Michelle is finding interesting differences non-native speakers and native speakers of English with respect to becoming a CPA. She writes:

Therefore, the group of bilinguals and ESL students has totally different views on the CPA exams than others. They may consider what they have to do more than what they want to do. I will focus on this aspect and discuss more on my paper later.

I'm really looking forward to her discussion of how particular needs can change one's viewpoint of becoming a CPA.

Sengelieva also has an interesting subject, that of ethics. She found out that four companies, when they interview prospective employees, they have some questions regarding ethical issues. One question was:

If you were asked by a co-worker to do something you thought was unethical, how would you respond?

I think it would be easy to answer the question in an interview, but it would be quite difficult in real life.

According to John Swales, a linguist, the introductions in all academic journal articles contain four rhetorical moves. Scholars use these moves to develop a context for their work. Although the order of these moves can vary, in general, the first move is to announce the importance of the research topic. A second move is to review and summarize previous research relevant to their work. Third, they show a problem, or a “gap,” in the previous research, thus making room for their own research. Finally, scientists present their own work as filling that gap or resolving that problem.

It is interesting to read the results of research, and it's interesting to see how researchers give incentives to people to participate in their research. Michelle (Tips: Survey) made two hypotheses: One that chocolate would persuade people to take her survey, and two that men would like Snickers while women would like Crunch. That might be another interesting piece of research: How gender preferences are reflected in candy choice and what types of incentives work best for getting people to take one's survey.

One can study effectively or ineffectively. Here are a few guidelines for becoming more effective in your study habits:

1. Reviewing is more important than cramming. How to review? Right after a class, read and think about your notes for 10-15 minutes. Then right before the next class (same class, just the next time it meets), review those notes again for 10-15 minutes. Next, on weekends, review all of your notes for all classes for the week (perhaps 2 hours). And once a month, review all of your notes for all classes for the month/semester (perhaps all day on a weekend). This is important because for remembering, 15 minutes a day for 4 days (60 minutes) is actually better than studying 90 minutes at one time. I'm not quite sure of the exact number comparison, but it is a fact that reviewing in small chunks of time is more effective for remembering and understanding than studying in a large, single chunk of time. This guideline also applies to writing. That is, writing a little bit on one's essay every day or two will result in a better essay than writing the entire essay at one sitting.

2. When studying the night before a test, be sure to get a good night's sleep. (If you've been reviewing all the time, you won't need to cram.) Lack of sleep interferes with the ability to remember what one studied.

3. When studying, avoid carbohydrates and sugar, but eat more protein, which helps you keep awake and alert.

These are a few basics. If you want more information, go to University of Texas Learning Center's Resources page for handouts on studying and learning.

In preparing your research report, you will use one of your sources, a journal article, as the format. To help you better visualize that format, our book can be useful with its general guidelines. For example, on pages 293-294 are outlines for both quantitative and qualitative reports. Depending on what type of research you are conducting, you can look use these outlines to guide your understanding of the journal article. How does it review the literature? How does it explain its methodology? And so on.

On another note, keep in front of you your research question and the data you wish to collect. Will the data answer the question? How will you collect the data? How will you present and interpret the data?

What do you do when the professor wants an electronic document in MS Word, but you don't have this program? Well, there are quite a few possibilities, but here are three.

1. The first thing you should check is if you can save your document as an .rtf (rich text format) in your program. Usually, when you click on "Save as", a dialog box comes up and close to where you click on "Save" is another box that lets you choose the "File Format." If that's possible, just choose .rtf (rich text format) and MS Word can open it.
2. Another possibility is to download the OpenOffice suite from the OpenOffice website. It's free. After installing, you can use it to create documents compatible with MS Word.
3. A third possibility is to open a free google account at Google Docs & Spreadsheets. You can type your document online and export it as an MS Word compatible document.

As there seems to be some confusion on the blog, Citation, and annotated bibliography, I'll try to clear it up here.

Citation is like a container with 3X5 cards. You keep everything there. You can put notes there: notes on your readings, notes on class information, notes on articles and books you read, notes on anything related to the class. You're required to make at least 3 entries a week in Citation.

The blog is our way of sharing with one another what we are doing and reading. In this way, we can learn from one another. Every week, you must make at least one post to your blog. Sometimes, I'll ask you to make a specific post on your blog. That counts for the one that is required. Where does the information for your blog post come from? Citation. Remember that you are putting everything into Citation. So, once a week, you look at your notes in Citation for that week, choose one of those notes, and post it to your blog.

The Annotated Bibliography is a list of sources, each source with an abstract or summary of the source. You will be putting the information for your sources into Citation. So, when Annotated Bibliography assignments are due, you simply Generate Bibliography from Citation (in MS Word) and email it to me. If you want, you could take one of those sources in the Annotated Bibliography and post it to your blog for the weekly posting.

What data you will need to collect will be determined by the questions you ask? After all, you have to answer your questions. Sometimes, however, it's not possible for you get the data you need. In such a case, you need to change the form of the question, or the question itself, in order to collect data.

Although there are many types of research, practially speaking, the types of research that we might be able to do in one semester in our class will likely be a phenomenologial study, content analysis (chapter 7), or some type of description research (chapter 9). Be sure to read carefully the guidelines for Method and The Research Report.

Tomorrow you should email me your research question and the type of research you might do.

One of the five articles needed in an annotated bibliography form for next Wednesday must come from a reference book. The other four must be scholarly journal articles.

The reference books in the library are a great starting place for finding information and articles on one's research problem. They provide keywords, academic vocabulary, and often point to the important issues on a specific topic. In addition, they may have a bibliography that contains the more important scholars and articles (or books) on this topic.

The journal articles may be difficult reading. Skim the article before reading it. Look at the introduction, then the conclusion, and then subtitles. Knowing the general idea of the article will make it easier to understand when reading it in its entirety.

It seems that Anne (that's my new daughter born on Thursday, Sep 21) is a natural researcher. She understands that to conduct research, she needs to collect data and interpret it. Not too many hours outside the womb, she cried somewhat loudly and persistently, "Waaaaah!!" (Translation: I have some tactile data indicating that my diaper is wet). "What does that mean?" I asked. She spoke with another cry, "Waah, Waaaah!!" (Translation: My interpretation of these data is that the diaper should be changed.) The interpretation seemed reasonable, so I changed her diaper.