Conference Notes

After writing the first five pages of my research paper and before talking to Dr. Archibald I thought that my paper was well written but wasn't well organized with the amount of information I included. I thought my paper did not flow well together and did not have good transition sentences. During the time that I talked to Dr. Archibald the main point that he suggested to me was that I should include more concrete examples of how pollution is affecting ordinary citizens in China. I should also include a story of a particular individual in the beginning of my paper. He mentioned that instead generalizing my topic at the beginning of my paper and then being specific, I should instead be specific by including a story or example and then generalize my topic. Dr. Archibald then suggested the order in which I discussed my topic in my paper; first I should include a detailed story of pollution, second discuss the controversy of pollution, and finally include the arguments that Chinese citizens are making about this issue. I now hope to find a lot more sources that contain stories of individuals who have been affected by this, this would then solve the problem of my paper being too general.

Sources for the 3ResProj

The first step I took in my research process was that I simply entered in my research topic, china pollution activism" into Google and found a couple of good sources on the first page of Google. Looking back now it probably would have helped if I used the Advanced Search on Google so I would be able to find more sources that pertained to my research topic. When looking on Google I found a website that seemed like it came from an organization that was dedicated on education people on environmental issues. This made me believe that this source was credible and had a lot of useful information and facts on pollution. This website helped me support my idea that pollution was a danger to the health of many individuals. On Google there were also some websites that I could not use in my paper because the source did not look credible and one website looked like it was just a blog versus a useful website. The next step I took in my research topic was that I tried to look up more sources in the Library Search on the Millersville homepage. Here I found mostly academic journals that gave examples of what the Chinese citizens are doing to help their living conditions due to the amount of pollution around them. Some of them even had information of why the government in China is not doing much to help the situation. While on the Library Search I also found some articles that were not that useful because it mostly contained information that was too complicated and involved to add in my research paper.

Conference Notes

Before meeting with Dr Archibald I thoght that my main topic would be about deforestation or harming the environment in general and the solutions there were to this issue. Later on, after the meeting, I discovered that my topic had to be more specific and instead of a general topic I should focus in on a country that had an issue that delt with Ecology. During the meeting I found a specific topic, which was pollution in China. I also found what things I should include in my research paper. Some of these things being, the risks of pollution, the people involved, the consequences, and the ways to improve it. Also, I learned that I should mention what the citizens in China or in a specific province are doing to solve this issue of pollution. Finally, I also discovered my main thesis that I should be focusing on which is that pollution is an issue that every individual should be concerned about because of whats happening in China and in these people's lives, so we should support their attempt to reduce the amount of pollution around them and in the world.