Core Value I. My work demonstrates that I used a variety of social and interactive practices that involve recursive stages of exploration, discovery, conceptualization, and development.
In a lot of my work for this class, I used my roommate to help me edit my work, because he is very gifted when it comes to writing papers. He gave me quite a few ideas in order to help develop not only my position paper but all of my papers. When I first started my proposal +5, I originally started with the advantageous uses of stem cells for our society. After consulting with professor Hodges, I decided to use the angle that stem cells can be used without harming or killing humans. The more I researched, the more my argument developed and would eventually come full circle.
Core Value II. My work demonstrates that I placed texts into conversation with one another to create meaning by synthesizing ideas from various discourse communities.
Within my works, I utilized different articles and complied their information together; the best example of this is shown within the contents of my Causal Rewrite essay. Although this essay only has three main arguments, it utilizes information from four different articles in order to argue my point. Two of the articles compliment each other, so I used them to compliment each other within the section specific to it. One article spoke on how genetic code within a fertilized egg could inhibit the egg from ever developing into a human being; the second went into depth and described how this could occur. The author wrote about how specific hormones are needed to allow the cell to attach to the uterus wall and fertilized eggs with incorrect genetic codes release the wrong hormone. This as a result stops them from ever becoming humans. By synthesizing these two ideas, I was able to relay a better argument than if I just utilized the first.
Core Value III. My work demonstrates that I rhetorically analyzed the purpose, audience, and contexts of my own writing and other texts and visual arguments.
Before starting my first draft of Definition Rewrite, I researched what defines a human from different perspectives. These perspectives came from both secular and biblical perspectives in order to help define what a human is to everyone. Through using vastly different sources, such as scientific articles and the Bible, I was able to come to a consensus that both parties would agree on. Once agreed upon, I was able to attack the idea that a fertilized egg that’s been in existence for a about 4 weeks cannot be considered human by definition. By utilizing these texts and understanding my audience would use the notion that fertilized eggs are humans, I was able to refute this idea completely.
Core Value IV: My work demonstrates that I have met the expectations of academic writing by locating, evaluating, and incorporating illustrations and evidence to support my own ideas and interpretations.
I demonstrated that I could meet the standards and expectations of academic writing by coming up with counter intuitive ways to view different aspects of my research paper. I incorporated vastly different forms of evidence that ranged from biblical support to scientific support. The best examples of these are the essays Definition Rewrite and Rebuttal Rewrite. I came to the conclusion of utilizing such different forms of support, because I could not simply fight fire with fire. My argument before adding in the biblical stand point was very one sided and contained a lot of science, but many of the protesters of stem cells were religious groups that do not believe in science. As a result, I had to figure out a common ground between the two and move forward from there.
Core Value V. My work demonstrates that I respect my ethical responsibility to represent complex ideas fairly and to the sources of my information with appropriate citation.
Since my entire paper is a research paper, I did not make any of the studies by no means. I utilized journals, books, and websites a like to argue my point of view. With that being said, I needed to cite all of these sources and utilize them correctly. One example where I could have used a source and made my paper sound more appealing was the Causal Rewrite. I could have used a different statistic that would not have been honest at all, but after consulting it with professor Hodges a little, I was able to put another spin on the actual statistics. As a result it came out much better than I could have imagined. My citations for these different sources can be found in my annotated bibliography.
Rowan Counterintuitive 