ICW 11/29/11

I know my paper is a little short, but I made it to the fifth page at least. One of my concerns is what else can I add to my paper to make it longer? I feel like some of the paragraphs might be to bulky also...I think it kinda makes the organization awkward. I guess those are the main things to focus on.

ICW(2) 11/15/11

Perspective 1: Exercise. "Someone involved in exercise would say that lack of activity is the cause of increased child obesity."

Perspective 2: McDonald's. "Their food is not unhealthy and causing obesity."

Perspective 3: Science. "Genes can cause obesity."

Perspective 4: Doctors/nutritionists. "Some doctors would agree that food is the cause. Alternative foods, such as artificial coloring, flavoring, packaging, etc., just are not as healthy as the real deal."

I haven't totally decided between policy or proposal. I'm leaning more towards proposal, because I think it's easier to answer "how do we solve a problem" rather than give one specific policy. If that's what I do,  I'm going to propose something that deals with food. I did a lot of research and don't think I'll need more. Once I start writing, I might look up a few more things. It just depends. 

ICW 11/15/11

• Between the first draft due Thursday and today, I added more details. I tried to include more background into the introduction, clarification to my conclusion, and just more details/research to my body paragraphs. I revised before I got my peer comments, but her critiques were things I tried changing anyway. The sample student essay helped a little bit but not a lot because I wrote a causal argument and their's wasn't. I never feel strong about my writing, but with this draft I guess my introduction is my strongest element because I like the emotions I get from reading it and I think readers will care about the issue. I'm concerned about my length. I always feel like my papers are too short but I never know what else to add. My mind just gets stuck sometimes, even if I take a break and come back. 

Annotated Bibliography

Aho, Siaso. "Nutrition, Growth, and Childhood Obesity: A Viewpoint." Pacific Health Dialog 1.1: 63-66. Web.

This journal article was published in the “viewpoints” section of Pacific Health Dialog in 1994. The journal itself is a credible source, containing informative issues on health issues. The viewpoint article I read gave background on nutrition, growth, and obesity. Even though this is labeled as a “viewpoint” article, it provided several facts and scientific proofs, not just biased opinions. I liked how it opened with just talking about growth in general and the different factors that can alter the normal growth. The article doesn’t just talk about obesity; it also talks about malnutrition and a couple other health issues related. The end of the article just gives a couple simple solutions to help fight childhood obesity. This article is helpful for my research because of the background it gives.

Dolinkshy, Diana H., Anna M. Siega-Riz, Elaina Perrin, and Sarah C. Armstrong. "Recognizing and Preventing Childhood Obesity." Contemporary Pediatrics (2011): 32-42. Web.

            This journal article was recently published in January 2011 in Contemporary Pediatrics. What I liked most about this article is the facts it contained. It was written like “childhood obesity is an issue”…it’s written like “21% of children between ages 2 and 5 years of age are overweight.” The statistics could be totally made up but it still gives that credibility of having something to back up the statement. Like the first article I read, it gave background on normal growth and development for children. The second half of the article is dedicated to how to prevent childhood obesity. It starts with prevention during pregnancy and goes all the way through the early childhood years. I’m going to use this in my essay because it is detailed and credible.

Dhar, Tirtha, and Kathy Baylis. "Fast-food Consumption and the Ban on Advertising Targeting on Children: The Quebec Experience." Journal of Marketing Research XLVIII (2011): 799-813. Print.

         The American Marketing Association published this article but it’s about different studies that took place in Canada. As opposed to the two previous articles I read, this ties to my essay in a direct way. My issue is the impact fast food has on childhood obesity. As stated in the title, this article is about how fast food affects children. It also talks about banning certain advertisements that pull in kids to wanting to eat unhealthily. It doesn’t just talk about the effects in one specific country; it makes the issue more global. I think I’m going to use some of the statistics in the article for my essay. When it starts talking about legislation, it gets a little off topic for me. That might come in handy for the proposal essay we have next.

Duranto, Marcella, and Greta M. Herron. "Avoid the Fast Food Trap." Momentum (2011): 34-35. Print.

            This is an article I’m not going to use. The article was in the “healthy living” section of Momentum. There was nothing wrong with the article; it just didn’t have enough credibility to go into a research essay. It was just tips on how to cook healthy. There was also an emphasis and the disease Multiple Sclerosis, which isn’t connected to my paper at all. My issue deals with healthy eating but this just wasn’t good enough for me to use.

            Miller, Vin. "Super Size Me: Is McDonald's and Fast Food Really to Blame?" Natural Bias | Health, Fitness & Perspective by Vin Miller. Web. 07 Nov. 2011. <http://naturalbias.com/super-size-me-is-fast-food-really-to-blame/>.

            “Natural Bias” is a blogging website so there is obvious opinionated bias written. I chose to read this article though, because it was coming from a different perspective. It is written in response to “Super Size Me”, a documentary where one guy eats McDonald’s for every single meal throughout one month. The movie provides tons of facts against McDonald’s, “proving” the health issues he encountered came from his new diet. This blog gives different alternatives to his health problems and gives exceptions to people that eat fast food regularly and are still healthy. Even though it’s a biased blog, there’s still some credibility to the facts given. It works well for my essay, because it’s a different viewpoint saying fast food isn’t all to blame.

"Obesity and Overweight for Professionals: Childhood: Problem | DNPAO | CDC." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Web. 07 Nov. 2011. <http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/childhood/problem.html>.

            This website is a .gov website, so it’s got the government behind it to give it credibility. It’s a simple website with different links to click on regarding different aspects of obesity. I read about the childhood obesity, since that’s what I’m writing on. I like how simple the website is…easy to find what I was looking for with clear titles. The information is complete unbiased, with a definition of simply stating, “childhood obesity is the result of eating too many calories and not getting enough physical activity.” There were no pointing fingers at a specific thing. It also talks about why it’s important to think about food and physical activity habits.

"McDonalds Nutrition Facts - Fast Food Nutrition Facts." - Fast Food Nutrition Facts. Web. 07 Nov. 2011. <http://www.fastfoodnutrition.org/r-nutrition-facts/McDonalds-item.html>.

            Because my issue ties together fast food/eating habits with childhood obesity, I figured I should look up the nutrition facts for the biggest fast food chain in the world, McDonald’s. I wasn’t shocked to see that majority of the time about half of the number of calories were from fat. Majority of the fat is saturated, which is the unhealthy type. I think I’m going to use this for my essay because it’s credible and helps in favor of my issue.

Maclay, Kathleen. "03.04.2009 - Linking Fast Food Proximity to Obesity." University of California, Berkeley. Web. 07 Nov. 2011. <http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/03/04_obesity.shtml>.

            The University of California, Berkeley, published this article. It isn’t a long article. It mainly talks about how location of fast food restaurants is a factor on obesity also. It’s a viewpoint I never really thought about, so I might include it.

SWA#22

My issue is childhood obesity. It’s been stated that about 9 million children over 6 years old are obese. In 2001, the United States was in second place for the number of obese children, ages 10-16 years old. In 2008, South Carolina alone had a 30.1% rate of child obesity. There are plenty of people interested in this: doctors, nutritionists, and restaurants…the list goes on. Fast food industries could care less about contributing to these rates; as long as they’re making profit, it’s okay. Doctors are obviously against it because they’re aware and deal with the health issues that will come. I can’t think of two more sides at the moment. I personally think that the issue is terrible. There is no reason for a preschooler to be obese. There’s a long list of adversity and health problems they’re going to face.

In Class Writing 11/1/11

The problem is how unhealthy America is as a nation. It is important because the numbers of obesity and health issues are rising in every aspect. The people affected are mainly children. Children born into an obese family are more likely to have health issues and become obese also. People might disagree because they like to eat unhealthy foods or think it's an individual's right, which it is, it's just affected surrounding people as well.

SWA#21

1. It's being argued that people won't read if there aren't images (still or video), colors, headlines, summaries, etc. The whole article is about the shock people undergo when they're expected to read a block of black-inked text. Everyone just wanted to be told the gist of it, instead of reading the whole thing.
2. "Millions were frozen in place...daunting cascade of syllables....deafening sigh was heard across the country...450 percent rise in temple rubbing...never-ending flood of sentences...impenetrable English..." Hyperbole helps the author advance in his argument because it just adds to the stress of people not wanting to read plain text.

SWA#18

My three topics are child obesity, gun control, and the "Corridor of Shame". The "Corridor of Shame" is a local issue concerning the lower income cities in SC and the poor schooling systems. It was easiest to find sources and information for gun control because it's such a broad issue. The hardest one was the "Corridor of Shame" because it's a local issue. I could find some things, but if the issue was just poor schooling systems instead of specified to SC, it would be a lot easier.

SWA#19

1. It seemed to me that Andriesen considers something a sport if a ball is involved, it's a race, people take turns, there's a score, and it requires physical activity.
2. Criteria for sports is required in a competition setting. There have to be some guidelines, or else anyone could become an Olympian or something like that.

SWA

I'm responding to the second article..."Factory food artificially cheap, bad for your health". The claim is pretty obvious; it's stated in the title. Factory food is bad for your health. Several reasons are given.

• mass contamination has led to several recalls of commonly used products
• new diseases breakout
• cheaper cost = less quality, nutrition, and safety
• animal living conditions suck, get sick often
• animal food consists of crap (literally) and bugs
• hurting the environment
• animals not being free ranged anymore also has an impact on the quality of the meat

I think this argument is convincing...I think it gave great appeal to pathos. This topic is one I've already been interested in. It should gross anyone out to think about the quality of their food and make anyone sad when they think about the lifestyle for the animals.

10/6/11 HW

I chose to analyze two potato chip ads. I found both of the advertisements online. The first advertisement is for Hunky Dorys chips. The ad has a rugby player barely clothed on the left side, bending over and holding a rugby ball. Her cleavage is showing and to the right of her it says, “Are you staring at my crisps?” At the bottom of the ad it says “proud sponsors of Irish Rugby” and a picture of the chips. The second ad is a picture of a little girl standing in a field, holding a bag of Lay’s potato chips, and she’s eating one. Above her it says “It takes 12 muscles to smile or 3 simple ingredients. Just potatoes, all natural oil and a dash of salt.” I chose to do these advertisements because even though they’re advertising the same type of products, they’re so different. One ad has an almost naked woman on the front and the other ad has a little girl. I think the first ad is definitely geared towards men. The second ad is more family friendly.

Advertisements

#1: This is an advertisement for Ralph Lauren Romance perfume. The claim made is that if you were the Romance perfume, you will have a magical romance with a handsome man. The ad is a picture of a man and woman riding in a field on horseback. The only words used are "Ralph Lauren Romance.
#2: This is an advertisement for Tacori rings. It's a picture of an engagement ring and a wedding ring tied together with a ribbon. I feel like the claim is "Tacori is the best way to tie the knot." Not gonna lie, I'd be thrilled to have one of those rings. The background is solid white making the ad crisp and clean.
#3: This is an advertisement for Downy. It's a picture of an orange wearing sunglasses and an orange afro wig. It says "Citrus and Ginger. Mash them together and what do you get?" I'm not totally sure what the claim is, other than to use the orange/ginger Downy because it's good.

My Postsecret

I made my Postsecret card to portray Abigail from “The Crucible”.  The secret was “I’ve got a thing for old men”. It was conveyed explicitly, because it was just stated. The background is a picture of old pilgrim looking men with a typewriter font. Their purpose is to come across as stuffy and old. I mean, Abigail hooks up with an older man in “The Crucible” and at first it’s a secret. Even though he’s not technically an elderly man, he’s still older than her and that’s what I wanted to convey.  

Post Secret

I chose the first postcard on the class blog. Written on a Lockout Receipt, it says "I locked myself out on purpose. (Because the safety officer is cute!)" I feel like the author is a young female and I feel like that's what the audience is too. She's basically saying that she'll do crazy things for cute people. Maybe the implicit claim is that cute people won't talk to her unless she goes to an extreme.

ICW 9/27/11

My reaction to the Menzel photographs is that some countries/people obviously have better access to more food. A few families were shown with tons of boxed and processed foods. Those foods were the kind you cook with an oven or microwave...not natural. Other pictures showed people with small amounts of food. A lot of the other families had food that was obviously fresh and natural (grains, vegetables/fruits, whole fish). These pictures show little to no cooking, and the picture that showed cooking was a fire...not oven.

9/27/11 HW

Pg.81, #1:

            At first, Wrangham makes a comparison between gorillas and chimps, to prove how a slight alteration in their diets makes a big difference in their bodies and how they live. He also talks about the differences in eating raw meat and cooked meat, since his argument is about cooking changing humans. Links are made in the energy use between humans and chimps. Towards the end, he talks about the social changes, such as the females cooking and the males gathering or “working”.

Pg.87, #3:

            Well, my book is missing page 83/84 so I’m unsure of what the full first point is. What I can read of it, it’s talking about making a compost and growing your own food. It’s hard for a college student to grow their own food, but a compost can easily be made from leftovers…I always have plenty, and given to a local farm or family. Point 2 is about preparing your own food. Some college students may not have access to a kitchen, but in the cafeteria they could pick out the healthier choices from the normal cafeteria-style line as opposed to the fast food choices. Points 3, 5, 6, and 7 are all about learning; learning about where the food comes from, the economy, farming in general, and food species. College students can do all of those just by asking around and doing some research. Point 4 talks about directly talking to the producer. At USC, there’s a farmer’s market once a week. Students can take advantage of that resource to talk to local farmers and other producers. 

Draft 1 concerns

The most challenging thing was meeting the length requirement...I made it to the 4th page but barely. I also kinda feel like some of my points of somewhat broad and scattered; maybe my paragraphs aren't in the right order, I don't know.

SWA#7

Title: Rhetorical Analysis of “The Women’s Crusade”

Thesis: Authors Kristof and WuDunn effectively make their argument that providing aid to women in poorer countries will positively impact the world by using a sense of kairos and by giving evidence to support their views, building pathos.

I.               Background

II.             Summary (not totally sure how to outline those)

III.           Kairos is a major aid to the effectiveness of this article’s argument.

a.     Published in 2009

b.     A time when women are gaining more ground…higher paid, better jobs, more education

IV.            Several stories were told within the article to build the pathos, emotional response, from the reader.

a.     Saima

1.     beat, poor, started own business and is now respected

b.     China

1. girl babies are killed, not given education

2. Tiananmen Square killing

c. Abbas Be

1. Sex slave, received education and is now helping support her family

d. Ivory Coast research

1. “When women command greater power, child health and nutrition improves”

e. Tinashe

1. married at 11 in Africa but received small education and is now working on her PhD

V. The authors present a problem but don’t fully give a solution.

VI. Conclusion Point: Kristoff and WuDunn spend majority of the article throwing out examples of stories in Asia and the Middle East. What the fail to do is thoroughly expand how educated women are impacting the world in other places. Even with that, they still make good points to prove their original argument.   

Working Thesis Statement

Authors Kristof and WuDunn effectively make their argument that providing aid to women in poorer countries will positively impact the world by using a sense of kairos and by giving evidence to support their views, building pathos. 

9/13/11

“The Women’s Crusade”

-The authors’ argument is that in the 21^st century, women are on the receiving end of “the paramount moral challenge”.

-gives the examples of the types of challenges, different stories about what happens to different women all over the world

- There’s a variety of examples given throughout. The authors don’t just talk about women in poor countries; they also talk about in the modern day work place as such. Some examples, like the Indian brothel, were a little too extreme for me.

“Lady Power”

-The whole thing is basically about Lady Gaga and how the author views her as a feminist.

-The author gives different examples about why they feel like Gaga’s a feminist.

-I don’t think the topic of “Lady Power” was fully explored because I feel like the author really only stuck to one example. That takes away from their ethos. 

"Womb for Rent-For a Price"

1. Goodman uses her article "Womb for Rent-For a Price" to make a claim that the surrogacy business is pushing the limits on boundaries. It's become a trend for international surrogacy and Goodman believes this is coming too close to "selling our children." She uses examples of Indian woman, becoming surrogate mothers to make a decade's worth of money they would get working otherwise. She also quotes a woman saying, "We give them a baby and they give us much-needed money."
2. I think anything that has to do with babies automatically has an appeal to pathos. She gives examples of Army wives and poor women. Talking about selling babies for money just gets an emotion from me, I'm sure it does for most people.
3. I asked myself "what is the writer's purpose". I feel like it's to discourage surrogacy.
4. I didn't like the negative word choices Goodman used or the way she was extreme. Comparing surrogacy to "slavery" or "selling children" is an extreme comparison and could be viewed as problematic.

Extra Credit

Cindy Sherman is a photographer. She typically shoots her photographs in series. I would categorize her work as feminist. All the pictures I saw were of women. The photographs aren’t just of women smiling, a lot of the pictures are eccentric looking; different colors, makeup, settings, and hair. She’s been quoted saying, “If I knew what the picture was going to be like I wouldn’t make it. It was almost like it was made already…the challenge is more about trying to make what you can’t think of.” I definitely think Cindy Sherman and Lady Gaga are similar, in perspective. Lady Gaga’s music and appearance are severe and are used to make statements. Lady Gaga reminds me a lot of Madonna, but there isn’t really anything like her. I feel the same about Sherman; both women are unique with their talents. 

Beecher

When doing research on Catherine Beecher, I learned that her mother passed away when Beecher was only 16. She had several siblings and assumed a motherly-type role. She was educated at home and when she went to an actual school, it was a female school where only limited subjects were taught. One of her sisters was involved in the suffrage movement, which was basically women's rights. Beecher was kinda anti-suffrage. Beecher believed women needed to be educated for their roles as woman of the house; "women should devote themselves to the moral development and education of their children and to their home" (http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/digital/2001/beecher/catherine.htm). She opened several schools and wrote many books.

SWA#4

The housekeeper is in charge of the house. She’s in charge of keeping everything orderly while keeping a smile on her face. It’s important for the housekeeper to remain “equable and cheerful” because others don’t just rely on her to do everything around the house, they rely on her to stay happy too. If the housekeeper isn’t happy, nobody’s happy.

            Beecher has eight “considerations” for how women can keep their cheerfulness during her chores. 1. Think of duties as important. 2. Think of duties as difficult and slightly dangerous. 3. Plan for the worst to happen. 4. Consider the people you’re around. 5. Be neat and set a good example for your children. 6. Don’t use an angry tone of voice. 7. Expect to have an “off-day”. 8. God.

            Beecher’s distinguishes were hard to pick out. There wasn’t a set distinguishing between women and housekeepers, which complicates her implied definitions.

SWA#3

Listening plays the biggest part in Wiesel’s worldview.  One of the things he teaches his students, he says, is communication. Wiesel’s opinion is that Cain killed Abel on lack of communication. The definition of communication is to effectively talk and listen.  Part of a question asked by Heffner was “Does it seem to you that we’re not listening to the world around us…” Wiesel answered “absolutely.” He uses the example of teenagers and how we’ve always got music playing in our ears. He views that as a symbol of not wanting to listen to the rest of the world and only caring about personal interests. I agree, in a way. Often times I block out the needs of others around me because I’m having a bad day or something else is more important to me. If we were to take time to focus on our “brothers”, or the world around us, we would be able to listen more in depth about other issues going on and not just our own. 

In Class Writing; 8/30/11

My family could definitely relate to the Campbell family. We all have cell phones, iPods, computers, etc. On the computer, we've got Facebook, youtube, tumblr, and twitter accounts. I don't see any type of "generation gap" at all. Even while my mom is driving, she's on her phone. I'll say "Mom, stop texting" and she'll reply "I'm not, I'm checking Facebook." Before I moved out, we'd sometimes use texting to communicate throughout the house, like to say when dinner's ready or what time we're leaving for something. On trips or special events, we all have our phones on us constantly. I don't always view that as a bad thing because in a way it still brings us together since we can take pictures and post things together about what we're doing. My grandparents definitely have a harder time with keeping up; they don't text and struggle with Facebook. They still email though, which is a huge step from when they were growing up.

SWA#2

            Nora Volkow says, “The technology is rewiring our brains.” In the context of Richtel’s article, this means technology is changing humans. We’re thinking and doing things differently. Proof of this is how we do things. The article talks about computers and cellphones; both have made life portable. Instead of having to sit and talk or work, we can do both on the move. “In 2008, people consumed three times as much information each day as they did in 1960” the article states. Adam Gazzaley also adds, “we are exposing our brains to an environment and asking them to do things we weren’t necessarily evolved to do.” This ties back to statements made in articles previously read, “Get Smarter” and “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” All three of these articles talk about the changes humans and the world are undergoing because of technology. We think differently also. Research has shown that multitaskers don’t actually focus on anything well.

            Richtel uses the family scenario to make the reader feel connected. Several times while reading I thought, “Hey, I do this” or “Yeah, mom does that all the time.” I think Richtel uses this connection to emphasize the importance of the issue because majority of people don’t want a family like the family displayed. The dad came close to losing several big opportunities, the mom can’t even bake cookies, and the “bonding time” is spent playing video games. Technology can’t even be escaped during family vacation; something my family is definitely guilty of. When the technologies were finally put away, everyone admitted to having a better time.

            Richtel uses the “myth of multitasking” to prove that multitaskers aren’t really that good at multitasking. Different experiments have been conducted using “heavy multitaskers” against “nonmultitaskers” and the results have shown that multitaskers are poor at multitasking. People considered as nonmultitaskers were able to focus more and be more efficient in the experiment. This doesn’t really change my opinion on multitasking because I was already aware of these experiments. I don’t claim to be great at focusing, but I don’t think multitasking is a problem for me.

            

"Get Smarter" Response

It's hard for me to share my opinion after reading this article. When I first read the Google argument, I totally agreed with it. After reading "Get Smarter" I've sort of changed sides. With Carr's argument about the way new technologies are affecting our ability to concentrate and faking intelligence, I agreed somewhat. Being able to obtain a fact off Google is so much faster and easier than searching through paragraphs of a book, but at the same time, more is read and learned when searching through the actual book. At the same time though, it's easy to agree with the "Get Smarter" argument because it does make sense that the faster the access we have, the more knowledge we have because there's so much we can learn in a shorter time period. I kinda just contradicted myself, but I agree to both in a way. I also agree with when the author talks about the evolution throughout time. All this technology is something we're just going to have to get used to and evolve around; it may or may not be a bad thing.

In Class Writing; 8/23/11

When reading the article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" I realized that I had never really thought about this topic but I agree. Using things like Google, text, or just plain internet are simplifying everything we do. The thing I remembered most is the author's reference to Nietzsche and how even changing from just writing by hand to typing with a typewriter really made a difference in his work. I remembered this the most because his change didn't seem significant but it had an impact. Our generation is changing in big ways, so obviously it's causing a bigger impact.

SWA#1

I haven’t had too many writing experiences that are memorable to me. The main reasons I write is because I’m writing something that has been assigned in class, and I have no choice. I like writing an opinionated or argumentative essay though, because it’s a good way for me to voice how I feel. I’m very opinionated, but also shy, and writing about things are easier for me to get my point across. The “best” writing experience I’ve had is an essay I wrote about how small farm production should be favored over big factory’s mass production. It was a good experience because it was something I cared about. The “worst” writing experience I’ve had was the AP Biology writing section of my final exam. A question was asked that I had no idea how to answer. It was bad because I don’t like writing about things I’m unfamiliar or impassionate about because I feel like the writing comes across as bland or boring. I was more affected by the good experience because I try not to worry about negative or bad things.