The Travels of Ibn Battuta and essays

The Travels of Ibn Battuta and essays Why do we travel? Many years ago explorers traveled to explore the many different places and cultures that would establish our futures. Now when we travel we learn of our past history and many other different cultures history. Traveling now however has evolved so much more since the beginning of time. In the 13th and 14th centuries, they traveled by ships, camels and horses, and even by foot. However, technology over the years has improved our traveling options. Now we have cars, trains and buses, and even planes and jets, that get us from one place to another in a matter of days or hours depending on the way you travel. Journeys in the past took weeks, months, and even years. There have been many explorers who have learned the geography of the universe. Explorers such as Ferdinand Magellan, Christopher Columbus, Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta, Galileo, and many more have contributed a great deal to the history of our universe. Although all of these men have been successful in the ir explorations, I will concentrate on the travels of Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta. In this reading we will see the world as these two travelers saw when they began their journeys. Both of these travelers experienced the many dangers which come along with being an explorer in an unfamiliar place (or places in their cases), but they kept on traveling for it was there destiny. Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta were two travelers who traveled long and challenging distances to trade, explore, and record the differences of eastern countries. It is evident from the recordings that these men were very observant and interested in the discovery of other society practices. Ibn Battuta was a famous 14th century traveler. Born in Tangier, Morocco in 1304 and died in 1369. He started his travels when he was just 20 years of age. His main goal for traveling was to go on a Hajj or Pilgrimage to Mecca, as all good Muslims want to do. However, his travels went on for abou...

Affordable Qualitative Data Software Programs

Affordable Qualitative Data Software Programs When we talk about software used in sociological research, most people think about programs designed for use with quantitative data, like SAS and SPSS, that are used for generating statistics with large numerical data sets. Qualitative researchers, however, also have several software options available that can help analyze non-numerical data like interview transcripts and responses open-ended survey questions, ethnographic fieldnotes, and cultural products like advertisements, new articles, and  social media posts, among others. These programs will make your research and work more efficient, systematic, scientifically rigorous, easy to navigate, and will asist your analysis by illuminating connections in the data and insights about it that you might not otherwise see. Software that You Already Have: Word Processing Spreadsheets Computers are great note-taking devices for qualitative research, allowing you to edit and duplicate easily. Beyond basic recording and storage of data, however, simple word processing programs can also be used for some basic data analysis. For example, you can use the find or search command to go directly to entries containing keywords. You can also type code words alongside entries in your notes so that you can easily search for trends within your data at later point. Database and spreadsheet programs, like Microsoft Excel and Apple Numbers, can also be used for analyzing qualitative data. Columns can be used to represent categories, the sort command can be used to organize data, and cells can be used for coding data. There are many possibilities and options, depending on what makes the most sense for each individual. There are also several software programs designed specifically for use with qualitative data. The following are the most popular and highly rated among social science researchers. NVivo Nvivo, made and sold by QSR Internationl is one of the most popular and trusted qualitative data analysis program used by social scientists around the world. Available for computers running both Windows and Mac operating systems, it is a multifunctional piece of software that allows for advanced analysis of text, images, audio and video, webpages, social media posts, emails, and datasets. Keep research journal as you work. Case coding, theme coding, InVivo coding. Color coding stripes make your work visible as you do it. NCapture add-on to collect social media posts and bring it into the program. Automatic coding of datasets like survey responses. Visualization of findings. Queries that examine your data and test theories, search for text, study word frequency, create cross-tabs. Easily exchange data with quantitative anlaysis programs. Collect data on mobile device using Evernote, import into program. As with all advanced software packages, it can be costly to purchase as an individual, but people working in education get a discount, and students can buy a 12-month license for about $100. QDA Miner and QDA Miner Lite Unlike Nvivo, QDA Miner and its free version, QDA Miner Lite, made and distributed by Provalis Research, work stricly with text documents and images. As such, they offer fewer functions than Nvivo and others listed below, but they are fantastic tools for researchers focusing on analysis of text or images. They are compatible with Windows and can be run on Mac and Linux machines that run virtual OS programs. Not limited to qualitative analysis, QDA Miner can be integrated with SimStat for quantitative analysis, which makes it a great mixed-methods data analysis software tool. Qualitative researchers use QDA Miner to code, memo, and analyze textual data and images. It offers a range of features for coding and linking sections of data together, and also for linking data to other files and webpages. The program offers geo-tagging and time-tagging of text segments and graphic areas, and allows users to import directly from web survey platforms, social media, email providers, and software for managing references. Statistical and visualization tools allow patterns and trends to be easily viewable and shareable, and multi-user settings makes it great for a team project. QDA Miner is costly but is much more affordable for people in academia. The free version, QDA Miner Lite, is a great basic tool for text and image analysis. It does not have all the features as the pay-version, but can get the coding job done and allow for useful analysis. MAXQDA The great thing about MAXQDA is that it offers several versions from basic to advanced functionality that offer a range of options, including text analysis, data collected through a variety of qualitative methods, transcription and coding of audio and video files, quantitative text analysis, integration of demographic data, and data visualization and theory testing. It functions much like Nvivo and Atlas.ti (described below). Each piece of software works in any language, and is available for Windows and Mac OS. Prices range from affordable to costly, but full-time students can use the standard model for as little as $100 for two years. ATLAS.ti ATLAS.ti is a software program that contains tools to help the user locate, code, and annotate findings in the data, weigh and evaluate their importance, and visualize the relationships among them. It can consolidate large volumes of documents while keeping track of all notes, annotations, codes and memos in all fields of the data. ATLAS.ti can be used with text files, images, audio files, video files, or geo data. Variety of ways of coding and organizing coded data. It is available for Mac and Windows, and a part of its popularity, also works on mobile with Android and Apple. Educational licenses are fairly affordable, and students can use it for less than $100 for two years. Updated by Nicki Lisa Cole, Ph.D.