May 24, 2014

     The complicated relationship I have with my family fuels the fire I have in my soul that ignites at a moment's notice. I know that doesn't make sense, but whatever. I really do love the relationship that my family has,at least my grandmother on my mom's side. We are all unrealistically close and some people even find it a little weird. I spend so much time with my cousins from first to fifth. I am constantly surrounded by family which could be a good o bad thing depending on the day. This past weekend I spent Friday night with my cousin Jack watching movies while our mothers drank wine in the kitchen, Saturday helping my uncle move into is new apartment while my grandparent who wee supposed to be helping just complained about everything, and Sunday just spending the day with my aunts and letting them buy things for me. Overall I really love how ridiculously close we are and I wan to stay that way so that my children's children will have the same experiences I have.

May 17, 2014

      Today is May seventeenth 2014. It is an okay day with no much to do. I know that I only have like a month left before finals, but I'm not really nervous or scared about it at all. I like to think of myself as a chill and laid back, but today my brother told me I am always super hyper or super stressed. I think its just a way of life for me. I have ad will always be mood swingy. I don't know why but I am I have grown to love how one day I can be overly excited about everything and the next I hate the world and everything in it, including my mother at times. My mother and I have a very complicated relationship. I love her and she loves me, but sometimes we don't like each other just because we have different personalities. Although I think we are very different everyone else says hat we are exactly the same which makes sense since we both but head so much.

Acceptance speech

Jaunai Parson

8^th

Citizen's Excellence in Community Involvement Award

This award is not a celebration for me, but for the many people who make small sacrifices each day to help the community. Our communities are in danger because of how little community members care about the place they live. We as people all live in neighborhoods and communities where we should care for ourselves and our neighbors.

   “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” ― Mother Teresa

            This quote signifies how a community is not the area, but it is the people that make it a community. We all have to come together in order for change to sustain. We can fundraise, clean-up, and promote activities in communities, but they people are what keep it going. Community members have to really care about the place they live in order for it to become a better place to live.

     Communities are places where children are raised and families are grounded. In order to keep the ideals of a family structure in our communities we must care for and sustain our schools, community centers, and the environments we live in so that our children have a safe place to be.  

“Heroes didn't leap tall buildings or stop bullets with an outstretched hand; they didn't wear boots and capes. They bled, and they bruised, and their superpowers were as simple as listening, or loving. Heroes were ordinary people who knew that even if their own lives were impossibly knotted, they could untangle someone else's. And maybe that one act could lead someone to rescue you right back.”

― Jodi Picoult, Second Glance

            We all have to work together to better our communities, the places where we live, raise children, make friends, and unify our families. The community cannot keep itself afloat, we all have to help it and set a good example for those to come. If the children of the community see one person make a difference it can change that community forever. That is why this award is not only for me, but for the entire community and the work we have all done. 

First Draft

When using popular search engines, such as Google, to ask a simple question there are millions of sites that offer information. The problem is knowing which website is reliable and gives accurate information. There are many unreliable resources available on the internet that give inaccurate information to the general public. These inaccuracies are why choosing sources for valid  information is an issue when using the internet. Sites such as Wikipedia.com, Yahoo Answers, Ask.com, and Youtube.com are examples of sites that use crowdsourcing as then main function of their website. Generally, these sites are greatly trusted throughout the internet community, but the reliability of these websites is not what the perceived standard is.

The reliability of the website Wikipedia.com, an online encyclopedia, has been questioned by many. The site that allows anyone with an account to edit a webpage, has been criticized many time for its inaccuracies and the credibility of the encyclopedia has been questioned many times. Wikipedia.com is not a reliable source because any person that has no expertise or valid knowledge on a subject can pass off incorrect information as accurate, especially since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia .

In a test study done to determine the credibility of Wikipedia there were two groups under two conditions.One group was a group of experts that read articles from Wikipedia that were in their field of expertise.The second group were randomly chosen people that may or may not have had a large field of knowledge about the topic of a random Wikipedia article. “The article’s credibility was measured with five items: believability, accuracy, trustworthiness, bias and completeness” (Chesney). Chesney, an accredited researcher, found that the experts and random participants both found inaccuracies in the Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia can not be seen as a credible online encyclopedia if there are flaws in what is supposed to be credible information.

Wikipedia has been ridiculed a myriad of times because of its well known feature that  allows anyone to edit a webpage,but although the site says that anyone can edit the page it does not always let any editor change the webpage.Timothy Messer-Kruse, a professor at Bowling Green State University and the author of "The Trial of the Haymarket Anarchists”, spoke about how he tried to change an inaccuracy on a wikipedia page related to the Haymarket trials and after seemingly changing the inaccurate information the webpage reloaded without the corrections.”They[Wikipedia] don't rely on primary sources like transcripts of the trial but rather on the preponderance of secondary sources.” The option on Wikipedia that allows authors to not let anyone edit their webpage blocked him from making any changes regarding the invalid information. “I tried again and was told that I needed to represent a majority viewpoint, not a minority viewpoint, namely my own, and that Wikipedia was about verifiability, not necessarily about truth.”,said Messer-Kruse. Although Wikipedia’s creators have always contradicted accusations of the site being inaccurate they have openly admitted to not relying on the truth (Conan).

Wikipedia’s statements of verifiability over truth justifies the low credibility of the encyclopedia,especially if the information is used as a source for school or any other setting requiring accurate information.Generally educators tell their students to not use Wikipedia as a reliable source and some say to not even use it at all.  “Purdue professors are reluctant to allow their students to use this website as a source. Sorin Matei, a communication professor studying the collaboration aspects of Wikipedia, said the biggest problem is the disparity in level of truth to each article” (Westberg). Westenberg, a journalist reporting on an article released earlier in the year, also reported on the use of Wikipedia in and out of the classroom. Many educators think that Wikipedia is more of a way to understand the general basics of a topic and then use other sources of information as a credible source. “Nancy Peleaz, a biology professor, said although she does use Wikipedia in her classroom with her students, she does not find it to be a reliable source” (Westberg). There are some articles on Wikipedia that are majority accurate, but the problem is knowing which article are credible and which are just made up misleading information from an unreliable source. Using Wikipedia as a credible source for any credible cause is not suggested or recommended by educators and experts.

Some experts conduct studies on the credibility and accuracy of Wikipedia and come to a  conclusion that Wikipedia is in fact credible. “The degree to which Wikipedia is lacking depends heavily on one’s perspective. Even in the least covered areas, because of its sheer size, Wikipedia does well, but since a collection that is meant to represent general knowledge is likely to be judged by the areas in which it is weakest...” (Halavais). Wikipedia being the large database that it is has a hard time verifying the credibility of every article.Often times Wikipedia is judged because of its status of a popular online encyclopedia and not as a website using crowdsourcing. With crowdsourcing there are eventually bound to be some errors and many researchers have noted that.

Even with the knowledge that Wikipedia is a large site that cannot verify every detail of information that is posted on the site the credibility of the encyclopedia is still very low. With the knowledge that most articles on Wikipedia are written by crowdsourcing it verifies that inaccuracies are inevitable. “ It cannot be a coincidence that two areas that are particularly lacking on Wikipedia—law and medicine—are also the purview of licensed experts” (Halavais). Many experts do not see Wikipedia as a credible website and know that their information would not be seen as valid if posed on Wikipedia. “Many attorneys have taken up blogging with open arms and medical research is now frequently published in open access journals, both suggesting that there is not always an impediment to these groups contributing to online resources” (Halavais). The lack of experts posting on Wikipedia justifies that it is not a credible encyclopedia with a valid and accurate information.

Premise and Thesis

When using popular search engines, such as Google, to ask a simple question there are millions of sites that offer information. The problem is knowing which website is reliable and gives accurate information. There are many unreliable resources available on the internet that give inaccurate information to the general public. These inaccuracies are why choosing sources for valid  information is an issue when using the internet. Sites such as Wikipedia.com, Yahoo Answers, Ask.com, and Youtube.com are examples of sites that use crowdsourcing as then main function of their website. Generally, these sites are greatly trusted throughout the internet community, but the reliability of these websites is not what the perceived standard is.

The reliability of the website Wikipedia.com, an online encyclopedia, has been questioned by many. The site that allows anyone with an account to edit a webpage, has been criticized many time for its inaccuracies and the credibility of the encyclopedia has been questioned many times. Wikipedia.com is not a reliable source because any person that has no expertise or valid knowledge on a subject can pass off incorrect information as accurate, especially since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia .

April 20,2014

This weekend I went out to the cemetery with my mom and we decided to decorate my cousins grave. She died two years ago from cancer and it was very hard on my family. 2012 was not the best year for my family. Many close family friends and close family passed away during that year. It was a hard time for my entire family because as soon as you felt that you could move on and live life a little bit easier something else happened. My family definitely grew closer over time, bit I wish that we didnt have to loose anyone in order for us to realize that we have to spend more time as a family.
    Going to the cemetery was not as hard for me as I thought it would be. I have a great respect for the people that have passed on and cemeteries are just places that honor the dead's lives.

April 13, 2014

Im really tired and I want to go home right now. I have been at my father's house for the past 12 hours and I am ready to go home. My father thinks that I actually like spend on time with him for some reason. Then when I try to tell him that I want to go home or not hang out with him so I can do something else he gets offended. For being as tall and as seemingly intimidating as he is he is so overly sensitive about everything. His feelings get hurt so easily probably because he is the oldest and my grandmother always babies him and gave him what he wants. Im glad that my mom teachers me how to practical and understand the world better. That is why I want to become a psychologist so that I can understand the human mind because sometimes I truly do not understand how and why people do the things they do.