Unit Two Assignment
Kelly Conklin
University of Texas Search Engine Comparison I chose the topic of pediatric heart transplants for my search engine comparison research and used the search engines Google and Google Scholar to compare my results. The results varied greatly between the two sites. First I used the search engine Google. The results I found were aimed at patients or families who were dealing with the need for a heart transplant. Most sites that came up on the search were children’s hospitals that preform these surgeries and most of the information was geared towards helping families understand the transplant process. A lot of the information was also geared towards helping families chose a specific institution for their child’s needs. While most of the information provided seemed reliable, there were many biases found as many of these sites were also trying to recruit patients. One site I found for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia offered contact information for families to schedule an evaluation at their institution (Children’s Hospital Of Philadelphia Cardiac Center 2013).

Next I used Google Scholar to search for research on my topic. The results I obtained from this search engine were geared much more towards physicians and other medical personnel working with pediatric heart transplant patients. Most of the results were research reports, study results, and statistics reports documenting previous complications, surgical outcomes, and rejection statistics. One report I found,
Incidence and outcome of primary Epstein-Barr virus infection and lymphoproliferative disease in pediatric heart transplant recipients (1998), explains a study preformed to help answer questions regarding EBV causing PTLD in post transplant patients. This site, as well as most of the others, were much more accurate and reliable and they all provided evidence and research to support their claims. None of the sites I found through this search were trying to make a profit therefore I found many less biases. Also most of these sites were .gov or .edu and not .com

Evaluating Emails

After reading the long list of email etiquette tips (101 email etiquette tips 2013) and reviewing the emails that I have sent and received over the last couple of weeks, I was shocked to see how poor my and my coworkers email etiquette is. Of the emails I have received, most of which were from my boss or other coworkers responding to mass emails sent by my boss, more than half were lacking courteous greetings and/or closings, most lacked proper sentence structure, and I found many spelling errors. I was also shocked when I realized that most of the emails sent by my boss were originally emails sent to her that she just forwarded to the staff without adding any additional information or personal comments.

When reviewing the emails that I have sent, I found that I too am guilty of improper email etiquette in many cases. I did not have a subject line in any of the emails I sent, I rarely used a greeting, and I use a lot of abbreviations that were not appropriate. This exercise helped me to realize that I should take more time before sending or responding to emails to make sure that I give more consideration to what I am saying and how I am saying it.

Plagiarism and the Internet

Being a student who has a great deal of difficulty understanding all the rules of A.P.A formatting, reference pages, in-text citations etc., I do feel that intent should be considered when determining whether a student has plagiarized or not. There are so many rules that can be very confusing so even students with the best intentions may accidently plagiarize at times. It is my opinion that these students should not be punished and each incident