Taking Notes

Throughout my academic history, I've rarely found use for taking notes. I always excelled in school, and 'got' concepts easily, but after becoming an adult and going over a decade without any school, I've found that it's a bit harder for me to keep up.

I've found that, in many subjects, the writing involved in taking notes actually helps me learn, which is something that either didn't happen before, or maybe that I just didn't need any help learning.

With this type of research, though, some sort of note-taking is pretty much necessary. My old standby of leaving browser tabs open has proven extremely unwieldy, and I find that I need some sort of a document to keep links in. I've taken to using http://www.bibme.org as a combination note-taker and working bibliography tracker. It works reasonably well for web-sourced articles. When I find a link I know I'm going to want later, I feed it into bibme, and it tries to pull out relevant info in order to make an MLA works cited page out of it, and then prompts for any of the info it can't determine for you. That way, when it comes time to actually create a works cited from it, I can pull out the sources I want, and then tweak them if the format doesn't look right. But in any case, it gets the article source, title, author, date, etc, as well as keeping track of the date I read the article. It then alphabetizes them properly in a works cited page, as well as gives you a place to add any kind of annotations. While I'm noting the site, I generally grab a section of the page that I know I'm going to want to come back to and paste it in inside quote marks. This gives me decent MLA-formatted works cited, in addition to some sort of indicator of just why I wanted to save it.

While I wouldn't blindly turn in this works cited page, it does give me a really handy starting point of a works cited as well as serving the purpose of notes. I've now gone through and moved all my "tabs I left open so I could find them later" into there, and am fairly pleased. It will then export it as a text file, which I pull into Google Docs for easy access/editing from anywhere I happen to want to work on things.

I highly recommend that anyone who needs to take notes on sources as well as keep track of them for a works cited page check out bibme, as it's serving both these services rather well for me. Now I can go through the generated works cited, look at the bits I quoted in order to figure out why I wanted to reference the article. I can then go through and do proper annotations whenever I want, replacing quoted bits with relevant source info such as authority and intended readership.

For me, taking notes is more so I can easily find the info later, and this technique seems to work extremely well.

Task 21 Blog Post

While I'm not really finding any dead ends, I do keep finding things that make me want to widen the scope of my topic, which is already too wide. A lot of the sources the wikipedia article pulls from seem really valuable, as well as opinions from science bloggers, though as Jillian has seen, those types of sources usually have a pretty obvious bias and it can be difficult to establish any credibility. At this point I'm not really sure what's going to happen, because I'm not sure I'll really be able to get 12 pages out of just homeopathy alone, and really want to include things like people who refuse medical treatment for various reasons, whether they be trust in homeopathy or religious faith. I suppose trust in God could be considered "alternative medicine," but I'm pretty sure it doesn't belong in my paper. I guess I'll just have to see what happens.

The topic is really interesting to me, but I'm beginning to worry that I'm going to have to focus on less interesting aspects of it because the interesting bits are kind of all over the place. I'm actually kind of stressing out a bit about it. Also, I'm pretty confident that I'm not going to find anything that will change my mind, so it feels a bit self-serving to just keep finding things that confirm what I already know. For me, there's nothing worse than just trying to add things to a paper to get it up to the required length, which is how I worry it's going to go. In other papers I've done, I've generally had to trim things to get them down to length, but this is I think the longest I've done, and I'm really worried that a focused topic won't really fill it. I also suspect that I'm not going to be able to answer the question that I find most interesting. (Is the relationship between distrust of science and trust in alternative medicines a causal link? Does a rise in one cause a rise in the other?)

So what started out as a paper of discovery is kind of becoming a paper that's just me finding things to back up the opinions I already have, and I'm not terribly happy about that. Hopefully once I really get started on the writing things will make more sense, and I'll lead myself down roads that end up in discovery. As it is now, I'm not terribly good at looking for information without a real focus. I can find a bunch of links and sources, but it's not really until I start getting it put together that the data becomes useful for me. Then I start to know what else to look for and things just go from there. I hope.

This kind of paper is pretty new to me, though I have done much smaller versions of the same sort of thing over the last few years for fun on my blog. I hope I can sort of take what I'd learned from that medium of writing and apply to to the somewhat more rigid format of this particular paper. One area that really troubles me, though, is citing sources. In a blog it's relatively easy because it's easy to link sections of text directly to their sources, and even present quoted material inside blockquote elements, leaving almost no risk of plagiarism at all. I really am having trouble with quoting snippets of text, or even summarizing them as part of the body of my text without completely ruining the flow. As I read other people's papers, the quoted sections are almost always really painful to read, because it's really tricky to incorporate another person's voice into the flow of yours. Hopefully that'll work itself out, too. I don't have a problem with a works cited page, it's just actually referring to the works in my work that's giving me trouble. Any suggestions for help in that area would be much appreciated.

Does anyone (Gail?) have any particularly good examples of passages where people have directly quoted (or even paraphrased) sections of other people's works that fit well into the flow of the author's work? I can't recall seeing any -- but I suspect it's like good score in a film; if you notice it, it's because it's not good. Great scores are almost never noticed, because they're doing exactly what they're supposed to do by making you feel something without realizing you're being manipulated. Anyway, I hope I can crib some technique from somewhere, so anywhere you can point me would also be appreciated.

Task 13 Blog Post

focused research question:

As pseudo-science gains ground on more accepted evidence-based sciences, are the ramifications of this more positive or more negative? Is the acceptance of pseudo-science a problem, or is it more or a symptom indicating a larger problem?

search terms:

• "prevalence of homeopathy"
• "science behind homeopathy"
• "pseudoscience deaths"
• "alternative medicine deaths"
• "ramifications of pseudoscience"
• "distrust of science"
• "pharmaceutical distrust"

Task 9 Blog Post

What I Already Know:

• Science education in the US is remarkably poor. See: the fact that there's even a debate over whether Intelligent Design or Creationism ought be taught in science class. (Hint: neither Intelligent Design nor Creationism have proposed any type of testable hypothesis, and thus are not science. They don't belong in science class any more than they belong in algebra class.)
• non-scientific "medical" remedies are an incredibly lucrative industry
• "alternative" medicines, including homeopathic remedies and others are not overseen by the FDA, hence an unknown danger factor
• Homeopathy is not, as most people assume, "natural" medicine. Homeopathy is a specific doctrine of pseudoscience that relies on magic-like phenomenon that belies all scientific knowledge
• previously eradicated diseases such as polio and measles are making a dramatic comeback due to parents not vaccinating their children properly.
• People distrust the pharmaceutical industry (yet they trust the un-regulated "alternative" medicine industry??)
• People distrust the government, and are suspicious of their recommendations, including vaccines
• Many people who otherwise could still be alive today have died because of medical remedies and advice that were not based on science, whether it be alternative medicine or simply religious faith that prevents vaccinations.

Possible Questions about My Topic

• Why don't people trust the pharmaceutical industry?
• Why don't people trust scientific research?
• How much role does religious faith play in the anti-vaccine movement?
• How many people die in the US every year as a result of non-science-based medical care?
• When did the anti-vaccination movement start?
• How has the relationship between anti-vaccine movement and the "vaccines cause autism" movement combined to stoke fear?
• Are any vaccine fears justified?
• Why do we vaccinate anyway?
• What is the relationship between vaccines and autism?
• How much of the popularity of alternative medicine is on account of the profits made by alternative medicine providers?
• How much of the popularity of pseudoscience can be put at the feet of irresponsible media personalities such as Oprah Winfrey, Jenny McCarthy and Kevin Trudeau
• Can a few bad apples in a particular alternative medicine field "ruin the whole bunch?"
• If a non-science remedy has no directly harmful effects, can a practitioner who recommends it over one that's been proven to work be held responsible?

Personal Experience

• interaction with family chiropractor led me to question things
• chiropractor "diagnosed" my faulty gallbladder based on reflexology test
• (I don't have a faulty gallbladder. And why is someone whom I saw because of back pain diagnosing organ problems? What the heck is reflexology?)
• I recently found another chiropractor who actively encourages people to avoid the flu shot and other vaccines, in favor of paying him for what he calls a "flu adjustment."
• Other local chiropractor who cures pain by moving his hands through your "aura" to manipulate your chi field. Upward motion helps cure pain, downward motion causes it. "You need uplifting energy."

Pseudo Science / Immunation Fears Section Ideas

Immunization fears

• Basis/origin of fears (misinformation, faith, distrust in "the man")
• Intent of vaccines (prevent diseases in individuals, but more importantly, in the population at large. "Herd immunity")
• Outbreaks as a result of lowered herd immunity
• Criminal charges filed against anti-vaccination parents

distrust of science leading to rise of pseudo-science

• homeopathy is extremely nutty, yet people buy into it on account of being so afraid of vaccines/big pharma
• miracle cures
• fear (ties into first section) that leads to distrust
• distrust that arises from willful misleading for profit

lack of science understanding leading to rise of pseudo-science

• faith's downplay of evolution-based thinking
• faulty reporting (media) leading people to think science doesn't know what the heck it is thinking

Task 8 Blog Post

This is always the most difficult part of a paper for me; possibly it's a problem with commitment making me afraid to nail down a topic, or maybe it's like wading into a river in the late spring, hesitant to let the water touch your dry bathing suit. There are tons of expressions regarding starting, but they all seem to involve feet: jump in with both feet, getting your feet wet, etc. Feet aren't a trouble for me, it's the bathing suit that's the problem.

I'm leaning towards a topic that lies somewhere in the spectrum of pseudo-science claims and their effect on the health of both individuals and society. One specific area that interests me is in the anti-vaccination movement, both in regards to autism and separate from it. (These are two different issues, but with significant overlap as either group sees advantages of aligning with the other.) Another similar area is in the distrust of science/pharma causing a rise in non-science- based "medicine," specifically Homeopathy. While there are many things in nature that we derive medicines from, and much value to be gained from "natural cures," Homeopathy offers exactly none of them, actually contributing healing attributes to magic after it was shown that Homeopathic remedies actually contain nothing more than water. Since there's nothing in the water, it's the magical vibrations of the water that heals. Magic.

I know some about a lot of different topics in the pseudo-science area, but I'm hoping to be able to incorporate a bunch of them and focus on that harm that's done. I know there is harm done, what I'm hoping to learn is the extent of it. It'd also be interesting to include the positive aspects of medicine that has absolutely no science behind it, but I'm not really expecting to find any.

I'm not quite sure about trying to keep track of my search efforts. It feels kind of funny. Still, here goes...

Thus far, I haven't had a huge amount of time for research, so this may end up being a bit sparse for now.

Starting off with Google:

"vaccination fears" , "homeopathy deaths" , "pseudoscience deaths"

Those searches turned up a number of interesting sources, albeit with somewhat questionable credibility. Much of the interesting stats and info are found on openly anti-pseudoscience sites, so I'll need to be careful there. The list of deaths found here is both eye opening and depressing.

This account of an orthodox church whose congregation refused vaccinations, leading to a major measles outbreak is kind of interesting.

This article does a pretty good job at explaining some contributing factors in autism-specific fears.

I think I want to focus a section on the wide variety of diseases that non-vaccination has contributed to the spread of (swine flu, measles, polio, hepatitis, mumps, whooping cough, etc), and a section on the different reasons people cite for the skipping of vaccines. Perhaps a bit of faith-specific reasoning. (I.e. HPV vaccine denied by people of faith because it's an admission that their child may one day have sex.)

The CDC's vaccination page.

The next resource I checked out was Google Books:

"homeopathy" turned up many interesting-looking books, several from over 150 years ago. These could be useful to show how outdated modes of "science" continue to be followed.

Here's an article from the World Health Organization regarding the current state of vaccines.

"anti-vaccination" turned up a number of surprisingly old (pre-1900) newspaper/magazine/book articles talking about the anti-vaccination movement even then. This could be used to show how things stay the same as much as they change.

"autism vaccine" turned up this interesting report that may well have kicked off much of the modern ant-vaccination movement.

Then I checked out Google Scholar, but a fairly large number of the results didn't include any actual article, rather required you to purchase copies or pay to access article review services. It does like like a fair amount of info there, so perhaps I can find the resultant articles via other means.

Jan 6th

I'm not entirely sure what we're supposed to be posting here...

So, in the meantime, if anyone would like to see what I get up to outside of class, my own personal blog is at nyquil.org , and you can find me on Twitter here.

My blog is pretty neglected these days, and I only really post techy howto-type stuff, but I used to get up to all sorts of wacky shenanigans, including:

Solving the world's fuel shortages , shaved the Batman logo into my chest hair , terrible movie posters like this , and still-popular investigation into allegations that popular a starlet's boobs are altered on posters.