Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Research

One of the hardest parts of any college assignment, in my opinion, is doing research. The best sources are ones found through the library databases: peer-reviewed, scholarly journal articles that have the information you are looking for. I want straightforward data. The articles have very specific research on very specific things. For example, I want examples of bike-friendly cities in the United States... so I search "bike friendly city."

My first result is promising at first glance. It is titled Havana: A Bike Friendly City? However, if you weren't aware, Havana is in Cuba and not in the United States.


Many of the pictures I have seen of Havana feature colorful cars, 
not bikes. I haven't read the article, but there is a good chance
 the answer is no, not a bike friendly city.

The second article discusses why bike-friendly cities are safer for everybody. That's great to know, but it isn't the information I was looking for. It might be included in my "Benefits" section, but it really does not help me out in the examples department.

That wasn't a very good search term, clearly, so I try "bike friendly campus." I know from my own experience that Colorado State University has a very bike-friendly campus, so that'll be one of my examples (although I doubt I'll be able to find a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal article detailing the bike-friendly nature of CSU's campus). 

I get a result for how to promote a bike-friendly campus, which is super helpful to my rhetoric. I find an article about the liabilities a university may face with a bike-friendly campus, which might be helpful in my "Challenges" section. However, I do not find a list or even a suggestion of a campus that may be bike-friendly, so I continue to seek examples.

I'll find them online through Google no problem, but those sources are not generally as trusted as peer-reviewed articles and, as a result, my ethos may be harmed. Research is a frustrating task, no doubt.