GOALS AND OBSTACLES

Goals and Obstacles

Goals and Obstacles

Introduction

Post-secondary education can be a challenge to anyone. To survive, one must have the knowledge to understand what it takes to make it work. This survival guide will assist the student in areas of upholding academic honesty, conducting successful library and internet searches, developing effective study.

Skills, managing time wisely, and setting and achieving goals are the particular qualities of a person.

(Shahani, 2006)

Discussion

First, one must uphold academic honesty. Plagiarism is a serious and unethical action. Websters Dictionary defines plagiarism as to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own; use (another's production) without crediting the source (Webster, 2007).? The use of another author?s work is acceptable as long as one gives credit to that author through proper citation. If one makes a conscious effort to not plagiarize someone else's work, it will not happen. By reading someone's work, a person can usually tell if they have copied the information from another source or if it is truly unique. An instructor can tell if a student is guilty of plagiarism. During the course of a semester if a student is struggling with day-to-day assignments and at the end of the class they turn in an immaculate paper, chances are it is probably not their own work.( Kauchak, 2005)

A suggestion is that a person reads through all their resources and takes notes throughout. When it comes time to write their paper, a person should use their own thoughts and ideas to convey the same meaning. One can still use specific references to another individual's work but they have to make sure to document it as such. Some students do not realize that even if information is restated using different words, the sources still need to be cited. To balance time between classes I tend to log in to the class with the easiest and fastest assignment first. That way I can finish with that class and log into the other class and stay there as long as I need to. I also log in almost every single day even though we are only required 3 days a week. This way I am sure to not miss anything. Another way to manage time wisely is that when I have a larger assignment due at the end of the week I look ahead and start it early in the week to allow plenty of time to complete the assignment on time.( Eliyahu, 2008)

Second, conducting research online is different from conducting research in a traditional library. Conducting research online is easier and more convenient. In a traditional library, a person is restricted by the quantity and quality of their data and restricted to the library?s hour of operation. There are not too many limitations of conducting research online except the limitations that a student has control over. Those limitations could be whether a person has a personal computer, if they have an internet connection and if they do, what connection speed they have, ...