Video Project

We made a grammar lesson video on nouns, verbs, and adjectives. We hope you enjoy it!

Evaluation of Internet Resources

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In order to practice evaluating the quality of internet resources, I chose a topic and began researching online. 

Although I have been tossing around a few topic ideas in my mind for my next argumentative essay, the topic I chose for this exercise is child beauty pageants. Specifically, the negative effects of beauty pageants on children and why they should not be entered in such pageants. First, through Google Search, I found a collection of articles on this topic on huffingtonpost.com.


Website Impression:
The first thing I noticed was the variety of information that is available on the site; news, entertainment, media, politics, business, healthy living, and even comedy. I also noticed that, although The Huffington Post is a well-known news publication and provides quite an impressive array of information, it seems a bit lacking. I'll explain. I was looking around the site for some sort of "About Us" page, and found a link to such a page at the very bottom. When I clicked the link, it took me to a page with all of the names of everyone involved in making the website run, but there was nothing written about how, when, or why The Huffington Post was created, which disappointed me. Personally, I think it would help me care more about the website if I was able to learn a bit more about the history of it via the website itself. That said, the information on the site seems to be credible and relevant, and is presented well with images and catchy titles.

Unfortunately, most of the articles on the website are very short, but I did find one post that went more in-depth on the topic of child beauty pageants. One thing the author, Deborah Cruz, wrote really stood out to me, "I am trying to raise my girls to value themselves for who they are on the inside. I want them to value others for who they are on the inside. I don't want superficial, shallow children." (Cruz)

Evaluation of Website based on General Criteria Guidelines:

• The organization name, The Huffington Post, is clearly visible at the top of the website, and most articles on the website have the authors' names shown under the titles. Since there is so much information and news stories on the site, I would say there are a combination of experts and non-experts who write articles that are featured on the site. The information on the site is appropriate for the commercial nature of the organization.
• The purpose of the site is to inform the reader of newsworthy information, for educational purposes and for entertainment. It is not a biased website because it includes articles with differing opinions on the same topic.
• The site does have the presence of ads. There were advertisements for Yellow Tail wine and Audible.com, which implies that the site is mainly targeted towards adults and generally not suitable for children.
• The articles I read included some in-text citations, but there was no other citations to be seen anywhere. These citations do give me a good idea of the sources of the information used, but are not fully cited. Many of the articles are simply informing the reader and not necessarily making an argument. Some articles are about someone's opinion, and are backed up mostly with personal experiences. The site does not seem to be backed up by academic research.
• The website is updated almost constantly, due to the constant stream of newsworthy information to be shared every moment. The links seem to be relevant and appropriate for each topic. Most of the articles are rather short and only cover each topic on a superficial level. Some of the content is appropriate for printed publication, while some content is probably meant only to be posted on the site.

Database Article Evaluation:

The article I chose to evaluate from the database is, Childhood Beauty Pageant Contestants: Associations with Adult Disordered Eating and Mental Health. The authors seem to really know a lot about the topic. They are very logical and include a lot of statistics and references, which are cited properly. Although the article is a bit impersonal, it is well-written. It includes information from several sources, one of them being the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. With all the medical and psychological statistics and studies included in this article, it seems properly backed up with accurate information.

Comparison of Website and Database Article:

Personally, I enjoy being able to gain information through a more personal, conversational read, which is what the Huffington Post website gives. On the other hand, the database article gives more fact based information drawn from studies, which did not seem to be included in the articles on the website. I think both are beneficial to read in their own way and are written well.

Works Cited:

    Cruz, Deborah. "The French Government Bans Child Beauty Pageants and I Hope it Catches On." huffingtonpost.com. 12 October 2015. Web. 12 October 2015.

Wonderlich, Anna. Ackard, Diann. Henderson, Judith. "Childhood Beauty Pageant Contestants: Associations With Adult Disordered Eating And Mental Health." Eating Disorders 13.3 (2005): 291-301. Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.

Evaluating Internet Resources

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Part One - 

    My Impressions - On this website there was an article about divorce, and divorce rates in the United States.  The information is presented very well, there is just a lot of information cited or used from a different source rather than from the author herself.  This site had many statistics within the article, but most, if not all were from other sources.  There was also different titled sections telling you what each different short section was about.  I believe that the information is pretty credible because the URL is .org, and the website is called the AFA Journal.  All the links on the page are going to other articles within this journal website.  I believe this is a scholarly site and that the article was well written.     
  
     Gather Information - 

• The author is clearly named for this article, and she gives credit throughout the article to the person she accumulated her information from.  The author does not seem to be an expert on the subject but she found a very good source.  All the information of this site is very appropriate for the purpose of the page.
• The purpose of this page is to inform people. 
• The only advertising on this site is for other articles on the site, and I believe that helps the site. 
• There is no full citation for the source that the author used, other that the reference to the title of the book within the writing.  The information can be verified from other sources, because that is where the information came from originally.
• The site is often updated with new articles, not on the same topic but it is updated.  
• The information is covered in pretty good depth, although I do believe that the information could be spoken in better depth.  The information is very appropriate for publication.      

     Summary -  I would say that marriage is not as important anymore in our lives today, and I believe many of you would agree with this statement.  Anne Reed did until she read  Shaunti Feldhahn's book The Good News about Marriage: Debunking Discouraging Myths about Marriage and Divorce.  
Reed says "Feldhahn contends, Divorce is not the biggest threat to marriage. Discouragement is" (Reed, Feldhahn).  Most people would say that 50 percent of marriages end in divorce, Feldhahn says, "A Family Life Family Needs Survey among more than 50 churches in 2012-2013 found that only 22% of those ever married had been divorced"(Reed).  Many marriages are very happy and just need a few small things changed in order for the marriage to continue working.  Feldhahn and Reed agree that “Divorce is not the biggest threat to marriage. Discouragement is”(Reed).    
        Works Cited - 

Reed, Anne. "AFA Journal - The Real Threat to Marriage." AFA Journal. A Publication of The
        American Family Association, 2014. Web. 09 Oct. 2015. <http://www.afajournal.org/recent-         issues/2015/january/the-real-threat-to-marriage/>.       

Part Two - 

My Observations - This article seems much more reliable, everything about this site just seems more reliable and scholarly.  The author seems to be more of an expert and not just quoting others for the information, although information is quoted there seems to be expertise in her words as well.  The writing style is much more advanced.  Everything on the page of the article seems to be helpful and not distracting from the article itself, and there is a full citation for where the author got her information.  I would say this article has far better quality than the first, and that scholarly peer reviewed journals are much more reliable sources than a source you found on Google.  

Kuby Williams said, "Through her meticulous investigation of experts' advice, she argues that while the messengers changed through the decades, their underlying message remained the same: a successful marriage requires hard work and personal sacrifice, particularly on the part of women" (Williams).  This simple phrase, I believe, shows how much more educated this writer is than the first that I researched merely because of the way that the information is presented.  

 

One Source from Reference List -      
Making Marriage Work: A History of Marriage and Divorce in the Twentieth-Century United States. Kristin Celello. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.

Works Cited - 

Kuby, William. "Making Marriage Work: A History Of Marriage And Divorce In The Twentieth-               Century United States." Journal Of American Culture 35.3 (2012): 279-280. Academic Search             Premier. Web. 9 Oct. 2015.

Written by - Kelsey Robison

Blog Review #2

Discuss: The blog review I looked over was called “Five Brains Are Better Than One.” When I first looked over the blog, my first impression was how well organized it was. I thought the background was a nice vibrant color, but also not too distracting to the blog posts. Looking at every one’s blog post pictures, I found some that were quite humorous. Making the blog more humorous made the blog less serious. I still believe that My partners and I blog is better then “Five Brains Are Better Than One’s” blog, only by a little. Five Brains Are Better Than One’s blog had a little more interesting blog summary. My partners and I could add something more appealing to change our blog for the better.

Plan: The changes I would add to my blog would only be smaller details. For example, adding to our summary for my blog. My partners and I could also

change up the font to make it more appealing. After that I think that our blog would look nice and peaceful. After checking the blog I made sure all of the blog posts has visuals, included labels, were signed, and that we had a blogroll to our blog. I also like to follow fellow classmates blogs.

Overall I very much enjoyed reviewing “Five Brains Are Better Than One’s” blog. There wasn’t much criticism for this blog, because I really enjoyed how simple it was but still interesting and appealing at the same time.  

Written By: Isabella Sofia Montalbetti 

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Blog Review #2

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They seem to be just passing through.  As I looked through the blog entitled "Just Passing Through" I found the background quite interesting.  While I was reading, though the background was quite fun and exciting, I also found it to be a little distracting.  You want your blog to look interesting, but if the look takes away from the writing, I believe that there is not much need for good writing because the readers will be distracted most of the time.

Just scrolling through I only noticed a few picture recently, whereas there were more in the beginning.  It is more interesting if there are pictures on every post, as I saw when following a blog at the beginning of the semester.  I think that my group needs to go back through and put pictures on some of our group posts because we are lacking a little there as well.

Another thing that I think would be helpful, or just interesting, is to have a little sentence about the writers of this blog at the top.  This sentence does not have to be long or in any depth about these writers, it would just be a simple sentence that makes the reader understand more of why you write how you do, and in a simple way, who you are.  I love the title of this blog though, I found it very intriguing and that is why I chose to look at this blog.  

I did like how not all the posts on the first page were written in paragraph form.   Sometimes it gets easier and more fun to read when each of the blog posts do not look like essays.  Overall I would rate this blog very highly.  I'm sure that reading it would be more interesting if it was not all about our assignments, but any blog would if it was about our life rather than our assignments.  Every blogger has things they could do to make their site, posts, pictures, and their blog in general better, but when all is said and done the author should be the one make every decision about their blog.  It doesn't really matter what others think because if they truly care about what is written in the blog, nothing else will really matter. 


Written By - Kelsey Robison

Blog Review #2 - Five Brains Are Better Than One

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As I was looking at the group blogs from my class, the blog that stood out to me the most was Five Brains Are Better Than One. What really caught my attention was how visually interesting it was. For one, the title is very catchy and gives the impression that the five writers have a sense of teamwork and enjoy working together to create the blog. Another thing I really enjoyed about the blog was how engaging their posts were because they included funny or unexpected images in each post. Their images often made me laugh or smile.

Although the blog is generally visually appealing, I would suggest that they change their background from such a bold red color to something a little more relaxing. It would make me want to spend more time reading the blog if the background was a lighter color.

That said, Five Brains is very well-written and engaging. I enjoy reading it because of how much detail and personality each post has. It's written in a very personal and lighthearted way, which is something I need to work on in my own writing. In fact, I think I have already drawn some inspiration from their blog when I sat down to write this review. Sometimes it can be hard to make each post conversational and relatable on this blog when all I post are assignments, but Five Brains reminded me that it is possible to make assigned posts interesting.

Overall, I think these five classmates were successful in creating and maintaining an interesting and engaging blog with a lot of personality and character. Each post was similar in length and style, which made the blog look organized and consistent. I was impressed with the variety of thought-provoking topics for their essays and their thoughts of their assigned reading from the textbook. If someone outside of our English composition class stumbled upon Five Brains, they would get a pretty good idea about what each chapter in the textbook is about and what the most important points from the chapters are. Personally, I found writing inspiration from this blog, and I plan on continuing to read it throughout the semester.

Written by Hayley Leach

Chapter 14: Argumentation

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Personally, I had never really thought to come up with an antithesis (exact opposite of my thesis) in order to make sure my argumentative thesis is debatable. I think that learning to look at my argument from opposing viewpoints will make me a stronger writer and help me learn how to address opposition in my essays and in arguments or debates I may have with others in the future.

Professionally, this chapter is one that I see myself referring to often for future argumentative essays. Although this chapter is full of important information, I think the most helpful things I learned are that argumentation essays must make points, supply evidence, establish logical chain of reasoning, refute opposing arguments, and accommodate the audience's views.

Written by Hayley Leach

Chapter 14 - Argumentation

When I read this chapter, the thing that stuck out to me was that there is a difference between argumentation and persuasion.  Our book says that persuasion is more how a writer influences an audience to adopt their belief or follow a certain course of action.  Persuasion focuses more on appealing to the readers emotions (pathos), the readers logic (logos), and and based on the character reputation of the writer.  Argumentation on the other hand is an appeal to reason.  With argumentation the writer is trying to demonstrate or prove that an idea is valid or invalid.  People use these two different techniques every day when they talk to the people around them.  After having read this I noticed more when people were using persuasion versus argumentation when they spoke.

My professional reaction, and what I would teach to a group of students, is how to plan an argumentative essay.
1. Choose a Topic - The textbook says there should be an intellectual or emotional stake in your topic.

2. Develop a Thesis - Your thesis must be debatable and state the position that you will argue.

3. Analyze Your Audience - When preparing for your argumentation essay, you have to think about your audience and if they will be skeptical, friendly, neutral, or hostile to your thesis.

4. Gather and Document Evidence - All the points you make in your essay must be supported or backed up somehow.  Evidence is defined as facts or opinions that support your position.  

5. Kinds of Evidence - There are three kinds of evidence: facts, opinions, and expert opinions.  You just have to make sure that everything is credible information.

6. Criteria for Evidence - Your evidence must be relevant, representative, and sufficient.

7. Dealing with the Opposition - Dealing with the opposition is called refutation.  This step is essential to help you in making the strongest point you can when you are writing your essay.  You can refute an opposing argument by proving and providing evidence that they are unsound, unfair, and weak.

Written By - Kelsey Robison

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