Symanski, R. (1974). Prostitution in nevada. Annals of the Association of American Geographer, 64(3), 357-377.
Bazelon, E. (2008, March 10). Why is prostitution illegal?. Slate, Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2008/03/why_is_prostitution_illegal.single.html
I'll be honest, I was a bit shocked at how informative the magazine article was. I figured it would be more of an opinion type thing (not that that's wrong) with little "real" information. What I got was quite contrary to my expectations. I was pretty pleased. While my actual scholarly article was older, it still had a good deal of relative and enlightening information. The format was different, but I liked that. The magazine article was easier to read because the language was that of more "informal" speech, rather than the speech of academia. The article started out with an abstract that was helpful to me, it allowed be to get a brief idea of what the article entailed while the magazine started with something eye catching and interesting.
The journal article was well spread out, going logically from point to point, as if they followed their outline to the T. The magazine article was also well organized, flowing with logical points and pace. As for opinion and bias, I think that both articles have biases and opinions, but perhaps the scholarly journal author, Symanski, does a better job of hiding that. Lets be honest, who doesn't have biases on any given subject?
I think I could use both of the articles as useful information in my project. They both referenced the legal prostitution in Nevada and some of the economics it entails. I also like the two sided aspects of both articles as well, giving the reader (myself) a better idea of what both sides were saying about the issue.
Monday, February 20, 2012
The Academic Search Premier
This site is nothing new to me, I have used it many times, so after once again reviewing the site I am pleased with the ease of use and function. It is a very good resource and tool. I definitely have used this site for other classes during my time here at SCSU. As an English Major this site has been a valuable tool during research papers. I used this site as a way to find scholarly research articles that would help me gain information and use as sources in research papers for my classes. The ability to find articles, read abstracts, and then limit my search to a narrower focus have helped me a lot. I also enjoy the ability to be able to get a whole document, and then print it out so I can highlight what seems most important, rather than just reading it on the screen.
That being said, this site is not my only site I use to look for scholarly articles. Using the SCSU library page has also been very helpful as it gives you other options to use to search for articles. Some of the other sites that I found helpful were: JSTOR, MLA International Bibliography (Languages & Literature) and Google Scholar . I used these sites as well to help me locate and read scholarly articles that focused my searches and lead me to good facts and sources.
All in all, I don't really think I have very many fears about using this database for my research. I have used it before and will probably use it again. It has always turned up some interesting articles that I found helpful. I guess my main fear would be that this database won't have much on my population, but even that fear seems unlikely.
That being said, this site is not my only site I use to look for scholarly articles. Using the SCSU library page has also been very helpful as it gives you other options to use to search for articles. Some of the other sites that I found helpful were: JSTOR, MLA International Bibliography (Languages & Literature) and Google Scholar . I used these sites as well to help me locate and read scholarly articles that focused my searches and lead me to good facts and sources.
All in all, I don't really think I have very many fears about using this database for my research. I have used it before and will probably use it again. It has always turned up some interesting articles that I found helpful. I guess my main fear would be that this database won't have much on my population, but even that fear seems unlikely.
Monday, February 6, 2012
A little about my population...
As I have started to read up a little bit about the population I chose I can tell that my assumptions are going to be challenged and perhaps changed. Though at the same time I feel like some of my previous assumptions might prove true. We'll have to see!
Some more questions I have about this population group tend to be more motivation driven. As in, "whats the main motivation that drives women into prostitution?" "Whats their motivation for staying in the business?" I guess I am more or less curious about what would drive someone to risk their lives and sell their bodies on the street.
I have found out some random things about the prostitution business that seemed to shock me at first, but then as I thought about it more, it seemed to make sense. It was from a documentary I watched called "Nefarious: Merchant of Souls" that focused on women and girls sold into the sex trafficking industry but touched on prostitution in the United States. Apparently there are safety tips for women who are in the business, don't wear scarves because you can get strangled easier that way, don't wear heals so that if you have to, you can run faster, drop your keys by the bed and kick them under, so you can look under the bed to see if there is a gun or handcuffs. Its pretty crazy stuff, like, how dangerous is it to be in that kind of lifestyle. So I am curious as to why someone would want to get into that sort of thing when the risks seem so huge. That was just a tidbit of some of the things I have been learning, and hopefully I will continue to learn more as I read through the books I checked out on my topic.
Some more questions I have about this population group tend to be more motivation driven. As in, "whats the main motivation that drives women into prostitution?" "Whats their motivation for staying in the business?" I guess I am more or less curious about what would drive someone to risk their lives and sell their bodies on the street.
I have found out some random things about the prostitution business that seemed to shock me at first, but then as I thought about it more, it seemed to make sense. It was from a documentary I watched called "Nefarious: Merchant of Souls" that focused on women and girls sold into the sex trafficking industry but touched on prostitution in the United States. Apparently there are safety tips for women who are in the business, don't wear scarves because you can get strangled easier that way, don't wear heals so that if you have to, you can run faster, drop your keys by the bed and kick them under, so you can look under the bed to see if there is a gun or handcuffs. Its pretty crazy stuff, like, how dangerous is it to be in that kind of lifestyle. So I am curious as to why someone would want to get into that sort of thing when the risks seem so huge. That was just a tidbit of some of the things I have been learning, and hopefully I will continue to learn more as I read through the books I checked out on my topic.
The Encyclopedia vs the Dreaded Wikipedia
I admit that I was unable to make it to class when we went over this particular topic, which is unfortunate, though I was able to get the information from the power point on D2L, hooray for online resources! The encyclopedias are a very cool tool that we have to use in our own research. I was surprised at the breadth of time that they have been around, almost 3000 years? Crazy! It is interesting to see how they have changed over the years, from being plagued with opinions and biases, which I'm sure still haven been completely taken out in current encyclopedias, to well respected and relied upon volumes of information. The Pros for an encyclopedia are: that they have a large amount of information available in them, the wide variety that are out there, how far back some of them date, the convenience of a print bound book to read. The cons are that the information can be dated and obsoletes without the reader being aware, there is bound to be some bias's in the works, and sometimes encyclopedias are not allowed out of the library.
Wikipedia seems to be a nice option for those who like to have information at their computer screens, and I'll admit that I too enjoy the easy convenience of just typing in a topic name and finding all sorts of useful tidbits about it. That being said, I normally only use Wikipedia for finding out about basic things, like if I didn't know what something was, say, balderdash, what kind of word is that? I would wiki it and then grasp its basic meaning. I don't normally use Wikipedia for getting a whole lot of factual or historical data. Because it has some nice pro's: easy access, its free, anyone can write or make a page, it also has some cons that make me hesitant to use it for any type of academic purpose. The cons being: anyone can edit or make a page, all you have to do is create an account, there is no real way to know if the person who put the information there was unbiased in their research or if what they posted is even factual.
I wasn't able to find any print encyclopedias on my topic using the online database search, or if I did, I wasn't able to figure out how to narrow it down that just encyclopedias showed up, so I was uncertain if I was looking at one or not. I would have to try going there physically to find one. Same thing with the e-encyclopedias. As for reading an article on my topic from both an encyclopedia and Wikipedia, as I stated above I didn't find and encyclopedia and Wikipedia was nice for the factual information, I still wouldn't use it for any type of academical source.
Wikipedia seems to be a nice option for those who like to have information at their computer screens, and I'll admit that I too enjoy the easy convenience of just typing in a topic name and finding all sorts of useful tidbits about it. That being said, I normally only use Wikipedia for finding out about basic things, like if I didn't know what something was, say, balderdash, what kind of word is that? I would wiki it and then grasp its basic meaning. I don't normally use Wikipedia for getting a whole lot of factual or historical data. Because it has some nice pro's: easy access, its free, anyone can write or make a page, it also has some cons that make me hesitant to use it for any type of academic purpose. The cons being: anyone can edit or make a page, all you have to do is create an account, there is no real way to know if the person who put the information there was unbiased in their research or if what they posted is even factual.
I wasn't able to find any print encyclopedias on my topic using the online database search, or if I did, I wasn't able to figure out how to narrow it down that just encyclopedias showed up, so I was uncertain if I was looking at one or not. I would have to try going there physically to find one. Same thing with the e-encyclopedias. As for reading an article on my topic from both an encyclopedia and Wikipedia, as I stated above I didn't find and encyclopedia and Wikipedia was nice for the factual information, I still wouldn't use it for any type of academical source.
The OPAC Experience
The Topic that I have chosen to do is on Prostitution. As in my earlier posts I decided it would be a good group to learn more about. When I started looking for a book on this topic I decided I would look for something with more general information at first to get a better idea on what I might narrow my focus in on. As of yet I haven't decided. The actual search experience went really well, I didn't have much trouble finding what I was looking for at all. What I did was just went to advanced search and typed in two keywords, "prostitution" and "United States." It came up with numerous titles that were helpful to me. I settled on two books that looked likely to meet my needs. "The Response to Prostitution in the Progressive Era" by Mark Connely and "The Economics of Prostitution" by Helen Reynolds. I enjoyed looking through the basement shelves as the ability to store so many books with the motorized shelves is awesome. I felt pretty fortunate finding the books I needed my first try, as some of my other times searching for sources hadn't fared so well.
When I tried to find e-books focusing on prostitution I wasn't really able to find one that was broad enough to suit my needs. It was more focused to sex-trafficking rather than just prostitution. Personally I don't enjoy e-books as much as having a paper copy before me. So if given the option, I would stick to a paper copy. I think it is easier on my eyes to read a paper copy rather than an electronic one, plus I love the feel of the pages and the smell of old books as well, and odd quirk I share with many people I think.
As for some sort of Electronic device to be able to read an e-book, I have an iPhone that has the capability to download e-books from iTunes and I hear there is a Kindle app out for the iPhone as well, so I do have the access if I used my phone. But as I stated before, I rather enjoy the paper copy far more than the electronic one, sure it is nice to not have to lug around heavier hard bound books, but its harder to read from that tiny screen as well.
The Great River Regional Library OPAC system I found was harder to find academic sources rather than fictional works. I had to look a lot harder to find what I was looking for, as "Prostitution" and "United States" for keywords didn't help me. Also, the website given on our sheet, (www.grrl.org) leads to a roller derby blog site which was odd, so I had to Google the actual website, which was (www.griver.org). I wandered about their website for a little while trying to figure out where to look for academic sources before pretty much giving up. I'd have to go there physically and ask someone to help me out. Not convenient at all like good ole SCSU Library!
When I tried to find e-books focusing on prostitution I wasn't really able to find one that was broad enough to suit my needs. It was more focused to sex-trafficking rather than just prostitution. Personally I don't enjoy e-books as much as having a paper copy before me. So if given the option, I would stick to a paper copy. I think it is easier on my eyes to read a paper copy rather than an electronic one, plus I love the feel of the pages and the smell of old books as well, and odd quirk I share with many people I think.
As for some sort of Electronic device to be able to read an e-book, I have an iPhone that has the capability to download e-books from iTunes and I hear there is a Kindle app out for the iPhone as well, so I do have the access if I used my phone. But as I stated before, I rather enjoy the paper copy far more than the electronic one, sure it is nice to not have to lug around heavier hard bound books, but its harder to read from that tiny screen as well.
The Great River Regional Library OPAC system I found was harder to find academic sources rather than fictional works. I had to look a lot harder to find what I was looking for, as "Prostitution" and "United States" for keywords didn't help me. Also, the website given on our sheet, (www.grrl.org) leads to a roller derby blog site which was odd, so I had to Google the actual website, which was (www.griver.org). I wandered about their website for a little while trying to figure out where to look for academic sources before pretty much giving up. I'd have to go there physically and ask someone to help me out. Not convenient at all like good ole SCSU Library!
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