I awake at 3:03 a.m. in a cold sweat to find...it was just a dream.... I breath a heavy sigh of relief to find that my research nighmare was only a dream...
The thought of preparing a research paper without the Internet is truly a nightmare. As I recall the horror of my days in highschool without the Internet (yeah, I'm old), I recall some...and I strongly stress the word "some" time in the library. I was one of those students who just barely scraped by, using every single avenue available to avoid excess work or effort, knowing I could make a C without any wasted effort. Why should I bother? After all, I already knew it all...
If I were to do a research on "The Social Effects of Highschool Sports on Boys Versus Girls," and I was not afforded the opportunity of the endless resources available to me 24/7 at my craziest whim, morning, noon, or night, on the vast, vast Internet...eew...I shudder at the thought. Now this takes us a bit off track, but my schedule includes 13 credit hours, a 30 hour work week, the Coast Guard Reserves, volunteering 10 to 15 hours a month, a husband, a fifteen year old, and two dogs and a cat...okay, so the cat doesn't really count. Regardless, my schedule is a little frantic at the moment, at least for me it is. That being said, without the convenience and constant availablity of the infinite information readily available via the Web, my effort and grades would, without question, fall - no, they'd spiral out of control - with the increased need of routine trips to the library. I simply do not have the time.
As it is, the library is a necessary resource, but with the use of Yahoo, Google, and let's not forget Blackboard's plethora of illimitable database resources, we have everything we need at our fingertips...again, 24/7. With only the resources of the local library, we are severly limited in our subject matter, insight, and statistical data, which is most likely not accurate and defanitely NOT current like the up-to-the-minute data available via the Internet. The library only affords us information in written, edited, published, bound documents, not easily or consistently updated. And, OMG...what if the perfect book or periodical with the dead-on article is checked out...OMG!!! What then? Fortunately, periodicals have a shorter time limit within which to return them, if any. Many times, a periodical cannot be checked out at all. OMG...if it can't be checked out we have to make copies...lots and lots of copies...and take lots and lots of notes...OMG!!!! More time...wasted!! Whereas, with the click of the mouse, whalahhh...you can cut and paste quotes, statistics, titles, authors, etc.... With the exception of plagerizing one's work, you can pretty much cut and paste EVERYTHING!!!
"The Social Effects of Highschool Sports on Boys Versus Girls" is not an easy subject to find written, edited, published, bound documents on. Therefore, after reviewing endless sociolgy materials in an effort to find something...anything on highschool sport, I was forced to resort to non-fiction resources, i.e.: Papale, Vince & Millman, Chad. (2006). Invincible. New York: Hyperion.; Joravsky, Ben. (1995). Hoop Dreams. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.; and let's not forget those good old standbys, Sage, George H. (1998). Power and Ideology in American Sport. Chapaign, IL: Human Kinetics.; Eitzen, D. Stanley. (2001). Sport in Contemporary Society. New York, NY: Worth Publishers. In the opposite corner sits the easily found, completely current information provided with just a few clicks of the mouse and several strokes of the keyboard, i.e.: http://www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/sport/jable.html; http://irs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/16/2/5; http://www.sacbee.com/361/story/143227.html; http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ510973&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ510973; http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/pe/exs190web/190socio1.htm
While it took less than ten minutes to find online blogs, articles, statistics, etc... and cite them all with the use of my handy dandy cut-and-paste tools, it took more than, get this, three and a half hours to drive to the library, track down my resources, check out the books, drive home, and cite the materials. My nightmare has, once again, become a living, breathing reality...
The thought of preparing a research paper without the Internet is truly a nightmare. As I recall the horror of my days in highschool without the Internet (yeah, I'm old), I recall some...and I strongly stress the word "some" time in the library. I was one of those students who just barely scraped by, using every single avenue available to avoid excess work or effort, knowing I could make a C without any wasted effort. Why should I bother? After all, I already knew it all...
If I were to do a research on "The Social Effects of Highschool Sports on Boys Versus Girls," and I was not afforded the opportunity of the endless resources available to me 24/7 at my craziest whim, morning, noon, or night, on the vast, vast Internet...eew...I shudder at the thought. Now this takes us a bit off track, but my schedule includes 13 credit hours, a 30 hour work week, the Coast Guard Reserves, volunteering 10 to 15 hours a month, a husband, a fifteen year old, and two dogs and a cat...okay, so the cat doesn't really count. Regardless, my schedule is a little frantic at the moment, at least for me it is. That being said, without the convenience and constant availablity of the infinite information readily available via the Web, my effort and grades would, without question, fall - no, they'd spiral out of control - with the increased need of routine trips to the library. I simply do not have the time.
As it is, the library is a necessary resource, but with the use of Yahoo, Google, and let's not forget Blackboard's plethora of illimitable database resources, we have everything we need at our fingertips...again, 24/7. With only the resources of the local library, we are severly limited in our subject matter, insight, and statistical data, which is most likely not accurate and defanitely NOT current like the up-to-the-minute data available via the Internet. The library only affords us information in written, edited, published, bound documents, not easily or consistently updated. And, OMG...what if the perfect book or periodical with the dead-on article is checked out...OMG!!! What then? Fortunately, periodicals have a shorter time limit within which to return them, if any. Many times, a periodical cannot be checked out at all. OMG...if it can't be checked out we have to make copies...lots and lots of copies...and take lots and lots of notes...OMG!!!! More time...wasted!! Whereas, with the click of the mouse, whalahhh...you can cut and paste quotes, statistics, titles, authors, etc.... With the exception of plagerizing one's work, you can pretty much cut and paste EVERYTHING!!!
"The Social Effects of Highschool Sports on Boys Versus Girls" is not an easy subject to find written, edited, published, bound documents on. Therefore, after reviewing endless sociolgy materials in an effort to find something...anything on highschool sport, I was forced to resort to non-fiction resources, i.e.: Papale, Vince & Millman, Chad. (2006). Invincible. New York: Hyperion.; Joravsky, Ben. (1995). Hoop Dreams. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.; and let's not forget those good old standbys, Sage, George H. (1998). Power and Ideology in American Sport. Chapaign, IL: Human Kinetics.; Eitzen, D. Stanley. (2001). Sport in Contemporary Society. New York, NY: Worth Publishers. In the opposite corner sits the easily found, completely current information provided with just a few clicks of the mouse and several strokes of the keyboard, i.e.: http://www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/sport/jable.html; http://irs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/16/2/5; http://www.sacbee.com/361/story/143227.html; http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ510973&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ510973; http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/pe/exs190web/190socio1.htm
While it took less than ten minutes to find online blogs, articles, statistics, etc... and cite them all with the use of my handy dandy cut-and-paste tools, it took more than, get this, three and a half hours to drive to the library, track down my resources, check out the books, drive home, and cite the materials. My nightmare has, once again, become a living, breathing reality...
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