I have been having the hardest time figuring out what I want my subject to be for the semester. I went from wanting to write about the safety of snakes and how they are not dangerous at all to obesity and then bullying. The one thing I did not want to write about was anything to do with Music because I am surrounded by music all day and night since that is my major and it is what i love to do! Trying to figure out a topic made me realize all i care about is Music and decided, I want to focus on how Music Education is very important in schools and help people understand why it benefits not only Music Majors and students who love music but music can benefit those who are not pursuing a career in music.
Since attending WT, the library source thing has never really been much of help but this semester has been totally different. The library website has been great not just because it gives you articles but because it helped me pick out my topi at the end.
- What key words worked well for your search? Which were less useful?
Key words that were useful for me were "Music Education." That was really the one thing that helped. Other than that, I used "Secondary Music Education," "Importance of Music in Schools" and "Secondary Education with music." By using the library website, I chatted with the box called "Ask a Librarian" to help me narrow my topic much more and they suggested a link called ERIC (EBSCO) which has been helping me a lot.
- Are there a lot of sources for your topic? Were you overwhelmed by the number of sources or desperate to find some?
Yes, there were a lot of sources for my topic and i was overwhelmed because I was still not sure what I wanted my topic to be until today, January 3 really. Now that I have narrowed it, I am hoping to have an easier time with finding resources.
- What are some of the approaches that the sources took to the topic? For example, were there sources mostly in one area of study, or from several different disciplines? What aspects of the topic did they focus on?
Some of the approaches taken were how music helped children to learn the language of English ( which is the way I began learning how to speak English as well). Others were more on how it helped with emotions or disabilities, some on the education for women. One that I plan on looking at is the "Common ground for community music and music education."
- How did you sort through the sources? What criteria did you use to figure out if they were useful to you or not?
Way I sorted my topic was by changing the date to 2010-2014 and finding articles with full text so I could read more into the article to make sure it is something that will help me. Under subject, I narrowed it down as well by focusing strictly on articles that focus on Music Education Advocacy and Music Education. Also, Under "Source Type." there are three different choices which are Academic Journals, Reviews and Books.
- What did you learn about your topic just from sorting through some of these source?
I learned that how Music can help so many people in different occasions. Such as health issues, Women/Men, emotions, etc. I cant wait to continue looking into my subject and begin writing!
