Is it rubbish??

Hi everybody!!

So, we were supposed to search for a reliable research article, right? I have to admit it was not an easy task, the reason being that some websites seemed reliable at the beginning, but after trying to answer the questions that Sarah gave us I found out they weren't. Sometimes I could answer only to 3 or 4 questions, which I guess it's not enough. The conclusion is that now I'm aware of the fact that surfing in the Web is not as funny as I thought. Just kidding!!! Seriously, now I know that there are some criteria to use if we want to take advantage of the information we find, and this is a great discover 'coz we're gonna loose less time with our next researches. The thing that I like most is that simply reading the abstract we can understand if reading the whole article is worth or not. 

So, first of all, I went to Google Scholar, as we were required to find a research article. I surfed a bit before finding a good one, but then I managed to find an article that I consider reliable. You can find it here: http://slr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/21/3/199

As you can see, the date of the research, that is, 2005, is immediately written. Then there's the title of the article and the name of the researcher, which is Silvina Montrul. It's written she belongs to  the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. You can see that her e-mail address is written, too. Then the abstract begins. I like it 'coz I find it short and straight to the point. The goal of the research is immediately pointed out: it's the comparison between the linguistic knowledge of adult second language (L2) learners, who learned the L2 after puberty, and the potential "eroded" first language (L1) grammars of adult early bilinguals who were exposed to the target language since birth and learnt the other language simultaneously, or early in childhood (before age 5). The findings of the research are clearly explained, too. The author writes "I make two main claims: (1) that the L1 grammar of bilingual [...] resembles the incomplete [...] grammars typical of intermediate and advanced stages in L2 acquisition; and (2) that [...] early bilinguals are better than the L2 learners, probably due to exposure to primary linguistic input early in childhood." The author explains the way in which she carried out her research, that is, how she collected data, explaining she conducted it with English-speaking L2 learners and English-dominant Spanish heritage living in the USA (small scale). She adds she discussed "how input, use and age may explain differences and similarities in the linguistic attainment of the two groups." As you can notice, I answered almost all the questions Sarah provided us. I couldn't say if the research was short or long term and if there were reservations or limitations on the research 'coz the writer didn't mention them, but I think that this is a good and reliable article as well. If you have the chance, take a look at it and tell me your opinion about it!