Dr. Ashton's approach to finding research is described in a five video lecture session on youtube. In the words of Dr. Ashton "The best research ideas are generated by way of replicating a study and adding an extension". To find articles regarding psychology, psychinfo is the search engine tool to use. Psychinfo is a search engine through EBSCO. To begin a search we first will use the thesaurus to find the correct APA subject term for a more accurate search of what we are looking for. To narrow down the results we can adjust the "year", "peer reviewed", and "full text link". To find more article surrounding your research topic, Dr. Ashton presents some pointers. One is to look backwards, this means looking at the reference list of your article and seeing what articles they referred to. This also means articles that came before the one you selected. Second is to look forward in time, this means looking for times cited in the database. Third is manipulation of keywords and subject terms. This is very important for finding more articles around your subject of interest. You can find various subject terms on the same page as the abstract. Lastly are the Boolean operators, such as capitalization, "AND", "OR", and "NOT". Among all the research that we conduct, reading the literature review and discussion sections will present to us the limitations and extensions of the article. This will aid us in coming up with a research.
Researching through Wikipedia has a few commonalities and a few difference in comparison to Dr. Ashton's approach to research. A difference between the two begins with the mindset. Regarding Wikipedia, not only are we picking a topic, but it is with the mindset of improvement. This is very different than Dr. Ashton's research approach because instead we are looking for an extension or limitations. Deciding on a "featured" or "good" article for improvement will be especially frustrating for a new editor of Wikipedia. Wikipedia advises us to avoid controversial topics which often have a lock icon on the top right. This is because they are already crafted for a compromise. To begin research all topics are sorted into categories. Wikipedia then list subcategories and related articles. This is very similar to Dr. Ashton's approach to research just made easy. For both methods we find a subject and key terms and finding articles relating to the same subject. The difference is once again the mindset of editing and not extension. Wikipedia has its own policy about psychological research and editing topics related to medicine and psychology. For starters, Wikipedia uses Medical Reliable Sources (MEDRS). The goal with Wikipedia is to ask yourself as an editor if someone can conceivably use the statements to draw conclusions about their own physical or mental health? If so, use MEDRS. Wikipedia strongly discourages the use of primary sources. Instead Wikipedia encourages summarized secondary sources. Wikipedia stresses this information because poor information about health topics can have real-world consequences for readers who do not necessarily question what is written on Wikipedia. In essence Wikipedia approach to research and Dr. Ashton approach share similarities such as finding a legitimate article, finding articles related to that source, checking in on what other articles are referred to. The difference that I found was in the mindset of finding article. Wikipedia is looking for you to find articles that you can edit not extend.
Jwills725 (talk) 15:15, 20 September 2018 (UTC)Jonathan Williams — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jwills725 (talk • contribs)
Response[edit]
edit1. This was one of the assignments due. The other was about conceptual gaps. 2. This was due in one of your sandboxes. By next week I hope you can copy this to a sandbox and delete it from my talk page. 3. Comments on this essay.
You have made some great connections in this essay! You have identified correctly why I (or one reason) emphasize primary research articles. Also it was very appropriate to mention MEDRS. But that's a problem with your essay, you mention it (MEDRS) but you don't examine it. If you did, you might see where my approach and Wikipedia's approach share some things and in fact can be seen as compatible.
I would like you to rewrite this for next week and try to respond to the issues I mentioned and try to identify how my and Wikipedia's approach can be compatible. Dr Ashton (talk) 18:14, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
p.s. you may wish to work more with Binky1110, you can help her and she can help you. 18:14, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
@Jwills725: p.p.s. Dr Ashton (talk) 18:17, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
MEDRS
editAccording to the wikiway guidelines, MEDRS only apply to "biomedical content." When mental health and human beings are mentioned in wikipedia MEDRS apply. There are three keys to follow when to apply MEDRS, statements about medicine, diseases, conditions, or diagnoses on Wikipedi, individual statements about human health, even within non-medical article, and lastly, content about human biochemistry or medical research in animals. When MEDRS do not apply when they do not mention human biomedical topics.