Locating Books on My Topic

After narrowing down my topic I chose to research homeless adults in Minnesota. To start, I am going to study general background information. As I develop a greater understanding for the topic I will search for more specific information.

This is the search string that I used when looking for my book:
1. I went to the library homepage and chose to do an advanced search
2. I chose English for my language, then for format I chose book and electronic book
3. I searched homeless & Minnesota & adults and no  results were found
4. I then went on to search homeless & Minnesota. I initially found only books from the late 80s, I then sorted by date but all the books were very in depth information
5. Lastly I just searched homeless, sorted by date and found a wide variety of options


The following are the steps I took to find the book I decided to get:
1. I wrote down the call number
2. Wrote down the location
3. Went to the Miller Center to find the book


I was very successful and found the book on my first try without any help. I did not find any electronic books available on my topic. I would be interested in using one though because I have a smartphone and an iPad.


When searching system the Great River Regional Library I had some difficulty. I just did a basic search and typed in "homeless". A lot of the books that were found were not very related to my search. I like using the Miller Center website much better.

What Do You Assume to Be True About________?

The homeless, a population of people I really do not think about to often. Only when I've seen someone walking down the street asking for money or carrying a large load of items around is when this population may cross my mind. I am from a town called Isanti, we have a small population of a little over 5,000 people. So I really haven't had to experience this unless I was in the cities. Although I know little about this population, I do have some strong opinions toward it. I do not feel bad or pity homeless people at all. I believe that everyone has been an equal opportunity to receive an education and compete for some sort of job. When I see a homeless person all I think is that they should be out trying to get a job and not waste their time begging for money. If a person were to have a physical or mental disability that would prevent them from learning at the same pace as others and limits them to only certain types of jobs then that is a different situation. But I am talking about people who are able and just have had a tough time in life. I think that they just need to put a little work and effort into it, and after awhile they can succeed in some way. Some people may completely disagree with this, that is why I want to research it. There is so many different opinions about this subject and I have never really looked into it. My opinions all came from my own deductions and from my dad. We were in California once and a homeless person asked him for money, he didn't give them any so I asked why. He explained to me that he had a tough time in school and his family had little money, but he just worked really hard to find a job. He believed that they should do the same.

Although I am very interested in learning about this topic, I am also a little wary. I am afraid that my strong, harsh opinions may hold me back in my research. I feel that I a may not be able to open up to new ideas and this may cause me to be less interested in the topic overall. I will make sure I focus on overcoming this.

Overall, I think this project has a lot of potential. It seems very interesting and I feel I can learn a lot about the homeless population.

What is Critical Thinking?

What is critical thinking? That is a very interesting question. To be honest, if someone would have asked me this question anytime before Tuesday at 3:30pm I would have give some generic answer or possibly even guessed. It just so happens that I am taking a critical reasoning class this semester and we discussed critical thinking in our first class meeting. I would define critical thinking as the ability to reason logically and apply that reasoning to real life situations. After doing a little investigating I found that "experts" on dictionary.com define it as follows; the mental process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information to reach an answer or conclusion. This definition does not specifically identify a particular process that a person must engage in to think this way. However, I do believe that through this defintion we can see that critical thinking does take much more effort and deeper thought than everyday life events.

Now, how does critical thinking relate to a class titled 'Research Strategies'? I believe that these 2 things are related becasue to do research, and to do it well, a person must engage themselves in critical thinking. Research is not something a person can just breeze by and barely think about it, they have to think much deeper.  Doing good research is challenging, but once you finish I feel it is very rewarding to see the great work you created. This course will be challenging and fun and I am looking forward to learning how to become a better researcher.

Hello Everyone!

Hi! I'm Shana!

I am a sophomore at SCSU and I am studying nursing. This is my first year here at St. Cloud, I transferred from St. Thomas. I am really enjoying it! I am recently married and I love my new husband very much!

This blog is for my IM 204 Research Strategies class. I feel confident about writing, I don't hate it. There is always room for improvement though. I am excited to learn more about research but am not looking forward to all the work.

I look forward to blogging more! Bye for now!