Paper 4 sources

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&hid=108&sid=6a7953dd-2905-45fb-a327-3a74f9460e00%40sessionmgr113

This article is pretty wells summed up in the title, “Media Influences on Attitudes and Perceptions Toward the Body Among Adult Men and Women”. The article starts by telling that women and men are both very influenced by the media when it comes to physical appearance. It says men overestimated their chest, waist and thighs and underestimated their hips, while women overestimated all parts of their body. The article then goes into a study of 60 men and 60 women to see what they said about the media’s affects and what the “perfect body” is. Men wanted the “v-shaped” body with a large chest and thin waste, just like the men seen on television. While the women want to be very thin, just like on television. This survey and article proves that both women and men are very influenced by the physical appearances seen on television.

McCabe, Marita, Kelly Butler, and Christina Watt. "Media Influences on Attitudes and Perceptions Toward the Body Among Adult Men and Women." Journal of Applied Biobehavioral Research (2007): 101-118. Web. 13 Apr 2010. .

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/121421108/HTMLSTART?onDenied=/journal/121421108/abstract&CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

This article is a collection of stories about how the media affects violence and antisocial behavior. In many of the stories young teens have convicted crimes and the crimes have been linked to watching violence on television or playing violent video games. It also talks about how the media shows a lot of violence, and seeing violence on the media and in the news may cause young adults to see violence as a way out or sometimes it may be the right thing to do. Unfortunately the media has always, and will always have an extremely large impact on how everyday citizens live their daily lives. These stories also include a survey of 93 teenagers at a high school, all coming from the same area, and growing up in similar conditions. They asked each one how much television they watch and how much time they spend on the internet. The results were that the students that spent more time watching and online were less social and more prone to violence.

Clemente, Miguel, Pablo Espinosa, and Miguelangel Vidal. "The Media and Violent Behavior in Young People: Effects of the Media on Antisocial Aggressive Behavior in a Spanish Sample." Journal of Applied social Psychology 38.10 (2008): 2395-2409. Web. 13 Apr 2010. .

Group Essay

For more than a century, the United States has been moving to undo the legacy of racism and discrimination amongst its people. The changes have been to create a society reflecting the grand document of its founding, with “all men being created equal”, having “the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” How far all have really come toward such a monumental and ideal society is entailed David Cook’s “By The Color of Their Skin” article; each change for the better seems to bring two more for the worse, shifting away from the desired achievement. Though racism is dying through the effort of the entire nation, race-based discrimination is alive as ever, spawning new policies and issues for all.
The most defining arguments of the Cook article are racism and privilege, and how both influence today’s culture. As defined by Wise, “ Racism is an ideology that says certain people, by virtue of their race, are inferior or superior to others of a different race, with race usually being defined as skin color” (Cook, 2009, p.5). In other words, the color of a person’s skin color defines how they immediately see themselves, and others see them offhand. The quality of a person’s heart and soul may be the most important characteristic of all, but is seen secondary at best to the color of their skin.
The next defining aspect of this fantastic article is privilege. Once again, according to this article by Cook, privilege can also be seen as less pressure to perform. An example in the text was, “George W. Bush mangled the English language with regularity and still became president. If Barack Obama had mispronounced words the way Bush did, would he have been given the same degree of slack” (Cook, 2009, p.5). Because skin color is so defining of who someone is this example and the idea of having less pressure to perform means people of the dominate race may not feel the need to perform to their full potential because they already feel privilege.
Ironically, antiracism has caused a new type of racism, in which the previously underprivileged minorities have become the privileged majority, and the previously privileged racial majority has become an underprivileged minority. People in terms of race being constructed in America today, Cook views it as, “The mistake people make is to think that history stops and starts with each new generation” (Cook, 2009, p.6). What people need to realize is that what happens in one generation effects the next and every generation in the future and it’s impossible to start with a completely blank slate (Cook, 2009, p.6).
In our own lives today, we are affected by racism in aspects of our lives we’re not even aware of. Wise uses the example that, “Job applicants with “white-sounding” names are 50 percent more likely to get called back than those with “black-sounding” names, even if both have the same qualifications” (Cook, 2009, p.6). Such an attitude is engrained in our society; one cannot completely erase their own past, no matter how much they may try.
Such concept might tie into paper three; similar to the quest of all for the perfect meal, the strive for a perfect, just, unbiased society continues leaping forward recklessly in great bounds, and yet remain just beyond grasp. All may be looking for perfection, but all have different ideas as to what perfection really is.







Works Cited
Wise, Tim. "By the Color of Their Skin." Interview by David Cook. The Sun July 2009: 4-12. Print

Sources....

What sources I use for papers depends on what kind of paper I am writing. For most of my papers, if there is no source requirement such as a scholarly source, I use Google. Also if there are books that relate to my topic I will use those. I will usually start with books if I am using them because I know the information in them is reliable and will add to my paper. After I retrieve information from books, I go straight to Google. The reason I do this is because Google gives such a wide range of websites, and always has something on any topic I am writing on. Google has been a site I have used my entire writing career and it usually works out great, so I’m keeping it up, don’t fix what’s not broken. The problem with always using Google is the same reason why I always use it, which makes it a controversial site to use. The problem is that it gives so many sites to choose from. I could be looking at a site written by a scholar who knows a great deal on the subject, and I could be looking at a site made by a college student no smarter than me, and I would never know. Although sometimes I do check the author and look through the site to check how reliable it really is, this is how I choose which sites to use in the final draft of my paper. The issue of where to use sites depends a lot on the paper, I like to mix it up throughout my paper so it doesn’t appear that I have mostly used one site for my entire paper. I just put quotes in my paper wherever they fit best, that’s my strategy. The best way for me to improve the sources I use is to check for reliability. Check out who the author is and see if they have written anything else on the subject, eventually I will find out if they are reliable or not. Also I could check out other websites like library websites instead of constantly using Google. Overall I feel as though I do pretty well with finding and using sources, but there’s always room for improvement.

Norman Borlaug Article

This Norman Borlaug article is about using genetically altered crops to stop world hunger. Many people believe that altering crops such as maize is wrong and makes the food completely inorganic or even unhealthy. Although altering food may change it a little bit, the positive affects this biotechnology has on our world outweighs the fact that the food is not organic. Many people in America may not feel this way because the majority of Americans do not face problems like hunger or starvation, but the fact is there are millions of starving human beings around the world. This number is large, but genetically altering crops makes this problem much more manageable, without these crops there would be millions more suffering from starvation. Another problem is that the Earth’s population is expected to reach 8.3 billion by 2025, and without genetically altered crops, there would be no way to feed this many people. Personally I was already in favor of genetically altering crops, but after reading this article it has made me realize how important they really are. My stomach may not feel the impact directly, but our world would be extremely different without them, and that makes a difference in every ones life.

Chapters 18, 19 and 20

The final three chapters from this book talk us through Pollan’s experience of hunting pig, picking mushrooms, and gathering a complete meal for himself. This way of life is called hunting and gathering, and it’s the way humans survived before industrialization. Although this way of obtaining a meal was obviously a lot tougher for Pollan then stopping at McDonald’s, he talks of the experience as satisfying and self rewarding. The opportunity to gather a complete meal for himself, and an awfully healthy one at that, was an experience that not many people get these days.
Personally I would never want to live in a hunting and gathering society, or ever have to find a complete meal for myself in the wilderness. Industrialization today has made it possible for us to get a meal in five minutes without even stepping out of our car. And although there are some negatives to this, I believe the positives outweigh the negatives tenfold. I often don’t make myself a meal at home because I am too lazy to cook it, but Pollan’s gathering experience has taught me to greatly appreciate how little work I do to get a quality meal in the world today.

Chapter 16 Response

Chapter sixteen is titled “The Omnivores Dilemma”, and for good reason. Chapter sixteen is all about the choices we have as omnivores when it comes to what we can and should eat. A quote that I really liked was in the first paragraph of the chapter. “The blessing of the omnivore is that he can eat a great many different things in nature. The curse of the omnivore is that when it comes to figuring out which of those things are safe to eat, he’s pretty much on his own.” I like this quote because I feel that it essentially sums up the point that Pollan is trying to get across in his book (possibly why the chapter has the same name as the book). Throughout this chapter Pollan talks about how and why we have become the “top of the food chain”. Not only is it natural selection and events of history, it has to do with everything about our bodies. We are able to eat almost anything, and often things we shouldn’t eat do not appeal to us, which is a strength we have as an omnivore. I believe this may be the most important chapter of the book because Pollan relates the title of the book to the entire chapter. He talks about how we are capable of surviving over any other species because of the way we eat. And although this is a very positive aspect of being human, the ability to eat such a plethora of things could be our downfall.

Chaper 7 They Say I Say

Chapter seven of They Say I Say gave me a couple exceptionally good tips when writing or speaking to a specific audience. The main point of this chapter was telling the writer to ask why it matters. Many people write a paper or give a speech without telling their audience why they should care about the subject. If one fails to tell why their subject matters or who cares about it, the audience may become uninterested because they start to not care themselves. Establishing why a subject is important can be as simple as saying, “blank is important because blank.” One could also dedicate a full paragraph to explaining why something is important, depending on what the subject is.
This chapter without doubt helped me with my writing. Although with some papers, establishing why something is important is completely insignificant and will not help an argument at all, it is often needed in some papers. When writing previous to this I have simply stated the facts and built an argument, but I rarely state who cares or why it’s important. I feel as though this aspect of writing is often overlooked by many writers, teachers, and even professional writers. I believe including this in my research papers from here on out will drastically improve my arguments.