Shitty First Drafts

In Lamott's essay I think she used the word shitty to show that first drafts are going to be awful. They're not really going to be coherent but they will have everything you could possibly think about the subject down on paper where you can't forget it. Afterward you can edit it to decide what is relevant and what isn't.

I think for our research papers the fact that we are doing it all in sections first is like doing a shitty first draft. It's a way to get all the information on each section down without having to think about the rest of them at the same time. After we've gotten each section just how we like them we can connect them to the other sections to make a better paper.

APA Exercise

Signal Phrase:

Journalist Michael Adams reports that "The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences said it removed saccharin as a potential cancer causing agent because tests that showed it caused tumors in rats did not aplly to humans."

Reference Entry:

Adams, M. J. (2000). U.S. report adds to list of carcinogens. The New York Times, p.F4

Adding and Subtracting Words:

"The institute also removed ethyl acrylate...from the list" (Adams, 2000, p. F4)

Tipping Point Final Questions

1. I think that one social change needed in my community would be a reduction in racism. My town is a small town made up of white middle and lower class people, many of them farmers. In my high school there were only two black kids and needless to say they weren't really accepted by most of the other kids. I feel that that needs to change. Because we are such a small town many people don't get to experience life outside of it. I think that accepting and befriending others that aren't like us is a way to learn about the world. It's a good way to get an idea of what else is out there away from our small piece of the world. I think the only way to help tip this social epidemic is to be one of the people who start it, and get my friends to as well. Once we get to know other people we can tells others about them and help change people's views.

2. I think the most important chapter was chapter 3, about the stickiness factor. Anyone can cause a social epidemic, it's getting it to stick that's a big issue. I like the example they gave about the magazines competing with the gold treasure boxes and getting people to interact with advertising to get them to remember it.

3. Again, I think the stickiness factor is something I can take with me. After college I plan on being a teacher and I think by using the stickiness factor I will be able to help my students not only learn better, but remember it. It's important for students to take the information they learn with them throughout life.

The Tipping Point: The Power of Context

1. In my opinion, Bernie Goetz was a murderer, not a hero, and should not have been let free. He opened fire of four black youths just because he was getting bad vibes from them, and thought they were going to rob him. Some saw him as a hero for shooting those guys, while others saw him as a criminal. I agree with the criminal side. I think his actions were completely unjustified. The boys did nothing wrong to him. If he thought anything was wrong with them, why not move to a different car instead of just shooting them? People thought he did a good thing because the guys had criminal backgrounds and people felt they would just cause more problems. This too, does not justify what he did. It's the police's job to capture criminals, not Bernie's. He should have reported them instead of killing them.

5. I honestly don't know whether improving prison conditions will lead to better inmate behavior, but part of me thinks that we shouldn't improve the conditions because the inmates are there to pay for their crimes, not to relax and enjoy luxuries. I think the conditions need to stay as they are to teach the prisoners the lesson they are there to learn.

English UnderGrad Conference

During the English Undergraduate Conference I attended a session on the use of webquest in the classroom. I really liked this session because, being an education major, it's something that I can use in my classroom. It's set up like a web site that students can go to and see what projects and assignments they have to do. I can use this in my Family and Consumer Sciences classroom because I feel there are many different websites out there that can be useful to my class that I can get them to use through webquest. For example, if I'm teaching a foods class and my students need recipes, I can guide them to one of the many thousands of websites that will help them find what they need. The use of webquest's are a great tool for the classroom and think they will become more and more popular over the next few years.

Disscussion Questions on Chapter 3

Question 2:

Gladwell states that what makes a message memorable is it's stickiness factor, the ablility for the message to stick in your mind. Part of this is the repetition of the message and the impact that it had on you. Even if you don't like the message, if you still remember it than the advertisers have done their job by getting it to stick in your mind. We think that the cliche "even bad publicity is good publicity" is true because even if the commercial annoys you, you'll still remember them. For instance, the freecreditreport.com commercials. They stick in your head because of the catchy songs.

Question 4:

We believe that tv is stickier than books. Many kids would rather watch an animated cartoon rather than read something. It's good for young children because for those that can't read the message is still getting across because they can watch it. Also, a lot of low income families do not have books lying around their houses for kids to read. Tv is one of the main ways for these kids to learn.

Reflection on The Tipping Point Chapter 2

I think that the most interesting part of chapter 2 was the part about the connectors. Gladwell used his own circle of friends to find out who the connectors were. In his case it happened to be his friend Jacob. I really like when he showed how he met other friends through Jacob and said that it wasn't his circle of friends, it was Jacob's pyramid of friends. This is really true. I've noticed that, especially here at school, there are one or two people that I can link all my friends to. If I had never meet these two people, the group of friends I hang out with everyday would be really different from what it is now. And because my connectors know so many people, the circle is still growing and we're adding mew people everyday.

The part with the quiz was pretty interesting because as i was looking at I realized I know at least 25 people who had those names as their last names. Hopefully that means that I'm a good connector and am helping to expand other peoples social circles.