Lesson 14 Prompt: Research Paper Reflection

The prompt for Lesson 15 is : write about what you wish you had done differently while you worked on your paper.

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If I had an opportunity to write this paper again I would integrate more sources. I feel like citing eight sources for the paper doesn't cover the vast amount of knowledge I acquired in order to write it in the first place. I read countless articles, talked to my peers, talked to coaches and teachers and friends, and poured over newspapers in order to gain enough knowledge on the International Criminal Court, yet that is not reflected in my work because the information I received was general, and considered common knowledge in the world of international judicial practice (thus there is no need for citation, according to Hacker).

Also, I would liked to have consulted more print sources. Aside from brief articles from The Economist, it was challenging to find up-to-date print sources on the international Criminal Court. Without signing up for an expensive international politics magazine, finding sources was challenging.

All in all, however, I am very pleased with the paper I wrote for this class. It was a wonderful journey in writing and reflects my learned abilities. 

-Ace 

Lesson 13 Prompt: Consulting with an Editor

For lesson 13 students were to have another person edit or look over their work. The prompt for lesson 13 is: Write about your experience consulting with someone about your writing. 

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I have always found it fun to have someone else look over writing that I have worked hard to research and write well. Not only does it give someone a chance to see my work other than myself and my teacher, but consulting with another person also drastically improves my writing.

When working on a paper longer than six pages, it becomes very time consuming to edit every word with a fine-tooth comb, and by the time I'm around the eighth or ninth page my comb is often missing several teeth and it's certainly no longer as fine. Of course, I often start on the last page and work backwards later, which solves a great deal, but even after I've been staring at the pages for days I miss things. This is my largest problem when it comes to writing, especially when I'm writing about a subject that I have been studying and researching for months. I lose sight of any logical fallacies, contradictions, and complications in my writing; problems a fresh pair of eyes with little to no knowledge of the paper's subject can spot within minutes. From the large problems, unclear arguments to contradicting arguments, to the small problems, grammatical errors and misused words, I tend to blur them together after working on a paper for a long time. Just having one person read the paper pointed many, many problems out to me. Problems that I was embarrassed as to have missed!

I actually had three people read through my rough draft, not including the instructor for this course. I emailed my paper to one of my parents friends who, while not an avid writer, has a nit-picky eye for detail and small errors. Because I asked her to only focus on the really small things and nothing big-picture, I did not have her send proof of consultation to R. Kline. The second person I emailed my paper to is a friend of mine who debated the topic of the International Criminal Court (my research paper's topic) several months ago and accumulated quite a bit of knowledge on the subject. I asked him to go through the paper briefly and look for any incorrect information, illogical arguments, or weak arguments. He was happy to do this for me, and did not find anything wrong with my arguments. I did not have him send an email to R. Kline because we never really met and discussed the paper, he just let me know my arguments were all strong and correct. The third person I consulted with was my main 'editor' for the rough draft. I printed a copy out for her and we met to discuss general ways to improve the paper. She has quite an eye for detail as well, so she helped me find all the little errors in my paper that could be fixed easily. While she did not know much about the International Criminal Court, she was able to point out several ways to improve my arguments, and several points that were slightly contradictory. I was ever grateful to meet with her and discuss my paper, because her fresh eyes were able to catch many things I missed when I went through it myself.

All the consultations will make it much easier to complete my final paper.

-Ace

Lesson 10 Prompt: Essay Formats

The lesson 10 prompt (which is being posted after lesson 11 only because I thought I had posted 10 before 11 in the first place), was to write about anything the student wished.

I chose to explore standard essay formats that are taught in high school and college (the five paragraph, the seven paragraph, the three paragraph...)

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Perhaps I view writing the way I do because I have been schooled at home through the last six years, and before that, in a non-conventional charter school with an emphasis on individual thinking. I have been allowed the freedom to write whatever I wish in whatever way I wished (most of the time, there were, of course, exceptions). Every semester for the last three years I have written a complete 10 page research paper, but I was allowed to select my topic, and my presentation style (while following most MLA guidelines, of course). Now, as I am taking the first writing course in six years that has a traditional instructor, I am wondering about the purpose of standardizing writing formats.

Throughout this course I have written several standard five paragraph essays, and several classical argument essays. Both use a typical three paragraph 'supporting' section to back up each claim. What if you have four claims? Or five? Two? While I am sure that if I felt the need I could write four supporting paragraphs instead of three for this class, yet when I think back on my younger years in school I remember being told that only three would be accepted in several situations. It has led to me wondering if standardizing writing formats has helped or hindered students today?

In some ways, the standardization of these essay formats has made students' jobs easier. We do not have to think about what format and type of organization our paper should fit into. When I go to write an essay I put three supporting paragraphs in, an intro and conclusion. It is almost automatic. Just recently, however, I began to wonder if the five paragraph essay was conducive to all written essays out there. Of course it is not. How could one format work perfectly for thousands of essays?

To me, the essay format should help support the essay, much like a frame supports a photo by framing it, completing it. An essay format should act as a frame for its essay, completing it and helping it to shine. And just as not all frames fit all photos, I would think that not all essays fit the five paragraph format. Perhaps students should be taught, along with the standard formats, ways to fit a format to their topic and presentation style. Gregory Mantsios, author of Class in America—2003, uses a myth/reality question/answer format for his essay, which works wonderfully for its presentation. If he tried to mold the same essay into a five paragraph format, it would be a very different essay, and much less profound.

So perhaps students should occasionally be allowed to write an essay in whatever format their believe will 'frame' their essay the best. Maybe that way is a standard format, but if not, they should be guided and aided into making a new format that better works for their topic.  

-Ace

Lesson 11 Prompt: Summarizing

The Lesson 11 Prompt is: write about your experience summarizing the reading. 

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I chose two articles to summarize for lesson 11, the first an article I found online through the Crimes of War Project, titled “Why the U.S. is so Opposed” by Paul Kahn. The second article was one printed in the March 7-13^th issue of The Economist, titled “Braced for the Aftershock”. Both articles were over three pages in length, using Microsoft Word traditional formatting as a scale.

I included Paul Kahn's article in my working bibliography for lesson 9, and chose to summarize it for lesson 11 because of the challenge it had presented back in lesson 9. “Why the U.S. is so Opposed” is an article written with thought, but very deep thought rooted in philosophy, theory of rule of law, and world values, including those of America. It is a very different article from most written about the ICC, challenging to read because of its subject matter, but also because of the advanced vocabulary and style Kahn writes with. Right off the bat summarizing is challenging for me. Yet Kahn's article was so complex that soon I discovered summarizing it meant I would have to state and explain Kahn's main points in a simpler, more straightforward language. This was the most challenging part of the summary, because Kahn's points were so complex that they truly needed all the lengthly explanations Kahn wrote into his article. Summarizing these explanations for an audience who had not read the original article was a daunting task for me. In the end, my summary is not as concise as I would like it to be, but due to the complexity of the article, I still feel there is little else I can do to further condense it.

The second article I chose for different reasons than the first. “Braced for the Aftershock” is not as long or complex as “Why the U.S. is so Opposed,” but while Kahn's article has a philosophical topic, my second article is writing about one specific event. This means that “Braced for the Aftershock” is much more detailed and precise then Kahn's article. I was interested in the contrast between the two articles I summarized, and indeed, the contrast became apparent. Even though the article from The Economist is shorter than Paul Kahn's article, I took twice as many notes, and ended with an annotation of the article that was slightly longer than that for Kahn's. The details embedded into “Braced for the Aftershock” were necessary to include in the summary, and my job was to find the essence of their meaning. This was challenging to do, simply because there were so many details to sort out. Like my first summary, I would liked to have written a more concise summary of “Braced for the Aftershock,” but short of leaving out important details and connections, there is little I can do.

For both articles I was challenged to write my own evaluation of the article into my summary. I felt that comments about the complexity, evidence used, and neutrality of the article broke up summary flow, and were unnecessary. 

All in all, summarizing both articles was a good exercise to go through, however challenging it was. Summarizing “Braced for the Aftershock” gave me a much clearer picture of what the article was trying to convey, and helped me commit some of the information to memory. However, it's hard to determine how helpful summarizing, outlining, writing down main points, and annotating “Why the U.S. is so Opposed” was. I have a clearly idea of the main point, but it is hard to remember all the complexities of the topic. If I am to include Kahn's article as a reference, I will need to read it several more times to further understand the argument being made. 

-Ace

Lesson 9 Prompts: Preparing for the Paper

In this entry, I address the following prompts from Lesson 9:

What else do I still need to do? (50 words)

What do I need outside help with? (50-100 words)

Why am I feeling threatened by this research paper? (50-200 words)

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What else do I still need to do?

I feel like I need to organize all of my sources and evidence. I have papers I printed out for a school assignment months ago that I'm referencing (possibly), notes I've taken from online sources, and online sources that I have not printed out. My working bibliography needs to be expanded to include all of this information. I'm worried that I'm going to misplace evidence somewhere or that I'll loose track of evidence I can't afford to loose track of. So my next job is going to be categorizing my evidence and building up my working bibliography to include all my evidence and sources available. 

What do I need outside help with?

I am very confident with my knowledge of the ICC and my thesis. I have researched both sides of the issue very thoroughly, and I don't feel I need outside counseling on my thesis. I am, however, very willing to receive in-person writing counseling from someone. Even though this is an assignment in lesson 13, I would like to meet with someone beforehand as well, just to talk with about general term-paper essay quality.

Why am I feeling threatened by this research paper?

As I am looking at this from the stage where I have not written anything for the paper (not counting the working bibliography), I am very threatened by the size. I do not mean the word count, or the number of pages. I am threatened by the abstract size of the whole project. Also, as this weeks lesson is almost unrelated to my research paper, I am feeling a little out-of-sorts and just ready to get the paper over with. Spending a week writing an essay about effective writing is something I would be happy to do after my research paper is done, but now it's a little distracting. I'm sure that once I begin to draft my outline for the paper, and then the rough draft, I will feel much less threatened by the project. As of now, I feel like a very small person staring up at this enormous mountain, and knowing that I have to climb it in one month. It's a matter of taking the first step. 

-Ace

Lesson 8 Prompts: Graphic Chart Analysis and Thesis Exercises.

The prompts addressed in this post are:

Read any article pertaining to your research topic that contains a visual element (a graphic). Explain why the visual is effective or ineffective in swaying  your view on the topic. Make it interesting for the reader who does not already know your thesis.

Is your thesis weak? Hacker can help you figure out what is wrong with your thesis. Is it too broad or too narrow in focus? is it grounded or too speculative to be researched? For practice recognizing good thesis statements, go to http://www.dianahacker.com...

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For my article pertaining to my research topic and containing a visual element, I read an article about the International Criminal Court's unequal geographic representation in its Assembly of States Parties. The ASP, or Assembly, consists of one representative from each member of the ICC, and any alternates or advisors granted to that representative by their own country. Each representative in the ASP gets one vote. The article detailed the geographic representation of the ASP, pointing out that 57.2% of the ASP is comprised of representatives from the Western European and Others Group (WEOG), a regional group in the United Nations. This is compared to the representation of Africa in the ASP, 12.9%, when in fact most of the ICCs efforts have been (and still are) in Africa.

In order to clarify their point, the site (www.ICCnow.org), illustrated a bar graph comparing the geographic representation of the ASP (click here to view the article and the corresponding graphic. The chart I reference in this post is the first in the article). Throwing lots of numbers and statistics in writing at an audience can be daunting. If I tell you that the geographic representation of the ASP is uneven, because 57.2% are WEOG, 7.3% East Europe, 12.9% Africa, 15.6% are GRULAC, and 7.1% are Asia, does the unequal representation argument really hit home? Perhaps for those of you that are numbers people, it does. For the rest of us, the graphic representation of those numbers is very helpful and much more dramatic. Seeing the graphic next to the numbers in this article made me understand very clearly the argument ICCNow is making. It took visually comparing the tall bar to the shorter bar for me to be clear on what the inequalities were.

Is your thesis weak? Hacker can help you figure out what is wrong with your thesis. Is it too broad or too narrow in focus? is it grounded or too speculative to be researched? For practice recognizing good thesis statements, go to http://www.dianahacker.com...

I went online to dianahacker.com and did the 10 thesis statement exercises. While many of the questions were intuitive, I did get a clear picture of what a concise, clear, and pointed thesis statement should be. I believe that my thesis (the United States should not become a member of the Rome Statute's International Criminal Court) is still strong. It is concise, clear, and has a definite view from the start. I may add some more information and make the thesis slightly more specific, possibly providing three brief reasons why the U.S. shouldn't join within that sentence.

My score was10/10: 100%.

Lesson 8 Prompt: Lucky Charms!

In this post I am addressing the prompt:  

Preview, read, and annotate a package of food. What is its strongest argument? Why? Would its packaging prompt you to buy it again? Why?

I analyzed a Lucky Charms® cereal box for this prompt. While my brother already had the box, I took a quick trip to the grocery store just to browse other cereal boxes so I could compare them to Lucky Charms®. Immediately I noticed several things about Lucky Charms®. They are placed on one of the middle shelves, near eye-level for a child, and certainly not out of the way for an adult. Lucky Charms® are also one of the most vibrant and busy boxes on the shelf, with a bright red background and a rainbow-themed design, including the Lucky Charms'® mascot (probably named Lucky, but I'm not sure) who is nationally known to children.

There are two main arguments on the LC® box. One is aimed at children, the other at their parents. The strongest argument for children is the large picture of an hourglass-shaped marshmallow charm that Lucky (we'll assume the name) is reaching for. Inside the hourglass are the words: “Control Time! With The Hourglass Marshmallow Charm.” Perhaps it is a new charm, or a new color of charm. Either way, the picture invokes a child's interest for that charm.

The strongest argument for parents is the bold statement on the front of the box: Good Source of CALCIUM & VITAMIN D and Whole Grain Guaranteed. On the side of the box there is a panel explaining why calcium and vitamin D are important in a child's diet, and what the specifications for 'whole grain' are.

According to the front of the box and the side panel, Lucky Charms® appears to be a very good choice for breakfast cereal. I feel obligated to point out that there's a lot of fine print involved (this doesn't necessarily relate to the prompt, it's more a rebuttal for the arguments LC® provide advocating their cereal). One serving of LC® provides only 10% of the recommended daily values for calcium and vitamin D. Actually, the milk you drink with the LC® provides more of these two vitamins than the cereal itself does. When reading the ingredients list, the second ingredient is marshmallows (which contain sugar, corn syrup, and artificial flavors), the third is sugar, and the fifth is corn syrup. There are 11g of sugar per serving of LC®. If you do the math (approx. 16 servings per box, approx. 453g of cereal total, approx. 27g per serving), sugar comprises 38% of the entire box of cereal, and 40% per serving.

Centering back on the prompt, would I buy this food item again based on its packaging? Strictly making my decision off the box and not the fine print, yes, I would. Lucky Charms® has an excellently appealing appearance, complete with fun and simple puzzles on the back of the box that work towards some prize on luckycharms.com. I love the colorful design and the cute, persistently happy mascot. Besides, with 176g of sugar, they taste pretty good too!