Category: Authors FA17

Usernames for Fall 2017 students of Comp II

Reflective–todayistheday

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.

Posting my work onto the class’s shared blog I expose my work to my classmates and my professor.  With sharing my work, I gauge a reaction from my classmates and professor.  Asking for feedback from my professor and considering the comments made, I adjust and edit my work to better my assignment. Engaging in this social process and making my work available for viewing I am choosing to open my work to others so that I can reconstruct my assignment based on considered commentary. In my assignment, Stone Money post I asked for feedback because I wasn’t sure how to fix my paper.  One of the most helpful comments from my professor was that I shouldn’t use rhetorical questions. They are loaded guns and you shouldn’t trust your reader with them. In my Stone Money rewrite, I edit my paper and make sure to delete my rhetorical questions. Instead of questions, I used powerful sentences that convince rather than question the reader.  Asking for review showed I needed help with my writing. My Professor gave several helpful recommendations to better my writing, I then applied them to my assignment, editing my paper, to improve my writing.

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. 

Introducing a source’s ideas into your own flow of ideas is crucial to ensure effectiveness. For our semester paper it is necessary to have sources that strengthen our claim, but it is important to weave them into our paper seamlessly.  A source’s idea, hand and hand, with my own is important to demonstrate a claim that is connected with multiple illustrations of proof. In my assignment, Rebuttal Argument, I quote McBain and Andrews to describe their view on orca captivity.  I quote them several times within my argument to prove their ideas.  I work the quotes in when they fit within my own ideas, so that they blend together.

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.

To write a strong argument it is necessary to pinpoint the audience I speaking to and write my argument with them in focus. In my writing I tend to be too fast paced and speed past details crucial to my audience’s understanding.  I assume rather than clarify.  In my assignment, Causal Argument, I explain Free Willy and the sequence of events it created.  I understood it was necessary for the effectiveness of my argument to provide my readers with as much information as possible.  At first I chose not to explain the movie Free Willy because I assumed everyone has seen it.  But then I realized it is a smarter choice to explain the movie just in case someone hasn’t seen it or needed a refresher.  I don’t want to lose any readers to my neglect to explain things.

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.

A strong visual drives the argument home. In class we were given several lessons on how to provide as many details as we could to paint a picture to ensure clarity of the scene. With my semester paper I think it is crucial to provide the best visual for my intended audience. In my assignment, Definition Argument, in my second to last paragraph I detail the chain of events by describing the sequence. ” We watch as children hug fluffy Shamu’s to their chests, holding it close to their heart.  That is when they we bite down onto the brilliantly appealing bait.  We are hooked.  Their lure is embedded into our mouth, pulling us closer toward their open greedy gates, like open arms waiting for an embrace. “ By using imagery I entice readers to continue to the next sentence and that is the goal for every sentence.

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.

I will never copy another author’s work or abandon recognizing their ideas and facts without recognition. Respect is key. I respect other authors to credit them for their ideas and will always incorporate citations when authors are quoted. I respect my readers because I want to provide them with a trustworthy source and give them no reason to doubt my sincerity.  I always accurately present information throughout my writing. Not only is claiming someone else’s work as your own or failing to cite, against student policy it is an infraction on moral code. We were taught never to steal and that shouldn’t be ignored in writing.  In my work, Proposal +5, I collect sources and credit each of the sources I intend to use in my paper.  Each source offered ideas and statistics I wouldn’t have without these articles. If not cited in my works cited they are found in my annotated bibliography due to the ideas they provoked.

 

Reflective-Jadden14

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.

Throughout the course, feedback was provided when asked on all the assignments that were given. The feedback given was very honest and helpful, and led to the formulation of an overall better paper. This can best be seen on my visual rhetoric assignment, as I received feedback on my first draft that later I applied to my Visual Rewrite. I applied the advice given and also the advice given to me during one of my conferences to help better my paper. This feedback helped me to correct my errors and take more in-depth observations that led to a much better revision.

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. 

Throughout the course, I researched creatine and the controversy surrounding the supplement. I found many articles reporting on how creatine as a supplement provides both bad and good side effects. I studied why there is so much controversy with this supplement, and added many sources to my research paper. This can be best seen in my rebuttal, as I feel I communicated these sources best in that paper. I communicated these sources into my three short papers to create an effective counter argument to my paper. These sources helped strengthen my argument by providing solid evidence and communicating other professional opinions into a strong paper.

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.

One of my most prominent pieces that displays an in-depth rhetorical analysis is my visual rhetoric assignment. This assignment was to take a 30-second video and deeply analyze every second and record what was seen. The goal was also to interpret the reasoning for everything noticed in the video, and this assignment helped me better my analysis skills and learning about writing to different audiences. I discovered that the video was directed towards a certain audience trying to convince them to help reach out to the hurricane victims of Harvey. The assignment teached me how to look for underlying symbolism and understand the context of certain arguments. Most importantly I learned that quite a bit can be written from just a 30 second video.

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.

During the process of gathering my research paper, I had to find many different sources to both refute and support my argument. These sources would be used in my paper to back up my arguments with evidence and give them credibility. The compilation of these sources and a small summary of each can be seen on my Proposal+5, and demonstrate my ability to find quality evidence and properly support my own ideas. The brief descriptions explain the vital information I got from the paper, and provided within my proposal explain how I used my sources and incorporated them into my paper.

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. 

A very important part of the writing process is being able to properly cite sources. In all of my papers, I have properly cited my work using either MLA or APA citation, depending on the source. A collection of properly cited sources can be found on my Annotated Bibliography, containing the sources used in my research paper. This collection of sources shows how I used the sources in my paper, and a brief description of the essential content from the article. I know when writing it is my job to uphold my responsibility to not steal other people’s work. I understand that sources must be used carefully, as plagarism is a serious issue with serious consequences.

Visual Rhetoric rewrite- branxmad

0:00-0:01- The Ad starts off showing a family SUV parked in the driveway of a suburban home and all the doors on the car close simultaneously.

0:02-0:04- The scene switches to the inside of the car. There are two young boys, possibly brothers, sitting next to each other in the second row of the family’s truck and fighting over a bag of chips. The visual goes into slow motion then switches over to an older girl in the third row of the car, who is assumed to be the older sister, listening to music through her headphones while banging on the seats with her two drumsticks and blowing a bubble with the gum in her mouth. She appears to be in her own world, not paying attention to the  fight her brothers are in just one row ahead of her.

0:05- Now, the father, who is also the driver, is being focused on. He appears to have an impatient look on his face as his children are in the background making a lot of noise and playing around.

0:06- 0:09- With the film still in slow motion, the scene first goes back to the daughter in the third row looking out the window with a fully blown bubble of gum coming out of her mouth. Next shows the two brothers again in the middle row still yelling at each other over the single back of chips. Then, to the mother in the passenger seat as she opens her mouth to scold her children. At these three seconds, you can hear the sounds in the background quickly growing more intense, indicating that this scene is leading up to the climax of the advertisement.

0:10-0:13-  The rearview mirror is now in focus and the father’s eye looking into the back seat. Here, the daughter is shown yet again. The big wad of gum that she blew into a perfect sized bubble bursts back onto her lips causing a dramatic popping sound. The big bag of chips that the brothers were fighting over rips apart and the contents of the bag go flying all around the car.

0:14-0:16- Back up to the driver’s seat, the father looks into the camera, gripping the steering wheel and takes a long, deep breath. He is patiently waiting for the kids to settle down.

0:17- The two boys in the middle row are now in each other’s faces over the ruined bag and the sister is suddenly taken out of her daydream with a surprised look on her face. They all freeze and together, quickly their attention goes to the front of the car. The two boys, with guilty faces.

0:18- In the passenger seat, the mother is turned around looking back with wide eyes and tight lips, she mouths the word “Now!”

0:19-0:22- Frightened, all three of the kids quickly stop what they’re doing and turn to grab their seat belts and fasten themselves in.

0:23- With the scene now back in regular motion, the focus goes back to the father who looks and smiles at his wife, a look of relief.

0:24-0:26- Now the camera is zoomed out and focusing on both parents, with a view of the kids in the back. The mother brushes a chip from the bursted bag off her shoulder and turns back to face front. The father’s smile turns into a sign of relief as he adjusts his hands onto the steering wheel. All the children in the back are now finally behaving, buckled in and ready for the ride.

0:27- The SUV is now pulling out of the driveway in which it was parked.

0:28-0:30- The family SUV is now driving off down the street as the words appear on the screen and a man’s voice reads, “Don’t give up until they buckle up”

Reflective- alaska

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.

I was never a good writer, so this class challenged me. I do think that making improvements on my writing helps to get a better idea on what the final assignment should look like. For example, rewriting my definition argument helped me explain what I wanted to say more and fix some grammar problems. In this class I learned how to fix my grammar problems and how to not use you all the time or at all. Also asking for feedback is a good way to go. In this class it helped me see that rewriting is a good thing to do so you can get the best of your writing out. I used this core value in my white paper to help improve the works for my research paper and arguments.

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.

In some writing either for school or work using outside sources are a good way to help with arguments. In my safer saws assignment, I used different sources to find claims in each one. I had to read plenty of articles to get what authors are trying to say and figure out the claims they have made that I thought was important. This wasn’t an easy task because the claims aren’t just in plain sight and you have to really look into what the author is saying. Making claims is hard because you have to figure out what the author is saying without them really saying it, so this core value helped me with the different sources I have used throughout my assignments. 

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.

Throughout my writing I figured out that I needed to keep in mind that I need have an audience and purpose in my texts. The contexts used in my writing needs to be used correctly and cited correctly too. This is shown in my white paper because I went back and worked on my arguments and tried to improve them by adding some key points that would bring in my audience and show the purpose of my work. Also, in my white paper I used sources to help explain my purpose of my work. Using sources can help improve your argument and show how much proof there is for one topic. 

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 believe my proposal +5 is a good example for me doing this core value because I gather sources and a little information. I used google scholar and Rowan’s library because it helped me locate sources that could really help me throughout writing a paper. Using these sites because I believe I will be needing them in the future and I think it is better that I learn how to use them now instead in the future when I need them right away. They also help because when siting my sources, I can just link the source and the article will be there for the reader and it will be free.

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.

It is very important to cite sources that is used in the work because otherwise it looks like plagiarism. In my white paper I wrote down all the sources I have used and gave the author the right citation they should have. Also, if you don’t use citations the reader wont know where you got the information from and might think it is fake. Sources are very useful for papers because some of them give facts that are real and show real numbers for what you are arguing about. In the future I will use sources to help me show my argument and I will cite them correctly according to my professors liking. 

Reflective- Flyerfan1974

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 this class I learned to really think in depth about a claim or concept. For example in my visual rhetoric assignment, each second of the video is analyzed and described in great detail. I didn’t just illustrate what was happening, but I tried to figure out what could of happened. For example, when there was a screen full of coal and ashes, I made predictions and explored what could have happened. I could only use what was in the background.

Another example of making examples would be when I was completing my annotated bibliography assignment. I would discover very strong points that made my research paper more complex. For example when writing the background on one source I discovered the connection between helmets and deaths between the years on 1955 and 1965.

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. 

When writing my research paper I had to put my ideas together from my definition, casual, and rebuttal arguments. When going though my research paper each idea followed each other like train cars following each other. Some ideas from my rebuttal actually fit in better with my definition argument. Vise versa for my causal argument and definition argument.

Another example would be stone money, I first wrote my stone money with a lot of information and it did not flow together nicely. After some feedback and a lot of thinking I was able to make it all come together nicely in my stone money rewrite. Each idea has to flow together and it worked out nicely with stone money. I also had the same experience on my safer saws assignment.

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.

In my safer saws  assignment I had to read 10 articles and write based on certain people point of views. I had to really think about it, what are these peoples interest? Who would benefit from this? Where do these people stand? In my writing I illustrate the writing of an inventor who’s life work has been completely stolen. I had to see myself in Steve Gass’s shoes and determine how I felt if as a college student my 3000 word research paper had been ripped off.

In my rebuttal argument, I needed to determine why the opposing party disagreed with me. I needed to determine their purpose, then address the causes that made them disagree with my work. I analyzed why the opposers felt this way.

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.

In my research paper I introduced a counterintuitive idea that people cannot wrap their heads around, making football safer by removing the helmets. It was very hard to explain this idea to people, but I was able to do it. In my definition argument I defined this idea, and when researching it I was helped by many brilliant sources. I found examples of my counterintuitive idea and discovered that is it a phenomenon studied by many researchers. I also found examples on studies that gave hard evidence when proving the idea. The study was recent, and gave actual numbers when describing their result. My whole thesis was hard to explain in words, but my sources and examples helped me paint a picture for the reader.

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. 

In every piece I wrote, I always clearly explained my information and cited it. I never use information that is not my own, plagiarism is stealing. These people who wrote these long articles online and in books must have spend a lot of time to make them so great, it is morally and ethically wrong to deprive them of their recognition. My research paper contained 10 sources and I always gave an indirect citation to my sources. Many of these papers really help me understand my thesis better, and help me prove it, I would never stab the authors in the back. I always though citation needed to be parentheses with the authors name, but I discovered that indirect citation makes the sentences flow so nicely.

Rebuttal Rewrite – theintern

“Every business lies about its ethics” there are many reasons reasons why companies do so. For example Enron was once a successful company but down the roads they suffered a horrible loss that later on became one of the biggest scandals of wall street history. Enron was at their peak of success but what really got them from a little of $20 to over $90 of stock share was their lack of ethics. Enron was a fast growing American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. Before this scandal was beginning the company was worth a decent amount of 13.3 billon dollars in 1996 but the ethic lies didn’t start until 1998 when Fastow was promoted. In 2000, the company skyrocketed to $100.8 billion dollars which is highly impossible for a company to be making in just around 4 years.

Enron was founded in 1985 but then in 2001 they were finally caught by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for knowingly manipulating accounting rules and masking the enormous losses and liabilities of the company. When a company does not establish rules of ethics that company like Enron will no more be in business. If Enron were to play by the rules their company would have still been in business and so would have Arthur Andersen. Enron lied about being ethical we could tell by the profits that Enron was making within a small span of time. Once the company Enron knew that they had made committed too much fraud they tried to cover it up with bringing Arthur Andersen, one of the big five accounting firms in the world. Enron convinced Arthur Andersen to money launder their money but since their profit margins were too high the SEC became very suspicious of this amount of money Enron was profiting. In the business world no one is forced into committing these crimes; Arthur Andersen had the choice to decline the offer from Enron to help them with money laundering but because they had no ethics they joined alliances with Enron. Once Enron fell apart they brought Arthur Andersen down too. Enron went bankrupt because of all the dues and imprisonment of the CEOs and Arthur Andersen was destroyed with the bad reputation that no company wanted them to do check their books.

Why the readers might ask is Enron so important, well it is important to know that businesses lie about ethics especially a well known company that was located on Wall Street and was one of a few companies that Forbes magazine could brag to the United States. Sure there are other companies that have committed an unrightfully act of ethics for instance we have Wells Fargo & company which is an American International banking and financial services holding company located around the whole United States. Recently about one year ago Wells Fargo had a big scandal for phony accounts. As a well trusted bank that many people thought had ethical employees was not true. CNN covered the story saying that 5,300 Wells Fargo employees fired over 2 million phony accounts. These employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts under many of their customers to meet their sales target and receive bonuses. Wells Fargo CEO Timothy Sloan knew that these phony accounts were being made but because of his business ethics he did not stop his employees. I understand that Wells Fargo needs to make profits and meet their margins but having an unethical way of making money its just heartbreaking that people don’t care about others and just themselves. Tim Sloan is the one to blame for all this commotion; he even got rich off of these 3.5 million phony accounts that would charge fees to clients for having another open but unknown account. Elizabeth Warren suggested he’d be fired but instead congress let him remain where he is but gave him a big fine of $185 million dollars along with $5 million refund to customers.

Corporations find ethics to be a drain on profits; but every corporation claims to promote strong business ethics. Many businesses have rules of Corporate Social Responsibility that states we must be committed employers, be an outstanding partner to customers, be an environmentally friendly player and service civil society. These are the four pillars every business must stand by but for the most part corporations have the rules to promote but will never follow through because profits don’t come as fluidity like being unethical. Businesses promote that they are truly ethical but how can we believe and trust big time companies when their fraud crime scandals were announced to the business world. Forbes releases a list of most ethical businesses every year which does help a customer if we want the best service without any surprise fees. Most companies that are usually more trustworthy are those that are small businesses because what they want is to make their customers satisfied with the little they have to offer. If we were to trust a company I’d say it would have to be a small one because all the big companies get away with almost anything just like Enron did for 12 years. My point proven, the bigger the companies are the the more unethical they become. Big companies have so many clients that if they lose one they still have others to attend and more so other companies will keep coming to make business relations with other big and superior companies.

If we take a look inside small businesses we tend to see exactly what they provide and have to offer unlike other big businesses that have many hidden fees and tactics. According to a journal by Heledd Jenkins she illustrated and discovered that given the significant scale of small business in nearly every economy, their aggregate achievements have a major effect worldwide. Researchers are now also recognizing the importance of business ethics and social responsibility as they apply to small firms. Take a look at Hasbro Inc, its a small manufacturing toy business that ensures great quality products for younger children and takes ethics very serious because they would rather be worried about the child’s safety than the gross income they are receiving and thats why Hasbro Inc is one of the companies to be selected in Forbes article “Most Ethical Companies 2017”

Works Cited

That’s exactly what happened to Wells Fargo customers nationwide. “5,300 Wells Fargo Employees Fired over 2 Million Phony Accounts.” CNNMoney, Cable News Network.

Kauflin, Jeff. “The World’s Most Ethical Companies 2017.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 14 Mar. 2017.

Ackman, Dan. “Enron The Incredible.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 06 June 2013.

Jenkins, Heledd. “Small Business Champions for Corporate Social Responsibility.“SpringerLink. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 02 Sept. 2006. Web. 03

 

Causal Rewrite – theintern

Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility for the win

People don’t realize but their so called “ethics” change once they get exposure to the business world. Morals ethics are different from business ethics. Moral ethics are the principles or habits taught by our parents/guardians to understand and state what is the right and wrong choice to make or do. While business ethics falls under different standards; it is mostly the rules of conduct that a company gives to their employees which usually affect their morals because sometimes we are unwilling to do the tasks of what the company we work for ask us to do. We ask ourselves why do we follow these unethical rules the reason is why we want to keep our jobs and keep supporting our families. The effects of telling the company we work for that we will not follow these unethical rules will end in either getting fired or told that there will be changes but most likely lose the job.

In the business world we won’t hear too much about business ethics, though another term we do hear is corporate social responsibility which is somewhat like ethics just a more narrowly concern about the company’s obligations. CSR plays an important role in every firm or company in the United States. CSR and business ethics go hand in hand if either of them are tampered with or in another terms, people change the rules and make it their own so their business would prosper. Word gets out when businesses do not perform well and lack in any of the four axes such as being a committed employer, build relationships with our customers, serve civil society, being an environmentally friendly player. I believe that the CSR is like an insurance for business ethics, CSR is there to provide people with guidance on how to act within the firm with everybody. However if CSR starts to lack no customer will seek guidance from that firm/company again because of how their service lacked. This effects the business tremendously for example if customers stop recommending others to come to our firm we can not make profit and worse run of out business. That is why having the right kind of ethics is important and should always be looked upon and checked every now and then.

According to a study made my Peter Arlow a journalist who wants to find out which group of people would be more likely to cheat and be negative orientated towards social responsibility. He made tests with the following information: first off he included the major whether they were business majors or non business majors, second he included the sex male or female, third their age either under the age of 24 or equal/over the age of 24. Arlow decided to conduct this test with surveys and then using t tests and correlations to figure out which group was more reliant to follow the rules. Overall the nonbusiness majors scored higher on all five ethical dimensions. Each ethical dimension were based on (Aldag and Jackson, 1977): (1) Traditional Orientation – sees efficient production as the key social responsibility and profit maximization as the corporate goal. (2) Negative Orientation Toward Alleged Social Responsibility – sees social responsibility as a gimmick and a cover for mismanagement. (3) Demander Orientation – calls for diversion of shareholder resources to society in general. (4) Constrainer Orientation – favors tightened control of government over business. (5) Negative Orientation Toward Adequacy of Corporate Social Efforts – sees current corporate social effort in a negative light and sees negative consequences of a lack of social effort. This data was determined under all five of these dimensions of social responsibility and then followed through to which was one would be the most adequate to choose from depending on the score. These were the measurements to access business ethics based on the work of Miesing and Preble (1985): (1) Machiavellianism – moral actions are justified to serve some purpose, (2) Objectivism – the focus is on rational self-interest and avoiding ethical judgements based on feelings, (3) Social Darwinism – accepts percepts of “survival of the fittest, and the strong are morally superior, (4) Ethical relativism – ethical judgements are based on social convention and that which is sanctioned by group norms at a given time and place, (5) Universalism – rules of behavior are absolutes, and apply equally to all places and times. Within the process there were two measurements to be measured it was the business ethics and social responsibility.

As for the results Arlow figured out that business students may not be as self centered, selfish and opportunistic as the stereotypical view of individuals. Within the business ethics of Meising and Preble the two were Machiavellianism and Darwinsim. Which meant that these business students are willing to do business but with a purpose however they would do anything to get to the top, survival of the fittest. When the business and nonbusiness students were compared using the social responsibility measure of Aldag and Jackson there was a significant difference found on the dimensions of Negative Orientation Toward Social Responsibility and the Demander Orientation. These results suggest that nonbusiness students are more negative toward current efforts at social responsibility, seeing it as a cover for mismanagement, and the lack of upholding and keeping any company they work well connected.

Sex wise the data showed that females were less likely to do commit fraud or do anything that would be considered as unethical. The results say that females would want to keep the company from falling and keep it balanced but the males seemed like they didn’t care if the company would collapse as long as they would make profit and have something to live from. That’s why females are considered more passionate and considerate other than males.

While the age group of higher than the age 24 were considered to show a greater negative orientation because of their lives being more ahead of the other people. Older people are considered the most target audience to commit any type of business crime because of them considered to have a family to take care of without a great income it would totally be impossible to maintain a family.

The people who were surveyed mostly students are determined to be influenced by peers from the exposure of the larger socio-cultural norms than by education in specific disciplines.

Work Cited

“Ethics vs Morals.” Ethics vs Morals – Difference and Comparison

“How Corporate Social Responsibility Pays Off.” Long Range Planning, Pergamon, 26 Feb. 1999.

Arlow, Peter. “Personal Characteristics in College Students’ Evaluations of Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility.” Journal of Business Ethics 10.1 (1991): 63. ProQuest.

 

Self Reflective- TheAdmiral

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.

Writing has never been a strong suite of mine, and this class was a bit difficult for me. I personally have never really been good at writing, or rewriting for that matter, but I  do think that I have made improvements over the duration of this course. I think where I    have made the most improvements is in my rewriting. If you look at my stone money first draft, and my stone money rewrite, some drastic grammar and context changes were made, all that I   learned in this class. I learned to use things like purposeful summary, which was input into the first paragraph of my Stone money rewrite. I  used this to help me explain the currency on the island, and the way the people of Yap used it.

https://rowancounterintuitive.com/2017/10/01/stone-money-rewrite-theadmiral/#comments 

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. 

Academic writing is more of a skill that is acquired, rather than an art form such as writing a poem, or writing a play. When you write academically, you need to gather different sources, and understand different views on the topic that you are writing on. This can also mean interpreting texts, like I  did in my safer saws assignment. In this assignment, I    had to get different articles, summarize the claims that were made, and understand the claims that each article was making, and put them all into categories. I also had to read more than one article to get claims that the author was trying to make, and explain the claim that they were trying to portray in their article. This may seem like an easy task, which does become easier with practice, but it was not the simplest of tasks. This course has helped me out with this skill because of exercises like this.

https://rowancounterintuitive.com/2017/10/17/safer-saws-the-admiral1/

 

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.

Rhetoric is a part of writing that is needed to get the image that is in your head, into the heads of the readers of your article, story, research paper, or whatever it is that you happen to be working on. Personally, I thought that I  progressed in this aspect of writing during the duration of the course by doing exercises like the visual rhetoric assignment. In this assignment, we had to watch a video of our choosing from the national ad counsel, and analyze it. While watching the video, we had to write down what exactly we were seeing second by second, and then put that into words and make the reader visualize what we were seeing without having them actually see the video. This might seem easy, but it was not by any means. There was a lot of detail required for this assignment, but in reality it helped out with my writing because I    can now understand how to get the image that I    have in my head, and put it on paper to make my reader understand what I    am imagining.

https://rowancounterintuitive.com/2017/10/08/visual-rhetoric-theadmiral/

 

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  think that my white paper or my proposal +5 was a good example of how I acquired this skill from this course, because I  had to gather different sources from a ton of different websites, such as google scholar, and the Rowan Campbell library. This skill is absolutely essential for my success as a student in my upcoming years, because we will always need to write papers. Whether it is research, or just to support an argument in a small paper, we need to have scholarly sources that will back up the information that we as writers are feeding to our audiences. We as authors have a moral obligation to give our readers facts, and those facts have to be backed up by research, and used correctly in our essays.

https://rowancounterintuitive.com/2017/10/15/proposal-5-2/

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. 

As a writer, it is only ethical to give credit where credit is due when using others information, opinions, or research that they have gathered on their own. If I  were to write an essay, use somebody else information that they gathered, and not give credit to the person that went through all of the trouble to gather all of those facts, opinions, or research, then it would not only be unethical, but you can also get in a lot of trouble academically. Ripping off other people’s work and claiming it as our own (not citing others or your own work you used in your essay)  is a violation of student policy, and could lead to  explosion from the university. I  learned through this course to cite every source that I  used in a paper, and the best way that I  could demonstrate the skill that I  learned was my annotated bibliography. In this, I   gathered all of the sources that I used in my research paper, wrote purposeful summary, and how I used it in my essay.

https://rowancounterintuitive.com/2017/11/28/annotated-bibliography-3/

 

Causal Rewrite – ChandlerBing

Frequent testing impedes on students’ ability to learn new information and apply it correctly in their lives. Furthermore, subjects mainly focused on high-stakes tests are math, reading and writing; leaving school districts to stray away from other important subjects such as social studies, the arts and foreign language. The education system stamps on the concept of seeing the world in anything, other than black and white. When dealing with the possibilities of areas in interests, our learning system blurs out artistic or social intelligences, and focuses on socializing through subjects heavily based of mathematics, literature and the sciences. Teachers and administrators are not to blame. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, mandates that schools measure and account for the performance of their students. Moreover, harsh sanctions are put in place for those school districts that do not meet the “adequate yearly progress,” or AYP; a numerical value that defines student performance. The law also mandates schools to administer standardized tests and report the results to the state. Students are deprived of humanity; in aspect, everyone is seen as a number. The system doesn’t care about how the students got the score, and the effort it took to get there. All that they look at is the number they stand for. The standardized test movement has corrupted the very nature of education and learning by forcing educators to focus on test-taking skills, such as strict memorization, rather than important concepts, the overall desire to want to learn and understand the subject. These assessments thwart educational growth because their questions are generalized; they instill fear of failure in students; and they hinder efforts by teachers to improve their pedagogical methods.

The original intent for high-stakes testing was to sort the massive inflow of students at the turn of the century. Slowly, they became a way to evaluate schools and their efficiency. States determine whether a school is fulfilling the responsibility of effective teaching or not by the results of generalized pen-and-paper tests in which all students are expected to complete, regardless of their learning capabilities. Standardized assessments are created from an outside source other than the school that is administering them. Many educators and experts work tirelessly to develop these assessments, but what they do not understand is that each student has their own method of learning. Test developers do not witness the learning process of an individual in a classroom. So how can they truly be aware of how each student learns? They cannot. Teachers interact with students every single day, and they know and understand what works best for their students.

Standardized means all students in the state must take the same assessment. The questions do not evaluate the skills of the students simply because the questions are vague. To effectively learn, the mind must be challenged. Basic skills questions do not appropriately measure a student’s learning. When developing these tests, an important factor is not considered; each student learns at a different pace. Every brain is different from the next, it absorbs information differently for everyone. Different students implement their own learning method that individually caters to them. All students in a classroom learn the same thing at the same pace. If one student falls behind, they must catch up because the rest of the class is moving on with the curriculum. This overwhelming environment and panic negatively impacts the learning community.

Another critique on standardized testing, emphasizes the belief that tests are by procedure for the sole purpose of holding schools and teachers accountable for their student’s performance. Teachers abandon their original curriculum to prepare for the high-stake test. The school environment is shifting their main focus on their employees, not the learning rate of their students. Spending more time on test related subjects, affects the time spent on other creative concentrations like social studies and the arts.

School districts must pay the company that manufactures the assessments. In a utopian reality, such money driven evaluations would not be considered. The primary goal should be to expose the minds of the youth to new ideas and provide deep explanations of the world around them.

Testing becomes the focus in a classroom. Teachers spend countless hours obsessing over the content of the tests; further distracting from other subject areas. Any student will admit, their teacher has told them for multiple choice questions, “there are four choices that all may seem to be the right answer, but only one is the true answer.” “Don’t be too creative. Don’t think too hard. Only give them what they want. Pace yourself.” These phrases are becoming too frequent and they hinder the creativity and critical thinking necessary for effective learning. Creative children are stumped when they see the generalized questions on the assessments. It teaches them that there is only one viable answer and there is no room for creativity. Standardized tests look at the final step rather than the learning journey itself.

A more effective way to measure student learning would be to measure their improvement through classroom assignments. The instructor can create projects to highlight creativity and free thinking. The stress of standardized testing falls upon the student as they fear they will not pass. Furthermore, no student should take a high-stakes test in an anxious state. The results of a test, where a student “blanks” because of test anxiety, do not reflect the student’s true performance; thus, creating a blurred snapshot of that students’ academic achievements.

These tests are administered to thousands of students. It is unlikely that every single student can be present on test day. Under these circumstances, it is counterintuitive to believe that a child can demonstrate their full capabilities of what they have learned. A student in South Carolina responded to standardized tests by saying, “All they care about is the test; they don’t care if we learn anything.” Learning success should be valued more than success on tests.

A handful of students do not show much concern for the tests and do not fully understand the consequences. Students fill out the bubbles on the exam sheet so that they form a picture, thus getting the answers marked incorrect. These students are then placed in a low-level class for the following years of their educational career. Apparently, results from a single exam are enough evidence to show the full capabilities of students, even when they lack care for the assessments.

Politics and money are much too involved in education today. By using high-stakes testing to hold teachers accountable for their students, and to reward and punish them based on test results, the politically-motivated system distracts educators from teaching creative subjects that students may be interested in. Students who excel, use past experiences to critically view the world surrounding them. Standardized testing interrupts that creativity. This current system must be abandoned before another student gets left behind by the “test-prep” teaching model mandated by No Child Left Behind.

Works Cited

10 Big Advantages and Disadvantages of Standardized Testing. Conncectusfund.org. Connect US Fund. Accessed 28 Nov. 2017.

Brooks, Martin. Brooks, Jacqueline. “The Courage to Be Constructivist.” The Constructivist Classroom. vol. 57, no. 3, 1999, pp. 18-24. Accessed 28 Nov. 2017.

Herman, Joan L., and Shari Golan. “Effects of Standardized Testing on Teachers and Learning–Another Look.” (1990)

Simmons, Nicola. “(De)grading the Standardized Test: Can Standardized Testing Evaluate Schools?”Education Canada. vol. 44, no. 3, 2004. Accessed 29 Nov. 2017. 

Self Reflective– Splash305

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.

Writing is a really complicated thing that I don’t think I will ever truly get the hang of. During the semester in this class I feel like I have gotten a better understanding of how writing is a multistage, progressive process. There isn’t just one draft to be made, do a little editing and it’s finished. To get it right there can be as much as rewriting an entire paper just to continue to enhance it. When writing a paper, it needs to be broken down into steps and those steps can be repeated as many times until it can’t be corrected anymore. But there is usually always room to find more corrections.  Having other people revise the work that has been done is another way to discover different aspects of writing that may not have stood out.

https://rowancounterintuitive.com/2017/09/23/purposeful-summaries-splash305/

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.

When I go about writing and I have to write about something I don’t have much knowledge on, it requires me to do some research. Once I have done the research I must then put myself in the position of the person I am writing about or the aspect of the topic. From using this style of writing it helps expand someone’s writing in more ways than one. Being able to put one’s self in the position of someone else or in some sort of topic shows the readers how enjoyable the writing can get, and how much easier it can be with a better understanding of the topic someone can have. Also by doing this it helps create and show that I have a better understanding of the topic and point I am trying to get across to my readers.

https://rowancounterintuitive.com/2017/10/08/visual-rewrite-splash305/

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.

My work shows that I understand the three concepts of purpose, audience, and contexts of my writings and others. The purpose of an argument is the reason behind something and the point that is planned on getting across. The audience is those who will be reading this argument but also the kind of audience that is wanted to be reading this argument. The context of writing is the circumstances or facts within writing that help support a specific topic of discussion. If using contexts from other texts I am always sure to provide correct citation and make sure it flows nicely within my work.  By incorporating visual arguments into pieces of writing is helpful to provide a better understanding to the reader of the topics and points being discussed within a paper.

https://rowancounterintuitive.com/2017/11/05/a08-white-paper-splash305/

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 have met the expectations of academic writing within my work with the proposal 5+. I have done this by finding different sources to use within my research essay. This exercise was made to help us be able to seek out proper sources and correctly incorporate them within our own work. The sources we were meant to find had to be through Google Scholar or the Rowan Campbell Library, for them to be more official of a source to use for our essay. When looking through these different sources we had to really search and read through each one to make sure it would be a good and correct addition to put into our essay. After we found these sources we had to figure out how to correctly incorporate them or to just use the knowledge within our writing.

https://rowancounterintuitive.com/2017/10/15/proposal-5-splash305/

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.

When writing anything during this semester I was always sure to incorporate the correct citation or give someone credit when using any of their work or ideas. This is done by always making sure if I use someone’s work I give them the credit in a proper citation. Or if I use their ideas I will use an indirect citation and also add a work cited page at the end of my essays or papers. By always being sure to do this it shows that I have respect and responsibility for all of those whose work I borrow or use within my paper. It also shows that I am aware of how to properly cite someone’s work and giving them an additional credit by adding a work cited page.

https://rowancounterintuitive.com/2017/11/12/casual-argument-splash305/