Monday, October 20, 2008

Research via Lexis Nexis and Gale

For the research assignment for class I had a hard time finding information to use for this assignment. After talking to Mrs. Patrick I discovered that it would be better for me to look at Education websites compared to political and other database websites. For the Lexis Nexis and Gale sites that we researched here is what I got out of them:
Lexis Nexis Academic- While researching on here I only found VERY limited resources and many of the resources about the No Child Left Behind issue was things that could really be analyzed. They were more things that were already analyzed or they were things that talked about how No Child Left Behind prevents schools from going on field trips now.
Lexis Nexis Congressional Publications- I did not find any information or any type of paper or document that I could use for this assignment and for this paper. Unless I was just looking for the wrong thing but this website provided nothing for me and did not help me in any way. I could came back later when I find more information about this and find more papers to research and look to see if there is any source that I can use from here.
Lexis Nexis Government Periodicals Index- This website also did not help me at all in looking for sources to use in my paper. Every time that I would look up information to look at on the website it continued to tell me there was nothing available for me to view. I might have been searching incorrectly or there just really was not any information for me to use.
Lexis Nexis Statistical- This also did not work for me. I went and typed in the information for the search and every time that I would type in state testing nothing would pull up. However, when I typed in regular testing there was all these sources that came up, however, none were any use to me. They all were testing for odd things like the roads.
Lexis Nexis U.S. Congressional Serial Set- I also did not have any luck in this website. I tried many different search types, determined to get a result, and I only received one source that came up. However, it was not a source that I could use because it was about Funds Allocation. So sadly Lexis Nexis had absolutely nothing that I could use for my research.
Gale Databases- This database though it did contain a lot of information in magazines, scholastic journals, and everything else it failed to again have anything that I can use. Many of the articles that pulled up on state testing pulled up information on things that I could not use. When I types in No Child Left Behind a lot of information also came up, however, the only one I could use was an analysis of a book. So once again my search was not useful.
Gale Virtual Reference Library- I also failed at finding any information on here too. I tried typing in No Child Left Behind and I tried state testing, however, nothing worked. I did not have ANY luck at all on this site to look for information and nothing pulled up.
I am sad that I did not find any information on any of the sites, however, as I said I am going to look on education based sites. I am also going to look at the No Child Left Behind Law. I am not trying to say that these websites are bad and I am sure that many of my classmates managed to find tons of information, and I have used these resources before in papers and have found a ton of information. I am also just a really bad researcher. I am awful at google and the failure at finding anything on these sites may reflect my searching abilities.

1 comment:

Thomas M. said...

It's too bad that you couldn't find anything worth using for your topic from the search engines. I bet you're not an awful researcher as you said yourself you've used these engines before and found information.