Blog Post 40: Encouragement Letter to Future Self

Dear Future Self,

Next semester is going to be a difficult one. You're going to have a large workload but you can handle it. Just remember you are going to have to work hard at some point in your life so why not work hard now. If you work hard and get everything done you won't have to work as hard when you're older. You will have the opportunity to relax and do fun things by putting in a little hard work now. There is also tons of opportunities to get help such as study groups, tutoring, and other resources. You can always go and talk to your counselors or teachers and they will all help you. Plus you are going to take some high level STEM classes and you will have a lot to brag about. After this learning you will have a great chance of getting a job out of college and you will be set for a while. It will all be worth it in the long run. You may miss some sleep now but you will get it back in the future or over the summer. No one ever said they wish they had gotten more sleep. The most important thing though is make sure to remember bear down and to pipe it up.

From,

Past Self

Blog Post 39: Letter to Self

Dear Benjamin,

After looking back at this semester I have a few recommendations for you. First off don't be stubborn, create multiple drafts of all papers and do all of your pre-writing. This leads to significantly better papers and drafting becomes significantly easier if you do good pre-writing. Otherwise you have to organize all of your jumbled ideas while attempting to write a high quality paper. Second take advantage of office hours and peer editing. It can be difficult to find problems with your own work but it is easy to fix them after someone else points them out and you realize they exist. The last piece of advice I have is time management. Avoid procrastination and don't save homework for one day. Do chunks of homework every day and you will thank yourself when you want to go have fun on the weekend or watch football on Sunday. Follow all of this advice and your papers will be ten times better and you will have a more fun, less stressful first semester.

Sincerely,

Future Benjamin

Blog Post 38: Reflective Essay Organizing Ideas and Thesis

Thesis 1:

Through continually practicing rhetorical analysis, not only my analysis skills but my critical thinking skills have improved due to peer reviewing other's papers, viewing new types of text, and using new techniques when going through text.

Thesis 2:

In past english classes I would write one draft and have no specific audience in mind besides the “general audience”, but after a semester in english 109H I have learned the value of drafting, many new techniques for pre-writing, and how important a specific audience is to the success and clarity of a paper.

Thesis 3:

After one semester of college english, I have developed many new strengths from practice and learning new strategies, but I still have weaknesses that need to be addressed.

Thesis 4:

Over the course of the semester the three class goals that I have made strides towards achieving are rhetorical awareness, critical thinking and composing, and reflections and revisions through learning new methods and techniques and practice.

Thesis 5:

My writing process has greatly improved this semester due to tools and skills such as clusters and outlines, but some areas I still need to address are revising papers and avoiding procrastination.

SOAPSTone:

S: The speaker is me

O: The occasion is that the semester is ending and I am reflecting on what I have learned

A: My audience for this paper is Dr. Bell and maybe my english 109H class

P: The purpose is to explain what I have learned over the course of the semester

S: The subject is the learning I have had over the semester

Tone: Mastery

Blog Post 37: Audience and Invention for Reflective Essay

              For my reflection I am choosing to examine my writing process and how it has developed over the course of the semester. I want to show my reader all that I have learned and how I have used it to make myself a better writer. The primary audience for my reflection is Dr. Bell and myself. Through this reflection I not only want to show Dr. Bell how much I have learned, but also show myself and look for areas that I can still work on. The audience has already seen some of my drafts and all of my final drafts of assignments this semester but hasn't seen any of my previous work. So I am going to present my material and include comparisons between my writing and writing process from this year and pieces that I did in high school. The order of my reflection will be similar to the organization of my writing process where I will address pre-writing first, then drafting and revising, and then writing style. At the end I will then include areas that I can still improve and then a conclusion.

http://www.jholko.com/data/photos/641_1polar_bear_reflection_svalbard.jpg

Blog Post 36: Discovering Your Writing Process

I consider myself to be a procrastinator. While writing I am slow to start and then once I do start I get distracted very easily by anything and everything on the internet. However over the course of the semester I have been changing my writing process in order to become a more successful writer. Some change I have made is the inclusion of more pre-writing to become a more heavy planner. The main activities that have had an influence on my writing process are when we learned SOAPSTone and having to make more detailed outlines. I found these to be especially helpful in pre-writing and also found them to simplify the writing process and make it easier to write organized and thoughtful drafts. Throughout the semester my writing process has changed and become more heavy pre-writing. I use multiple pre-writing techniques before I write my papers or create a public argument. Some new things that I tried are heavy pre-writing and I also started to write multiple drafts during my writing process. One thing that I could try in the future if I have more time while writing is have some of my later drafts peer-revised. This semester it was usually only my first or second draft getting peer-revised so also having my later drafts revised could have the potential to significantly improve my paper.

Blog Post 35

               The purpose of the political cartoon is to get the United States to rethink accepting refugees. To understand the cartoon the viewer needs to understand the context. The context is that many countries are closing their borders following the terrorist attack in Paris. From viewing the cartoon the message is that Native Americans aren't accepting refugees. However the viewer must know the Thanksgiving story where the pilgrims were in bad times and then the Native Americans accepted them and they had the first Thanksgiving. After understanding all of this the viewer can understand the purpose which is to reconsider accepting refugees because at one point Americans were just refugees who were accepted by the Native Americans during a bad time. Americans should consider accepting the refugees or help them similarly to how the Native Americans helped the pilgrims.

Thesis Statement For Rhetorical Analysis

I argue that the most effective way for convincing high school baseball players to delay their journey to Major League baseball and attend college is an informational powerpoint presentation composed of shocking statistics and emotional personal stories.

Blog Post 33: Background Research

Here is a link to my background research.

Blog 32: Initial Thoughts on the Audience

              There is no such thing as a general audience. Events will always affect one group more than others. The event or issue may affect multiple groups of people, but there is always one group that is affected more than others.
               The main group that is impacted by this issue is minor league baseball players, college players, and high school players. Minor league players are affected because it is their pay. It is the amount of money they are getting payed for working. College and high school players are affected cause they may be considering going pro and forfeiting college scholarships to go pursue their chances of making it to major league baseball. Most of the groups don't know much about the pay until they get to the minor leagues. On sports networks such as ESPN, the only salaries ever reported are those of the highest paid players, the record deals worth hundreds of millions. Young players see these numbers and think everyone gets paid, so their knowledge is very limited on the topic. Some other people who are in the audience are owners of the teams and the fans. The fans support everything that is going on probably because they have no idea what is going on. Their knowledge is also limited to what they see on television. The owners are involved because they have control over everything that is going on. They own the teams and the money that is used to pay the players. The owners fully know what is going on but it is not important to them unless there is a wide spread call for change. The owners could be against any change because it will cost them more money.
                 In order to understand the situation, the audience will need to know about minimum wage, how baseball contracts work, and then the costs that players have after they do get their contracts.

https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2014/12/18/17/52/baseball-player-572620_640.jpg

Blog Post 31: My Proposed Public Argument

               An idea that I have for my public argument is the wage inequality between minor league and major league baseball players. I think this should be changed and the wealth should be more evenly distributed. The situation is that the way money is handled in baseball organizations needs to be changed. There needs to be a minimum salary for minor leaguers that is at least at minimum wage. The message I will have is there needs to be higher salaries for these men. The audience is baseball fans, baseball players, and the owners of the baseball teams. The purpose of this argument would be to get fair wages. They don't have to be the same as major leaguers but they need to be at a level where they aren't below minimum wage.

http://throughthefencebaseball.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/money-baseball.jpg

               

Blog Post 30: Analysis of Public Argument

               In her letter to Governor Brewer, Kassandra Diaz uses a professional and respectful tone. One of her first phrases, "in the hopes of discussing", conveys a respectful tone. Kassandra isn't demanding anything. She is just putting the idea out there and showing her desire to talk. Other places that show her professional tone are around the transitions. One example is "another area of concern". Kassandra isn't just saying there is a problem. By saying area of concern it makes it so it is something that can be discussed. This tone is very fitting considering she is writing a formal letter. A formal letter is supposed to be very professional. It is often written about serious topics and must therefore be taken very seriously. By using a professional and respectful tone Kassandra can make her formal letter more successful.
                Kassandra never really establishes her ethos. She says she is a freshman at the University of Arizona which gives her some credibility since she is a student pursuing higher education. However at the end she states that she is in Biology Department in the College of Science. This doesn't get her any credibility because biology isn't related to healthcare funding. Biology is related to healthcare but not the funding. This isn't effective because there is no proof that she knows what she is talking about. She could have done outside research to form her points but no one knows the sources or how she got the ideas. Studying biology doesn't give her the credibility needed.
                The main claim of Kassandra's letter is that the governor should reconsider the budget cuts. To support her argument Kassandra focuses on the negative consequences of the budget cuts. One of her points is that the cuts will have the strongest negative effects on the elderly, disabled, and impoverished. For her evidence she uses a few statistics but mostly explains the effects that the cut would cause. However it is not clear what Kassandra wants from this letter. Does she just care about the well being of all of the people it would effect, does she have familial connections, or does it have another meaning for her.
                 My recommendation for how to make this letter stronger is to include some statistics about who depends on medicaid programs and also statistics about medical costs with and without medicaid assistance. This would more effectively explain the negative effects that the budget cut would have on the people who are dependent on medicaid. These statistics would give Kassandra solid evidence that the budget cut will have negative effects on these people.

Blog 29: Rhetorical Analysis Reflection

               After writing my rhetorical analysis and reflecting on the process, I learned that drafting is very important for my writing process. When I wrote my analysis, I started out with a broad thesis. As I moved from my first draft to my next one, my thesis and my paper became more specific. A solution that would avoid this would be for me to do more specific pre-writing or outlining. That way I could catch it earlier. If I do that then I will be able to focus on changing other things when it comes to drafting. Overall I believe that this paper is more successful than my last paper. A reason why is that I used much more analysis. On the previous paper I had a lot of summary and I didn't try to persuade or analyze as much. For the rhetorical analysis I added multiple analysis points throughout each paragraph. Every idea I presented was analyzed.
                  From writing this rhetorical analysis, I learned that being able to rhetorically analyze a situation is essential for any successful argument. You can have the best evidence and data but if you present it to the wrong audience in the wrong context, then it will have the same affect as using made up data. They could not have any idea about what is going on or just not want to listen. This applies to my engineering class because at the end of the year we will be having to give a presentation. To have a successful presentation I will have to analyze who my audience is so that I can convey my information the proper way. It would not be smart to use acronyms if my audience doesn't have the same knowledge level on the topic. The acronyms won't mean anything to them. Rhetorical analysis of a situation goes beyond just writing papers for english class.

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Blog Post 28: Link to HONY Draft

Here's a link to my draft.

Blog Post 27: Thesis and Outline

My thesis is:

In Humans of New York, Brandon Stanton uses photographs and commentary to display the uniqueness of the average person and to generate support for humanitarian issues.

Here is a link to my outline.

Blog Post 26: Pre Writing Activities

              The prewriting activity I am using for this assignment is an observation and inference chart. I am choosing to use this chart because I believe it applies very well for a rhetorical analysis. On one side I can have all of my observations or evidence for the different rhetorical strategies I am analyzing. On the other side of the chart I can have my inferences or explanations for what I see in the observations. From this chart I can take my ideas and add some transitions and extra sentences and come up with a rough draft. Also, having the observations listed can allow me to group ideas and organize my ideas for my paper.

Here's a link to my pre-writing.

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Blog Post 25: Personal Response

               The text that I am choosing to do my rhetorical analysis on is Humans of New York. I chose this text because of how interesting the stories are and the purpose. When I was looking at Humans of New York the first time, I couldn't stop reading each individuals' story. They were so interesting and all so different. Some happy, some sad, and some funny. It shows how big the world is with such a diverse group of people but also how small it is with so many parts of the world being represented in New York alone. The purpose also interested me because as I looked through the different years, the purpose changes. It is at first more for entertainment and then it develops into more humanitarian with the trips to the middle East.


I commented on Kian's blog and

Outline Student's Guide Essay

Here is a link to my outline.


              From the Student's Guide Essay, a strong paragraph is body paragraph 3. The paragraph is very closely connected to the thesis because this paragraph is about Washington's bias and how he never addresses the other side of the argument. The paragraph provides examples of the arguments proposed by Washington and then provides an example of how the opposing ideas could be addressed to strengthen Washington's argument. A weak paragraph is body paragraph 4. In body paragraph 4 the essay addresses a way in which Washington's essay loses its strength. The majority of the paragraph is about how Washington uses credible sources but then the last sentence says he loses strength because he is too dependent on sources. To improve this paragraph I would add an explanation for this or try to combine it with the next paragraph which gives an explanation about the misuse of sources. The two paragraphs could be combined.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/ISR-EGY_border_6521a.jpg

Observations: Takes pictures of random people he meets in the street Photos usually centered around one person or a family or small group Photographer describes self as becoming obsessed about things People are of all ages, ethnicities, and socio-economic classes Less pictures in early months of HONY In recent years there is pictures from foreign countries such as Iraq, Republic of Congo, and European countries In the early years, many of the photos were of colorful differently dressed people. The people who stood out in a crowd Tone of photos changes from photo to photo. Some happy, some sad, some funny, etc. Photos published on social media (facebook, tumblr, instagram, etc.)

Inferences: He wants to show people’s unique stories Photographer is passionate about what he does and the strangers he photographs Wants to be thorough and show everyone’s story. Every person is special Photographer was testing the water and as it succeeded he took more pictures and more people wanted their pictures taken Photographer wanted to show the world others stories. A lot of stories about refugees so he is trying to show the stories and cause the world to demand for change in those countries these people are fleeing from Originally the blog was for entertainment purposes and to show uniqueness Trying to tell a variety of stories Allows anyone to see it anywhere in the world so the audience is people in the world with access to these social media sources

               After creating my observation and inference chart about HONY, the most interesting thing to me is the stories of the individuals. I read them for over an hour instead of making observations or inferences. They captured my attention and I just kept reading them. If I choose to write about HONY, I would want to write about why he started to include the stories and the purpose behind this. How do the stories help Brandon Stanton accomplish what he wants to accomplish with HONY.

HONY SOAPStone

               Humans of New York is created by photographer Brandon Stanton. The occasion for Stanton starting HONY is he Stanton was unemployed so he moved to New York and started taking pictures of people and getting their stories. Stanton's audience is people from all over the world. All of his pictures are posted on different forms of social media and are available all over the world. He has even traveled and taken pictures of people in different countries and many people have asked him to come to their country. His audience is people who use the different forms of social media all over the world. The purpose of HONY is to show that everyone is unique and has their own story. When he does his work he takes portraits of people and then talks to them and listens to their story. The subject of his piece is the people of New York, city he is in, or the country he is in. Currently he has been doing lots of photos of refugees from countries such as Syria. The tone of HONY is informational. Stanton is informing people about the unique story of all the individuals that he photographs.

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3703/11046266555_b64e546dd7.jpg

#LikeAGirl SOAPStone

The speaker for the like a girl campaign is Always. Always is a company owned by Procter and Gamble and sells feminine hygiene products. The occasion for the commercials is the Super Bowl, but it is also to try and change the culture around the phrase "like a girl". There is negative connotations when saying "like a girl" and they are trying to change that so that it is no longer putting girls down and lowering their confidence. The audience of the campaign is women of all ages and also young boys. In the commercials they depicted women of all ages and also focused on one young boy. The purpose of the campaign is to first sell products and advertise Always, but at the same time they are trying to empower women of all ages and show them that they can do anything. The tone of the campaign changes from the beginning to the end of the advertisement. At the beginning of the advertisement the tone is more light hearted. Lauren Greenfield is just asking the women and men to show how girls do certain things. Later it becomes more serious when she asks them if those are insults and then it becomes hopeful and shows the young girls demonstrating the same actions.

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Revised Blog 20

               The makeover is deeply ingrained in our culture. Girls and women are raised doing makeovers as recreational activities. This includes makeovers on themselves, on their friends, or on dolls and toys. Greenfield captures this obsession with makeovers in her photos taken at a weight loss camp in New York. In our society, a women with a thin body is worshipped and valued, thin is equal to better. This makes it very difficult to live as an overweight girl in our society. Through her photos, Greenfield shows the struggle that these girls experience. However, these photos provoke other questions such as the struggle in the girls own home. Are their families forcing the girls to change their physical appearance to fit societal expectations or is it in the best interest of the girls? In Girl Culture there is small pieces of narration for the photos, but many pictures are asking us what we think.


              From outlining I learned that an outline is a very useful tool for dissecting a piece of writing. The format makes it very easy to see the relationship between the topic sentences and the thesis. Then by reading further down you can see the examples the author is using to support his argument. Outlines allow for a quick analysis when looking back on the paper later on. An outline could also be used in prewriting your own piece. You can outline your main points and thesis and then fill in the supporting ideas. Next just add fillers and explanations and you have a rough draft. After trying to rewrite Brumberg's paragraph, I learned that it is very easy to drift away from the original and incorporate your own ideas. On my first attempt I used my outline, which was missing one or two ideas, and added my own ideas. My paragraph is about the same topic but it ended up being pretty different. However if I had had the original open, it would have been very similar to the original. So to rewrite it is good to do two drafts, one without looking at it and another while looking and then create a hybrid of the two paragraphs.

Extra Credit Word Cloud

I created my word cloud using worditout.com. I set it to show words that I used six times or more in my QRG.

Group Rhetorical Analysis of Girl Culture

Group outline. The section I am rewriting is the section about makeovers in today's society.

               In our culture today the makeover is welcomed and embraced. Makeovers are a common activity for women of all ages. In movies women from all age groups are shown having fun doing each others' hair, makeup, nails, and picking outfits. Lauren Greenfield captures a more realistic version of the makeover in her photoessay Girl Culture. Greenfield depicts girls and women at fat camps in New York. Many of these women are unhappy with their own appearance. Much of this can be attributed to society's value on thin women. Societal expectations are for women to be thin. Thin means that they are better. However Greenfield's photographs allow the reader to make to form their own opinions about the "imperfect" bodies.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Blush.JPG

               In my rewrite I used several parts of SOAPStone. The first part that I used is speaker. I used speaker to introduce the artist, Lauren Greenfield, whose work is being rhetorically analyzed. This then allows for the reader to bring in any background knowledge that they may have about the topic such as examples of her work. The next part of SOAPStone that I use is subject. I identify that the subject is the women in Greenfield's photo essay, Girl Culture. By identifying these women and collection of pictures, I made it clear for the audience what I am specifically analyzing. Greenfield has many pieces of work so by identifying which one I am analyzing, it makes it clearer for the reader.

Visual Analysis of a Photo

http://www.instituteartist.com/exhibition-Girl-Culture-Lauren-Greenfield

                  The main focus of the photo are the pictures of the lady smiling and the note on the mirror. These are the most focused images and are at the foreground of the picture. On the edges of the photo there are beauty products. Behind the smiling pictures is a mirror where part of a woman's face is shown, but the image of her face is blurry. The angle that the picture is taken from is the point of view of the women whose hand and face appear in the picture. It is meant to show what she sees when she is putting on makeup or getting ready. Her point of view gives an insight into what she is thinking and seeing. The images of the smiling woman and the note are also larger compared to other portions of the picture. It is zoomed in and more focused on them.  The note and smiling pictures are meant to show how women struggle with accepting their own image and need reassurance that they are happy with their bodies and image.

A Reflection on Unit One

                The quick reference guide was a new format for a piece of writing. I had seen some before this assignment, but I never knew it is its own format. Through the process of writing one I used many new programs, learned about my field of interest, and learned about my writing.

http://www.pdpics.com/photo/1315-fish-reflection-water-tank

                 Some of the new tools I used are a new citation generator and cluster making programs. The citation generator I used is reffworks. I found it on the University of Arizona library website and I found it to be very useful. Reffworks could create citations for a large amount of styles and only required the user to input certain information depending on the type of source. It then created and formatted the citation or your bibliography page. The cluster program making program that I used in my pre-writing is popplet. Popplet is simple to use and is very useful for pre-writing or organizing my ideas. It allows me to create a graphic organizer of my ideas which makes it easier to see connections between ideas or conflicts between them. After looking at my cluster I actually came up with one of my main ideas in my quick reference guide. These two programs will be very helpful for future writing projects.

                  Before starting the quick reference guide I had not known much about current events going on in my field of study. After my research I have learned a lot about one of the most recent controversies, gene editing. The main reason that gene editing is controversial because of the lack of communication. Most of the communication that occurs is criticism of those doing research on it. Instead of being constructive and trying to come up with a compromise on what is acceptable to be done with gene editing, the majority of communications is criticism and saying “you can’t do that”. The groups against gene editing main argument mostly involves religious beliefs and future fears. If they communicated these in a positive way, they would be able to come to an agreement and resolve the whole controversy.

           After writing my quick reference guide and reflecting on the process, I learned a lot about my writing. A strength that I found in my writing process is my research. I generated solid ideas and gathered a lot of supporting information for my ideas. My research included multiple sources of different types such as social media, online magazines, scientific journals, and other types. At the same time I learned that there is parts of my writing that I need to work on. One thing I need to work on is writing style. In my writing I have a tendency to repeat the same word over and over. Another part of my writing style is my fluidity. I don’t always use transition words so my sentences are choppy. To improve this I need to work on adding transition words and varying my word choice. I can achieve this by reading more to improve my vocabulary and also using a thesaurus throughout the drafting process. The most important thing I learned from the quick reference guide is drafting is very important. Multiple drafts allow you to keep improving your piece of writing, add new ideas, remove weak ideas, and improve the overall quality of your paper.

Revised Paragraph

Before:

A hot topic in biomedical engineering has been gene editing. Since the creation of CRISPR Cas9, gene editing has become much simpler, cheaper, and easier. Gene editing is now not only reserved for the elite researchers who can convince Universities or organizations to give them large sums of money and labs to do their research. With the simpler technique there will be an increase in the number of experiments done on gene editing for clinical purposes. The main clinical use for gene editing is the correction of genetic diseases. It has the potential to completely wipe out genetic disorders and increase the quality of life for millions of people.


After:

A hot topic in biomedical engineering is gene editing. Since the creation of the CRISPR Cas9 gene editing technique, gene editing has become simpler, cheaper, and easier. Therefore, Gene editing is now not only reserved for the elite researchers who are backed by Universities or Organizations with lots of resources. With the simpler technique there will be an increase in the number of experiments done on gene editing for clinical purposes, especially correction of genetic diseases. This has the potential to completely wipe out genetic disorders and increase the quality of life for millions of people.


The main changes that I made is I replaced passive voice with active voice and I also changed words around so that they were more specific and pointed towards the topic of my paragraph. Many of the words I had were vague so I put in specific transitions to point back to the topic and make the paragraph more fluid.

Revised QRG Draft

https://docs.google.com/a/email.arizona.edu/document/d/1zkRhkoRNr26_LUlaNURghIk-cRpBLzK_EEomXAWUteY/edit?usp=sharing

Peer Review and Revised Thesis

                After the peer review process, I learned that there are a couple areas of my paper that need to be changed. One area is my organization. There is a whole section that I could hyperlink and combine two sections. One of the sections is so specific and short that it can be included within another section. There is also a link to a video that I have as evidence that could be hyperlinked to the topic that it explains. With my organization I realized that I completely skipped a very important section. My controversy is the ethical guidelines and I didn't include a section that explained the current ones or a section that explained who decided the guidelines. These are very important ideas for my quick reference guide. I will probably put them between the "What's the Issue" section and the "Where is the Controversy Taking Place" sections.
                  Another area that needs improvement is my evidence and explanations areas. I need to include more quotes and provide a deeper analysis. In my "Fears" section I can analyze more of how the technology would be used for eugenics and why this is a bad thing. For my "What's the Issue" section I can hyperlink a video to CRISPR Cas9 when I first mention it. The video would provide a simpler explanation of the technology and how it works and provide visuals which would simplify the explanation and make my paper less technical. This is an advantage for a quick reference guide because it is not supposed to be an academic journal article. It is supposed to be a quick simplified explanation of a topic. I also need to write a conclusion to my quick reference guide and explain why this is important and be something that the reader cares about after reading my guide.
                 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/ScientificReview.jpg

Rewritten thesis:
As new technologies are created people will gain skills never had before and therefore there must be followed and enforced ethical guidelines in order to preserve a high quality life for future generations and to prevent inhumane uses of these new skills and technologies.

Thoughts on Drafting

                In the book, the most useful information in my opinion is the tips on writing a thesis statement. The thesis is main argument of your paper and is important in both an essay and in a quick reference guide. Out of all of the advice in the book I believe that most useful piece is "Does it adequately reflect your reading and the expected shape of your paper?"(57). This applies to the quick reference guide because the quick reference guide is a much different format than the essay. In the quick reference guide you have an introduction with a thesis and then have different headings with at least a paragraph to explain a different aspect of your thesis. Because of this your thesis has to fit the format of the paper and be able to be applied to all of the sub-headings. Another important tip is paragraph structure. It is still important to follow the PIE structure because it is an easy format to follow and an easy way to incorporate an explanation of your ideas. The P part also allows you to introduce the specific idea that is part of the heading for that paragraph. The section can be more specific and address certain evidence or ideas and how they relate to the bigger picture of your quick reference guide.

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                A portion of the book that is less helpful is the division of paragraphs. In an essay this is very important to distinguish between ideas but in a quick reference guide there is headings in between paragraphs that show a change in ideas and introduce the next paragraph or paragraphs main idea. For the conclusion section, the tip to summarize your claims isn't as helpful for the quick reference guide because of the amount of claims made. A quick reference guide summarizes or explains a whole topic so lots of ideas will be presented. It will be redundant to summarize all of this information a second time. A more important tip for the conclusion is to explain the so what. Why is this quick reference guide important.

Practice Quoting

Key:
Blue- Establishment of sources authority
Green- Signal Phrases
Yellow- Contextualization of source
Pink- Use of ellipsis or brackets

QRG the Genre

            The conventions of a quick reference guide seem to be that there is a bold title that is centered at the top of the page. The size of the font of the title can be bigger than the rest of the text. Next there is introduction paragraph or paragraphs that includes the thesis statement for the quick reference guide. For the rest of the guide there is second level headings. These can be bolded and are the same size font as the surrounding text. The second level headings can be questions or guide words that describe what the next paragraph or couple paragraphs are going to be about. All of the text should be one and a half to double spaced. This makes it easier for the reader to read. Depending on the topic and the purpose of the document, visuals such as pictures, diagrams, graphs, or any other visual can be placed near the relevant text. It is necessary to reference and explain the visuals within the text so the reader knows what the intended message is.

              Conventions are defined based on what message the author is trying to portray. Based on the different audiences and purposes the formatting will be different so that the author can portray his or her message. Often for academic writing it will be double spaced while a piece of business writing will be single spaced. The margins should also be between an inch and an inch and a half around the whole paper. Spacing the margins this way create a frame for the text.

               The purpose of all of these quick reference guides is to explain a topic to a normal person who isn't an expert on the topic. A normal person who isn't an expert is the audience. They all have similar audiences because their purpose is to inform the average person and it is meant to be a quick reference guide. Quick implies that it will be simplified and easy to read through quickly which would appeal to the average person. The average person doesn't want to and might not be able to read through a high level scientific journal. They might not understand it and it isn't meant for them. Those journals are meant for people in the scientific community who already have background knowledge on the topic.

https://pixabay.com/p-48433/?no_redirect

               A common part of a quick reference guide is images are frequently used. The images include pictures, charts, graphs, diagrams, and more images. These are very important because they are used to help explain the topics that the quick reference guide is about. Visuals can offer simple explanations instead of large pieces of complicated text. This also makes it so that they are quicker to read. There is less large blocks of text.


https://docs.google.com/a/email.arizona.edu/document/d/1Mx9l5vjolhZI0bHZOpl-25VQA0sz8AnZaTLGKMIoq1M/edit?usp=sharing

Cluster of Biomedical Engineering Ethics Cluster

For my cluster I identified the main conflict in the black box. I then surrounded it with major groups or people in blue boxes. Those are then connected to the yellow boxes which represent the beliefs of the group. The blue boxes are also connected to the red boxes which are representative of what sources the groups made statements in or published articles in. The last box is the orange box which is a future outlook of all of the groups. All four groups have a shared belief about the future.


Reflection:
I commented on Alaina's blog and Kat's blog. From reading their blogs I saw two different platforms for creating the clusters. Both were neat and well organized. I learned that it can be easier to follow if the structure of the cluster is linear. If there is too many criss crossing lines it can get cluttered and difficult to read. Making clusters or mindmaps is a very important part of the writing process. It allows the writer to layout all of their ideas and see connections between all of their ideas. While writing it they can also see new connections they hadn't noticed before. Overall making a cluster allows the writer to organize their ideas and outline the structure for their writing.

Draft #2 Annotated Bibliography in APA Style

BBSRC. (2015, ). Genome-editing position statement. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/bbsrcnews?fref=nf

                 BBSRC explains the United Kingdom's point of view on the issue and includes quotes from researchers. This will be useful to help explain the side of the people who support the use of genome engineering. It also includes their beliefs on the ethics that need to be followed and the rules that they believe should be followed while experimenting. 

Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, & Sputnik Animation (Producers), & McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT (Director). (2014, 5 November). Genome editing with CRISP-Cas9. [Video/DVD] Youtube: Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Sputnik Animation. 
                 This source is the best representation I have seen of what CRISPR Cas9 does. It is a video and animations of the actual process. It shows DNA being cut and the new pieces being brought in and fused. It also talks a little about how the process was discovered. The animation shows the process of how the body fights a virus' DNA when it is invading the body and that was part of how CRISPR Cas9 was discovered. 

Hsu, P. D., Lander, E. S., & Zhang, F. (2014). Development and applications of CRISPR-Cas9 for genome engineering. Cell, 157(6), September 4, 2015.

                 Hsu, Lander, and Zhang explain how CRISPR-Cas9 works in their article. This is useful because it gives some background about what scientists are doing. By knowing what they are doing it gives me a better understanding of what the conflict is about. It is easier to understand the ethics that are being disputed if I know what they are being applied to and trying to guide. 

Johns Hopkins Medicine. (2015, ). Recent CRISPR/Cas9 research ignites ethical concerns. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/Johns.Hopkins.Medicine?fref=nf

                 Johns Hopkins Medicine's article addresses concerns that people have about the future of CRISPR/Cas9. It offers questions about what will happen and should we be doing things like that. An example is designer babies. If we have the ability to should we genetically engineer babies to be what the parents want. The article also addresses the recently done Chinese study and points out the flaws and the low success rate. With the Chinese study it asks questions about weather that study was ethically acceptable. 

Newman, L. H. (2015, 30 April). NIH won't fund research that involves editing DNA in human embryos. 
                   Newman reports that the National Institutes of Health will no longer by funding research involving the editing of DNA in human embryos. However they will still be funding research for genome editing technologies. This is reported in a quote by the director of NIH, Francis Collins. Collins says that there is ethical concerns within the agency and there is laws that say that government agencies can't be funding this type of research. This decision has met some backlash as some scientists believe that there should be more funding of this because it will be a big part of the future. 

Psgurel. (April 25, 2014). More controversy in the CRISPR/Cas9 debate. editing DNA in human embryos: Good or bad idea? Retrieved from http://causescience.com/2015/04/24/more-controversy-in-the-crisprcas9-debate-editing-dna-in-human-embryos-good-or-bad-idea/

                  Psgurel attempts to host a debate about whether or not there should be a moratorium should be place on clinical practices of genome editing. In it a summary of a piece from a NPR report is used that includes quotes from researchers. Many are not happy with the recent Chinese study done and believe a moratorium should be put up because they believe the technology is not accurate enough to be used on human embryos yet.

Ran, F. A., Hsu, P. D., Lin, C., Gootenberg, J. S., Konermann, S., Trevino, A. E., . . . Zhang, F. (10 October, 2013). Double nicking by RNA-guided CRISPR Cas9 for enhanced genome editing specificity. Cell, 154(6), September 4, 2015.

                   In this article, the authors are reporting their findings for an experiment they did where they were attempting to develop a more accurate technique for CRISPR/Cas9. Currently it can cause unwanted mutations in the process of trying to edit the desired location. In the article they also explain how CRISPR/Cas9 works which is useful for understanding the controversy over gene editing and the ethics.

Reardon, S. (2015). US science academies take on human-genome editing. Nature. Retrieved September 21, 2015.
                    In this article, Reardon identifies some US groups that are currently trying to establish an ethics code for gene editing on the human genome. They are planning to hold a summit in autumn with researchers and groups from all over the world. The goal is to develop a set of rules for everyone to follow.

Stein, R. (2015). In Stein R. (Ed.), Scientists urge temporary moratorium on human genome edits. NPR: NPR. 
                        In a short NPR radio report and a written portion, Stein reports about the advances in genome editing and how with the creation of the CRISPR Cas9 method it has become quicker, cheaper, and easier. Later in the report he identifies the fears of some scientists which center on the accidental creation of a new genetic disease that gets passed down and people trying to create designer babies. The report then gets into how many scientists, including one of the creators of CRISPR Cas9, believe that there should be a global moratorium put in place to prevent people from attempting to modify human genomes. There needs to be more public discourse and research done to guarantee that it is safe. 

Tatlow, D. K. (2015, ). A scientific ethical divide between china and west. New York Times

                   Tatlow writes about the recent Chinese study where they attempted to fix genetically defective embryos. The study did not have a very successful rate and also received a lot of criticism because it may or may not have crossed the ethical line. Tatlow also addresses cultural differences that can lead to the West and East's different views on what is ethically acceptable. 

whatafoolidbe. (2015, 9 May). Designer humans: A response to the first report of human germ cell line editing with CRISPR-Cas9. Retrieved from https://www.reddit.com/r/biology/comments/35ghix/designer_humans_a_respose_to_the_first_report_of/ 

                      In this article it gives a summary about the recently done Chinese study. Next it talks about the opinions of some scientists and how they don't think that any research like the Chinese study should be done until the scientific community knows more about the effectiveness of CRISPR Cas9. They believe there needs to be public discourse to assess the safety and ethical guidelines. The author of the article however is in support of the Chinese study and doing more studies like it. The author believes that genetic engineering is going to be a big part of the future and that the way the Chinese study was done was a good model cause embryos that had no chance at survival were used. This way they weren't putting possibly healthy humans at risk of new genetic diseases and they weren't trying to engineer an embryo and then have it fully develop. 

Annotated Bibliography Draft 1

BBSRC. (2015, ). Genome-editing position statement. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/bbsrcnews?fref=nf

                 BBSRC explains the United Kingdom's point of view on the issue and includes quotes from researchers. This will be useful to help explain the side of the people who support the use of genome engineering. It also includes their beliefs on the ethics that need to be followed and the rules that they believe should be followed while experimenting. 

Hsu, P. D., Lander, E. S., & Zhang, F. (2014). Development and applications of CRISPR-Cas9 for genome engineering. Cell, 157(6), September 4, 2015.

                 Hsu, Lander, and Zhang explain how CRISPR-Cas9 works in their article. This is useful because it gives some background about what scientists are doing. By knowing what they are doing it gives me a better understanding of what the conflict is about. It is easier to understand the ethics that are being disputed if I know what they are being applied to and trying to guide. 

Johns Hopkins Medicine. (2015, ). Recent CRISPR/Cas9 research ignites ethical concerns. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/Johns.Hopkins.Medicine?fref=nf

                 Johns Hopkins Medicine's article addresses concerns that people have about the future of CRISPR/Cas9. It offers questions about what will happen and should we be doing things like that. An example is designer babies. If we have the ability to should we genetically engineer babies to be what the parents want. The article also addresses the recently done Chinese study and points out the flaws and the low success rate. With the Chinese study it asks questions about weather that study was ethically acceptable. 

Psgurel. (April 25, 2014). More controversy in the CRISPR/Cas9 debate. editing DNA in human embryos: Good or bad idea? Retrieved from http://causescience.com/2015/04/24/more-controversy-in-the-crisprcas9-debate-editing-dna-in-human-embryos-good-or-bad-idea/

                  Psgurel attempts to host a debate about whether or not there should be a moratorium should be place on clinical practices of genome editing. In it a summary of a piece from a NPR report is used that includes quotes from researchers. Many are not happy with the recent Chinese study done and believe a moratorium should be put up because they believe the technology is not accurate enough to be used on human embryos yet.

Ran, F. A., Hsu, P. D., Lin, C., Gootenberg, J. S., Konermann, S., Trevino, A. E., . . . Zhang, F. (10 October, 2013). Double nicking by RNA-guided CRISPR Cas9 for enhanced genome editing specificity. Cell, 154(6), September 4, 2015.

                   In this article, the authors are reporting their findings for an experiment they did where they were attempting to develop a more accurate technique for CRISPR/Cas9. Currently it can cause unwanted mutations in the process of trying to edit the desired location. In the article they also explain how CRISPR/Cas9 works which is useful for understanding the controversy over gene editing and the ethics.

Tatlow, D. K. (2015, ). A scientific ethical divide between china and west. New York Times

                   Tatlow writes about the recent Chinese study where they attempted to fix genetically defective embryos. The study did not have a very successful rate and also received a lot of criticism because it may or may not have crossed the ethical line. Tatlow also addresses cultural differences that can lead to the West and East's different views on what is ethically acceptable. 

Reflection:

       After reading my classmates annotated bibliography posts I realized that I could have written more for the annotations. I could have gone more in depth and expressed more opinions instead of just summarizing the important ideas from the articles. For my next draft I will try to add more analysis so that I won't have to reread every single article when writing my controversy analysis. The annotated bibliography will remind me what I wanted and I can just go look for the quotes I need instead of rereading the whole entire article. While looking at other citation styles it seemed like they are all fairly similar. Some require URLs and others don't. There is small differences between all of them which just seems silly. It would make so much more sense just to have a universal citation format. That way there is less confusion and less citation errors. 

The links for the blogs I commented on are:

http://lekhasword.blogspot.com/2015/09/9-bibliography-draft.html?showComment=1442006101153#c858203774322125265

http://uamichaels.blogspot.com/2015/09/annotated-bibliography-sophie-brown.html?showComment=1442004922507