After getting my first draft back, I am now researching more in detail and making alot of revisions in my literature review. I feel that my revisions are going very well and I feel very excited to see the outcome of my project.

When it comes to doing a research proposal or a research project, I have mixed feelings about it. I am excited to get the project done and have it on paper, but after talking to a few students from both communities I'm not sure that either groups are ready for dialouge yet. I am possibly thinking about doing a survey or something along those lines to get more input. I am very excited to see the outcome of this project though.

Research progress

I have been narrowing down my research topic and am now finding more things related to what I want to address in my project. I am in the process of writing my first draft of my literature review and trying to figure out what to write. I am sort of lost in how to format my literature review, but am doing my best in trying to figure it out. I am still gathering information that I find useful.

Research Project

Here is an update on my research project. I was having a hard time narrowing down my research and even coming up with my research question. I emailed the organization that I am working with and asked them to help me narrow down this topic by using a few questions that I emailed them. Eagerly waiting to hear back from them so I can keep researching more articles that are more related to my project.

Foster Care article

a) This article was written by John G. Orme and Cheryl Buehler.
"Foster Family Characteristics and Behavioral and Emotional Problems of Foster Children: A Narrative Review."
Family Relations, Vol. 50, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 3-15

b) This article talks about all of the different factors that could lead to emotional or behavioral problems in children placed in foster care. They define and explain the following factors that influence the foster children as: parenting, the family home environment, family functioning, martial functioning, family demography, child temperment, parents' mental health, and social support. I thought that the information that they presented did an excellent job of explaining how these factors affect the children after they are adopted or placed back with their biological family.

c) I think that the article was well-organized. I like how it started with some background information regarding foster care and the statistics of how many children were in foster care in 1982, 1996, and then in 1998. It just shows how this is an increasing problem. They then presented the table which I felt was very informational. After that they went on to describe and explain each of the contributing factors. I liked how it should how each factors affected the general population and then how it affected foster families.

d) I think the purpose of the literature review was to compare the differences between the general population and foster care children.

e) I thought that this article was very well-written. I do not believe that there were any violations of critical thinking presented in this article. It presented facts and were from reliable sources.

Google Tricks

The one google trick that I think is very helpful and that I will definately use it alot down the road is putting the quotations around the keyword that you are trying to search for. By doing this it searchs for the exact keyword and narrows down your search tremendously.

Critical Thinking Gone Wrong

I am competely disgusted from the story that I just read about. The company North Star who makes the products "Simply Potatoes" are under investigation for roaches, rodent investation, black mold and listertia. All of the products are being recalled.

A former employee contacted the FDA about these issues after he recently quit due to a horrible work enviroment. He said that the smell in the factory was rotten and unbearable, said there was black mold all over the factory, and also reported listeria on the plant's equipment.

It appears that this company has been under investigation for the past 7 years. In 2002 and 2004, the Department of Agriculture ordered North Star to eliminate all possible places for rodent harboring, to eliminate all roach investation, and to eliminate all the black mold in the cook line room. They could not provide any inspection reports since 2006. In 2004 there was another recall of "Simply Potatoes" when glass fragments were found in product samples.

The City of Minneapolis has been asking this company to clean up the plant due to the horrible odor. It is the worst company in the City of Minneapolis. The stink is due to piles and piles of rotten potatoes and other items heaped in piles outside of the warehouse. The City of Minneapolis has issused up to $7000.00 in citations for odor violations. This is more than any other company.

This really disturbs me. This is what I would call a huge problem. I mean why in the world would they continue to let this company do business especially when it comes to food preparation and service. There has been ongoing problems and investagations with this company for the past 7 years. Seven years!!!!! Where were the authorities here? I mean we are talking about food that people consume that could contain listeria, not to mention the black mold exposure and exposure to rats and rodents. When I think about this situation, it really concerns me.

Research challenges

As far as my research project, I am having a hard time narrowing down my search. I am also struggling as to what directly to search under and what is the main research question that I am trying to get to for the project due at the end of the semester. I am continuing to search, but am just confused!!