Research & My Bibliography: 'Genres'

For my annotated bibliography project, I probably looked at a wider variety of sources than I have ever had to for any type of research previously. A large part of this is because I now have access to a database that I used to find almost all of them. While doing my bibliography, I really noticed the differences between different 'genres' (i.e. newspaper article  vs blog). Altogether, I used peer-reviewed articles, blogs/blog posts, newspaper articles, and a professional website in my bibliography.

The most helpful type of source probably has to be peer-reviewed articles. Some were purely discussing a study that was conducted, and others talked about the studies of individuals that were taken into account to formulate and support newly presented ideas. They are lengthy and use a lot of terminology, but the 'abstract' of the article is very helpful in summarizing the findings and/or conclusions of the authors. These are the best type of source in my opinion because they are purely based off of actual research findings instead of opinion or common belief. If they contain visuals, they consist of graphs and charts.

This shows the typical layout of a peer-reviewed article.

Blog posts were helpful too, but this a much less reliable source than a peer-reviewed article may be, at least from the scientific aspect of things. I say this because those writing about something exercise-related are probably making those claims as someone who has actually experienced the affects of whatever he or she is discussing, but not know the science behind them. Blog posts vary in length depending on the author, but for the most part they are shorter than peer-reviewed articles. These aren't always based off of fact, usually with the author voicing their opinion on a subject because they have the freedom to, and there are rarely any facts or statistics mentioned to support the claims made in blog posts. Obviously there is much less terminology in a blog post than in a scholarly publication as well, making it a more friendly genre to the everyday person searching the internet. Blog posts have a lot of visuals in them, too.

Blog post paragraphs are often short and to the point, as shown in this visual.

Newspaper articles had to be the least useful in my research. They do vary in length, but the ones I found were very brief. Newspaper articles tend to touch on a lot of different subjects with vague detail. Strong claims are often made, again with the credibility of the author and statement under question. They are similar to blog posts in that they are meant for the everyday person, but newspaper articles are much less personal than blog posts can be. Short articles don't usually have pictures.

I could really only find one professional website, which I identified by the URL ending in "edu." Websites like this often contain what I suppose one could call 'articles' regarding certain subjects that are often written by professors, making them a credible source just as peer-reviewed articles. Depending on the type of article you are viewing in the website, it could either be long or short. Some contain visuals as well, but mainly graphs or charts.

This project has really helped me identify efficient ways too find credible sources for future research. I think the issue was that before I simply didn't know how to research something aside from doing a Google search on it. Now I understand a wider variety of genres and what they can offer to the readers.

Exercise Science & EMU Faculty Members

I was required to find someone who works at Eastern Michigan University in an area of study similar to that of my interests. The closest major available here that applies to what I am interested in is probably Exercise Science, which consists of learning about subjects such as physiology/anatomy, biology, chemistry, and so on.

One of the first people I came across on the school's website was Anthony Moreno, who is the undergraduate program coordinator of Exercise Science at EMU, as well as a professor. His interests are most applicable to mine out of the main Exercise Science faculty, however I do not think any of his publications are relevant enough to my research topic for me to use them. 

It stood out to me that one of his interests is strength training and preventing sports injuries for youth because strength training is my focus as well. On Moreno's page in the directory, it also stated that he is interested in "the role of motor skill ability on physical activity throughout the lifespan."

A second faculty member I found, named Becca Moore, is an assistant professor at EMU. She took part in writing an article titled "Carbohydrate and protein hydrolysate coingestions improvement of late-exercise time-trial performance." At first I thought this might be useful for my research, but it was not applied to weightlifting, MPS, and hypertrophy, but rather the effect of the coingestions on a cyclist. I have come across the term 'coingestion' with protein and carbohydrates while doing research for my topic, so this may help me understand the relevance of coingestion in regards to exercise overall.

Looking at these profiles along with those of the other faculty members, it seems that there is a wide range of things to look into regarding Exercise Science: coingestion, obesity, cardiovascular exercise, how muscle changes as individuals get older, topics regarding muscular diseases, and the list goes on. I am disappointed that I wan't able to find someone at EMU with research interests that directly correlate with mine, but Exercise Science is definitely relevant to my topic. Obesity is something I think I would like looking into so I can better understand the physical state that is opposite of the one I am currently focused on, plus it is such a growing problem in the United States and other places around the world.

Research Subject Ngrams

Ngrams are a Google service that finds word patterns and tracks their popularity over time in the literature available on Google Books. My English teacher asked my class to use the Ngrams to see how terminology of our research topic has progressed in popularity over time.

Above is the first set of terms I searched. As you can see, all of these terms and phrases started being used more frequently around the same time--the mid to late 1940s. This makes sense to me because weightlifting and concern with serious muscle growth seems like a relatively new concept with increasing popularity. 'Muscle protein synthesis,' 'skeletal muscle mass,' and 'skeletal muscle hypertrophy' are phrases that are more scientific, so I would expect them to be used less frequently than 'weightlifting' and 'resistance exercise.'

The first question I would ask is why 'skeletal muscle hypertrophy' is even below 'muscle protein synthesis,' since the result of MPS is hypertrophy? It seems to me like they would be used together. However, I suppose that muscle protein synthesis does not have to be that of skeletal muscle, so the graph could be accounting for MPS of other kinds of muscle tissue in the body. 

Another question I have is why is 'weightlifting' used so much more often than 'resistance exercise?' I feel as though it would be the opposite because weightlifting hasn't always been encouraged for women, so it seems like it should have been more popular between the 1980s and early 2000s when discussing fitness and exercise.

My second set of terms I found very interesting. I used all of the same words and phrases as before, but added 'nutrition' to the sequence. It is very clear how popular the topic of nutrition has been throughout history. Of course, nutrition for the everyday person is a little different than for someone trying to put on muscle mass, so it makes sense that overall, nutrition is more commonly discussed than the other words. It is just surprising how little they appear to increase in popularity and even seem relevant because of how frequently nutrition is mentioned. It also shocked me how popular 'nutrition' has been for so long.

Something I wonder conclusively is: why is everything having to do with my research topic at such a high popularity now? Is it simply because people have more time to focus on these things now? Or is it more because of technological advances that allow us to research 'muscle protein synthesis' and 'skeletal muscle hypertrophy?'

Analyzing One of My Research Sources: "Trying to build muscle? Don't Cut the Carbs."

As I was finding sources for my research project, I came cross a newspaper article on my school's database titled "Trying to build muscle? Don't cut the carbs." I know that carbs, specifically complex carbs, are vital for muscle growth, but at the time I found the article I wasn't really sure why. My expectations for finding the scientific explanation of that in this newspaper article were not high, but I was able to accumulate additional information about it.

Obviously the claim of the article is that carbs are essential for muscle growth, firstly because its a primary energy source for your muscles, but also because it raises insulin levels, allowing your muscles to absorb amino acids from the proteins you consume.

Since this is a newspaper article, most likely it is targeted to the everyday person interested in fitness. People usually browse through a newspaper and just read what interests them, so this would definitely catch the eye of someone who works out on a regular basis.

If this were discussed in something like a peer-reviewed article, it probably would have included a lot more terminology and included ore evidence and explanation behind the claims, as well as the author most likely would have a Ph.D. in the subject. However, the need for carbohydrates when building muscle is not new knowledge, but is not as common of knowledge as it should be. Therefore this may not be the topic of a recent peer-reviewed article or professional research document.

Because this is a newspaper article, it does lack a thorough explanation of the claim, along with the credibility of the author being debatable. I would say this does make the argument weaker than it would be in a more sophisticated, scientific piece of writing that includes concrete evidence and data to support the claim. Nevertheless, this is a short article that has some good information in it, although further explanation would be helpful.

This is a more technical explanation of how broken-down carbohydrates raise insulin levels and therefore allow one's body to take in amino acids more easily. You can find this image along with other information on carbohydrates at http://breakingmuscle.com/nutrition/a-comparison-of-carb-back-loading-and-the-renegade-diet