Junk homework

In Lee Ann Fisher Baron’s “The Influence of “Junk Science” and the Role of Science Education”, she argues that America needs to reform its education curriculums so that students are better taught in the hard sciences and math. This article starts out like the other one I report, with a beginning excerpt that establishes the author ethos through her qualifications and accolades. Her article is split into sections in so that her readers can easily understand her points. The first two sections of the article talk about the differences between real science and “junk science”. Baron does not like “junk science” because it falsely convinces consumers of a scientific breakthrough that has no scientific evidence supporting it, such as the herbal supplements that many people claim to improve health. The author uses prickles to provide context about what real science really is and how it differs from junk science, which is effective in helping readers understand the differences. Her audience for this paper would be parents and adults in the educational system that have influence on what students learn. Her final section of her paper blatantly describes her greater purpose in writing this article, which is that schools need to “revive real standards” in schools across the country with regards to sciences and math’s. she does this by using goo and pathos so create a connection with the readers. The readers can feel how passionate Baron is about this discussion and it helps her be more effective in reaching people. Her call to action asks people to be better thinkers so that they can distinguish between good and false science. I like how the article is so short because it keeps my concentration and it gets to the point quick. I enjoyed both of these article because they are shorter and interesting. 

One thing

In Natalie Angier’s magazine article “One Thing They Aren’t: Maternal”, she presents information about how even though humans have a nurturing connotation of the word mother, it is not always the example we find in the wild. She is writing this article for The New York Times because it is approaching mother’s day and this offers another aspect of motherhood. Since it is a scientific piece, Angier uses the first part of her paper to establish her ethos as a renowned author and research scientist. I found that to be effective in me believing in what she said. She has only a small excerpt in the beginning in order to mirror how insignificant that “moms are great” is to this article. After her small introduction to being a mother, the author spends the rest of the article talking about how mothers from all kingdoms of the animal world are “coldhearted.” In order to do this she uses a vast amount of prickles and very little goo. I did like all the prickles she uses because they keep readers interested on the topic by presenting new, cool facts. Her lack of goo has little consequence in this case because the target audience is the more sophisticated readers on the NY Times who would want to read an intellectual piece. Angier’s goal is to present the information she wants to, so that her readers can realize how special our mothers are before their special day. In addition, her lack of commentary lowers the levels of emotion the readers have because the presents it in a way that makes it seem like what is happening is only natural. The goal is to demonstrate how mothers in the wild do what they need to so that at least some of their offspring survive. I do not like how the article ended so abruptly without any tying together of loose ends. I wish she provided more commentary then. 

iSurprised

                The informative essay iWeb by Nicholas Carr, as you can infer from the title, is a reference to the futuristic movie iRobot. This movie is about a population of robots that humans create with artificial intelligence to do all sorts of tasks for humans, but their minds eventually cause them to try to take over the world. This article is not quite as extreme as iRobot, but it does talk about how the internet and World Wide Web are constantly adapting to the human mind in order to make processes easier for humans. As the author points out many times throughout his paper, by use of many questions, the audience can see that many people believe the internet has already started to become similar to an artificial intelligence. With the case of google, the search engine contains a “page-rank algorithm” that ranks every website based on the amount of times the website has been linked to, the greater the amount of links to a site the better. Google practically thinks for you using this program, where the internet thinks which page would help you find what you are looking for best based on the general popularity of the webpage. Carr does a good job of using prickles, such as specific examples of the internet evolving ( the Mechanical Turk) and many quotes from industry professionals, to prove the points he makes about the internet. The only time I found his strategy of overloading with facts to be ineffective was near the beginning when the facts seemed to all be saying the same thing and near the end when the amount of knowledge being presented to you was just too much to handle. However, this technique does work well with his target audience, who are the tech wizards and internet enthusiasts who think that the internet is amazing. The internet is amazing but his audience needs to see the hard prickles of his argument to believe what the author is saying. I enjoyed this article for the most part because I found the topic easy to relate to but I thought the prickles could have been balanced out more by goo.  

peer review research paper

Min:

Like Carlie said, I think you did a great job with the goo of the story. I found it very easy to follow what you were doing and your thought processes. You did include a good amount of prickles and I do not think you need more, but I think it could use a little more in depth analysis of the prickles. For example, you could go into more depth about why taking breaks helps the mind remember the information better. In addition, I like how you had a strong plan of what you were going to do for the experiment beforehand. I like how the three options were separated in an easy to understand manner. I also think the question is relevant to a lot of people so that it’s easy to relate to. I actually was forced to take a break while analyzing this draft due to the fireworks and it helped me formulate my thoughts better (even though the break was forced because I could not concentrate). There were some grammatical errors but those are minor and can be fixed easily. I really enjoyed your experiment and think the draft is a strong base, the only significant thing I would do is expand more on the prickles or use more prickles to analyze your questions more scientifically.

Carli: 

I found your essay to be very interesting. This is mainly due to the fact a good majority of the things you said, I was one of those people you were talking about (do not worry it did not hurt my feelings). I think you did a great job of telling your story, but I think it could have had more in depth analysis of your feelings. Personally I know sometimes when I am bored, alone with nothing to do I cannot help but to pull out my phone. I forget I checked the same social media one minutes ago. In addition, you could talk about how often you find yourself in situations where you are uncomfortable or feel like you should pull out your phone because everyone else is. You had a good amount of prickles to expand on your narrative but I think it could use more, for example you could talk about the science of addiction to the “high” you get from your phone. You could have prickles about disorders where people think their phone is going off at all times and it is not. Finally I think you could be more specific on the things you used your phone for such as only calls or important texts. All in all I think it’s a well written essay. 

Draft section

Nail biting, also known as Onychophagia, is the severe habit of biting someone’s nail. Now almost everyone has does this before, in fact “about half of all children between the ages 10 and 18 bite their nails at one time or another”, according to WebMD. Nail biting becomes a problem when an individual continues the habit into their later ages and causes significant nail and psychiatric damage. The psychiatric damage is not the typically definition people would think of, but more similar to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Many scientist today believe that nail biting is a spectrum of OCD in that its caused by an unnaturally strong urge to groom oneself. OCD is characterized by “persistent, intrusive, and distressing obsessions (persistent thoughts, impulses, or images) or compulsions (repetitive, excessive behaviors or mental acts)”, which basically means that a person with this disorder has strong compulsions to do whatever task makes them tick. OCD is believe to be caused by “alterations in the serotonin and dopamine signaling.” Serotonin and dopamine are both neurotransmitters found in the brain that have to do with the mood of an individual. Low levels of Serotonin has been linked to depression and dopamine is release when “something good happens unexpectedly”, such as the familiar sight of the free edge (cite what that is).

 Even though there has been no scientific evidence to back up the theory that Onychophagia is a spectrum of OCD, I find this to be the most accurate explanation of why someone, or me in this case, bites their nails. After biting my nails for a majority of my life, I have found that the sight of bitable nail causes me to have the greatest urge to just get rid of it. As my nails get longer I find myself constantly inspecting them for any excuse to bite off the free. Also the urge to masticate increases exponentially the longer my nails grow. I am not used to them being long and one day after about a week I couldn’t stop the urge to bite one nail, just one nail. The satisfaction  of biting the nail granted me a feeling of euphoria, but more importantly it got rid of my urges. However this example shows me that it will be harder than I thought to stop this habit cold turkey. 

The Power of (In)Equality

The article “Inequality: Can Social Media Resolve Social Divisions?” by Danah Boyd is about the development of social media and how these websites have developed into everyday segregation. When the internet, and social media, started to become popular, most people in society believed that it would be the “end of social divisions.” She uses a lot stories from students in order to prove to the optimist who think that the internet is going to solve the cultural problems. By directly speaking to the main demographic that uses social media, the young high schoolers, Boyd is showing directly how there are social rifts being formed that even the users themselves don t realize. The author provides information on the topic using personal fieldwork, or information that she researched. She used a multitude of footnotes in order to establish her ethos in that she had a good understanding of the topic. After every topic, she has a self-reflection on what the problem at hand means, and how it relates to social issues present in the teenagers lives already. Instead of relying on interviews from students who use social media, Boyd also refers to aspects of everyday lives such as the iPhone software Siri. By demonstrating how everyday technology shows a bias towards race, she connects to a broader range of audience who might otherwise think that racism online is just a hoax. Her attempts to grapple with the complexity of this issue offer in depth analysis of the issue from all points of view. She uses a majority of her work to describe how the internet subtly promotes biasness, but concedes at the end of the story that in internet it also extremely beneficial to students. She adds to the complexity of the issue by stating how the connections that people build between each other through networking online is extremely valuable in helping you find opportunities later in life. The article reminded me a lot of the loneliness of the interconnected, but I found it more interesting because of the primary research she put into the work. However I didn’t like how her analysis were so complex that I found myself getting lost in her paper and many of the points seemed to overlap to me. 

I love Lobster

“Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace is another self-reflection article about his trip to the Maine Lobster Festival. He begins the article by providing good background information on why the festival is so important to the midcoast region of Maine. Wallace does a good job of portraying the positive and negative aspects of the festival in order to get a full picture of the experience. One of the things I dislike about Wallace is his sometimes meticulous attention to detail. He spends a lot of time using these details, such as the “four-mile, 50-minute” cab ride from the airport, for the audience to feel the experience as he does. This does a great job at answering the questions he poses, but sometimes I consider to be too many details. The author spends a majority of this article talking about the morality of eating lobsters. He starts by telling about the member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) assimilate themselves into the Maine Lobster Festival (MLF) in order to pass around anti-lobster brochures. They argue against the live killing of lobsters by boiling then in the largest lobster-cooking tank in the world. He continues to spend the rest of the article to describe whether or not lobsters can feel pain. The tone he uses implies that he believes that lobster can feel pain and is a little unethical, but he doesn’t this that the right to celebrate at the festival outweighs the negatives. Wallace uses a humorous and interested tone to describe the MLF, which I do enjoy. He also does a great job at establishing his ethos in this article. He provides a vast amount of background knowledge to demonstrate his knowledge on the subject and he spend an even larger time speaking of the scientific aspects of pain and how lobsters feel pain. Wallace uses all of these techniques in order to build a strong relationship with his audience, so that they can relate to his experiences. I enjoyed this article better than his last one because it was more scientifically based and was more than just eating lobsters and how he felt eating them.