Week 2 - June 2-6

Our fun Sunday at the Lucky Rabbit!

3 Accomplishments

1. I narrowed down which letters and documents I will be using in my research.

2. I used AI to create basic machine models. Check them out here!

3. I wrote my preliminary research questions and chose a preliminary topic:

   1. How did government-funded geologic research change in Mississippi throughout the Civil War and Reconstruction?

3 Things Preventing My Best Work

1. I keep forgetting that the library is not open late, nor is it open before noon on the weekends. I like to work early on the weekends, but cannot do that in the library. I've been going to local coffee shops to remedy this.

2. I've been drinking more coffee than energy drinks, so I have been more sleepy in lectures. This leads to me participating (and paying attention) less. I'll have to make greater use of the keurig in the kitchen.

3. I've run into some roadblocks concerning secondary sources. For example, most of the research done for the Confederate Mining Bureau in Mississippi went unpublished.

3 Things I Learned This Week

1. I learned more about AI and what it really is. I still don't like it, but it was nice to learn about how it works.

2. I learned more about the available databases here at USM. I was able to use this information to find secondary sources for my research, including a magazine article that I was able to find in the Cook library!

3. I learned what we will need to include in our introduction, so I can begin to get started.

Next Action Step:

I am going to continue to work on my annotated bibliography so I can begin to determine what my thesis will be. This will also help me write my literature review/historiography later on.