Slides

Hi there!

This fall term is getting close to the end. Can't believe it!! I think everyone is pretty busy for preparing their final reports and exams. I hope everybody will do great!

By the way, we made slides for our final presentation based on C.R.A.P. Usually I add too many words on a slide. However, my slides became more simple pursuing principles of C.R.A.P. and I realized it is much easier to understand for audience. It was also clearly organized. Now, I have to care about what I will say during presentation because there are not much information on slides. Anyways, it was kind of surprising to see that the more simple, the better. In addition, Everyone's slides in my group look great. Can't wait for their presentation!

Do our best!

Evernote and Slides

Hey everybody!! I guess it's been a busy week for everyone. Hope we'll survive...

It was the first time for me to use Evernote. When using internet academic tools for the first time, I usually struggle with it. However, I found Evernote easy to use and quite helpful. We can clip whatever we want or need from internet, and it provides various ways of saving sources, such as bookmarks and screenshot. We can even draw on the screenshots we take. I guess the feature of Evernote that I am most likely to use is screenshot, because I can apply it to my slides.

C.R.A.P stands for Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity.
Contrast: Making differences in slides to help viewers understanding, such as showing what is important using typeface, font, color and etc...
Repetition: visual similarity and coherence repeating in slides. e.g.) matching core colors
Alignment: placing items rationally and deliberately  to make audience's understanding easier. This eliminate confusion.
Proximity: placing the elements considering the appropriate closeness between them.

When I make slides for my presentation, I care about contrast, repetition and proximity. However, I haven't really thought about alignment. I just put elements into a page due to their importance and coherence. I googled the alignment for slides, and it is said that alignment eliminates confusion and assists audience, also using ruler is better making well-aligned slides. This will help me making slides because I always struggle with organizing them.

My umbrella topic is food, and my individual one is about food additive. I hope I can deliberate the risk of food additive to everyone, and make them think about their choice of food.

We've gone through half of the term already. We have a little more to go, so hang on there!!!!

Zotero and Wikipedia

Hello, everybody!!! How are you doing? I am so sorry for posting my blog at very late night on Sunday.... I have so many things to get done with currently, and I know everyone does. So, no excuses!!

Anyways, we learned how to cite the source in text by using Zotero. When I tries to do the same thing as I leaned in the class,  I had trouble, because of my laptop. It is Windows, which has no "command" key on its keyboard. Honestly, I still haven't figured out how to cite the source in text with Windows...

Newspaper Source

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Book Source

Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerc. Irure dolor in reprehend incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. “Very important quote here”(Pintauro 16). Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse molestaie cillum. Tia non ob ea soluad incommod quae egen ium improb fugiend. Officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum Et harumd dereud.

For my second homework, finding a FA-ranked source in Wikipedia, I also struggled. It was quite hard to find FA one. Most of them are under-ranked. However, it showed me that finding reliable source in Wikipedia is quite hard and takes time. The source I found a Wikipedia page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_Hearts_(video_game) , which is labeled as FA. It is also related to my previous essay topic, The Walt Disney Company.

I hope we will be able to utilize those online tools, and do our best in our final projects!:)

Source searching

Hey there! How's your life going?

Last Friday we had a lecture that is how we can look up rational sources using ICU Library HP. I found this lecture quite helpful because every time I write essay, I have trouble with finding sources. Usually, I type words related to my essay, and look for information that may support my opinion but most of the time, the information I find does not completely fit in with what I want to write. Even when I find the source connected to my topic, I am not sure whether it is reliable or not. Now, it is much easier to find the source, which is reliable and academic. Moreover, we now know how to cite those sources we find!! Don't you think this is just awesome?? I will definitely use them the next time I write papers:)

It's raining so bad outside because of typhoon. I am used to it since I have experienced a lot of them in my hometown. But it is still kind of scary and troublesome. I hope nobody is going to get injured.

Enjoy rest of your weekend!!

Zotero!!

Barringer, Felicity. “RATE OF MARRIAGE CONTINUES DECLINE.” The New York Times 17 July 1992. NYTimes.com. Web. 22 Sept. 2014.

Carbone, June. Marriage Markets: How Inequality Is Remaking the American Family. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Print.

The sources above is about marriage rate decline in the United States. Decline　of marriage rate is also a big issue in Japanese society today. Once, I had a survey about relationships of college students, I am curious about connection between marriage rate and states of relationships of young generation.

 Firstly, I thought zotero is such a complicated content. However, as we got to know about it, I found it quite useful. Every time I write an essay, I struggle with source citation. Even though I try to make it perfect, I usually fail it. I do know that zotero isn't always correct. It is still helpful to organize sources and cite them. It will contribute to make my academic life more efficiency and organized.

People cannot get away from relationships.

      My survey was about relationships and dream dates. I created this survey, just because I was curious about how others think about those kind of things.

     

     This graph shows how many people in my section have girlfriends/boyfriends. I expected many more respondents would have ones because I think all my classmates are quite friendly and attractive. They may be  focusing on study at this time:)

     

     Next graph shows how often they've been in relationships. Almost all respondents answered sometimes. I guess this is an average for the people who are around my age.

     

     Third question was about their dates. I asked them which date they prefer. There were four choices, movies, park, library and shopping. As you can see, movies took the first place and park took second. I can say about half of them prefer indoor date and others like active one.

     Last one was about dream dates.Every single answer was nice and sweet. Most popular one was going to Disney land, where is always ideal place for all ages(If it's not to you, sorry!). Some respondents answered that they don't need to do anything special but chatting or staying with their lovers is enough. I found this pretty sweet:) 

This survey was quite interesting after all. Now what do you think about the result?? Is it like you expected?? In the end,  I greatly appreciate your help. Thanks a lot!!!

Homework: My Summary of Using Technology for Study

  
   The skills that I am going to learn in this class will help me in some ways, such as finding appropriate and rational sources quickly. When I search for some sources for my academic papers, there are thousands of webpages written about the topic I am studying. However, not all of them are worthy trustful or rational. For example, many students use Wikipedia as a source, even though there might be uncertain and sometimes wrong information. We need to know how we can find the appropriate information and how we can find it worthy trustful. In addition, we have not only a homework but a lot. The better it is, the sooner to find the sources.

   I am actually quite comfortable with using technology in my life as a student. My main gadgets are phone, laptop and electronic dictionary. I use then mostly when I am writing papers or reading in foreign languages. It is much easier to look up the words that I don't know with my phone or electronic dictionary. I don't go against the paper dictionary. I think they are great. However, using those electronic devices keep me concentrating on what I am doing because I can search what I want to know exactly and quickly.

  So, this is all. See you soon, Thank you for reading:)))))