing information as the assignment requested. Of course I can endlessly type out lies about how I made progress achieving the course objectives, and rummage for some examples of how I did so. However, my essay included a bunch of fluff that contained nonsense such as opinions and thought. Therefore, I should be marked down accordingly for wordiness.