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/

 

Definition Rewrite – theintern

The business world is a battleground between good and evil, ethical and unethical, moral and immoral behavior. While some businesses have found it easy to increase profits by using unethical practices, many have lost everything by doing so and getting caught. Business ethics are not the same as the moral principles or habits that we learn from birth that help us determine what is right or wrong. They’re more practical and local; they’re rules of conduct recognized as appropriate to a particular class of human actions or a particular group or culture; they’re what “society thinks is right to do.” As such, they differ from company to company. Inside Enron, for example, what was determined “appropriate” was very different from moral behavior. For instance there is this natural gas company named Enron who were big and first founded in Houston, Texas in 1985. Enron was a great business and everything they did was perfectly fine and everyone were listening to their moral ethics. Once Enron promoted Andrew Fastov to CFO in 1998 every business aspect in the company changed. Since Enron was part of the stock market Andrew Fastow thought that Enron could be making more profit/revenue so he decided to “cook the books” which meant lie on the books about how much money Enron was making annually. He thought if he lied on the books Enron would increase value which also meant in shares in the stock market. This all came from what is known as business ethics; the stock market is a place where people buy stocks/shares of businesses in which case they are considered part ownership of any shares they bought from a particular company, they own only a small percentage of the business as well as gain a bit of income on the side. So Andrew Fastov drove Enron high in revenue and committed fraud to let more income come his way with the help of Arthur Andersen one of the big 5 accounting firms. Arthur Andersen was also another case that fell into the arms of unethical decisions and Enron helped take them down as well. Both of these companies worked to together so Enron would not be noticed by the S.E.C (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) and be in a lawsuit for falsely writing high profits on their books. At the same time Arthur Andersen was not following their morals which they knew this was a wrong decision and they should have declined but because of greed and money every decision was made without thinking. In reality Enron was in debt and losing money even though they were worth like a few billion. The only way that Enron was ever getting away with this scandal was paying auditors from Arthur Anderson to make Enron look better to the public; as a growing and upcoming business to consider working for. Arthur Anderson not only helped Enron with a better image to the business world but financially they wrongfully reported their books falsely to cover Enron of getting caught by the SEC. Eventually the SEC caught up with Enron an their unrightfully acts of stock shares increasing from $20 to $90.56 in just 3 years which is a valuation of $70 billion dollars. The SEC had to do an investigation on Enron and found out that they were committing one of the biggest frauds in the United States. Enron could easily have done fine without lying about their profits and asking for help to improve their company. Though they decided to take the risky route and achieve greater money in the least amount of time by committing fraud, disobeying the rules, and not sticking to their business ethics of following the rules to success without cheating. Cause of cheating Enron shut down in 2001 after being 16 years in service, and the CEO’s whose income were like millions of dollars each year, were fined a killer amount of money that each one of them went broke. Jeffery Skilling was one of the principal CEO’s who was sentenced to 24 years in prison but recently was reduced to only 14 years in prison. Sources say he will be released in 2017.

Not only did the SEC investigate Enron they also investigated Arthur Andersen because the auditors job is to find any fraud or errors in books. Once the SEC found dirt on Enron, Enron called the auditors. “The fired partner, David B. Duncan, called a meeting of auditors at the firm’s Houston office and ordered ”an expedited effort to destroy documents” on Oct. 23, the day after Enron disclosed that the S.E.C. had begun its inquiry, the firm said. The destruction apparently did not end until Mr. Duncan’s assistant sent an e-mail message to other secretaries on Nov. 9 that said ”stop the shredding,” the firm said. Andersen had received a subpoena from the S.E.C. the day before.” Now why couldn’t Andersen just give in to the SEC and surrender that they helped Enron instead of trying to shred all the evidence. Andersen could have been given a less painful punishment but since they messed up they paid the consequences. Andersen was one of the big 5 auditing firms in the world next to Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst and Young, and KPMG. Now 2017 Andersen is no longer in existence because after this great big scandal no other companies wanted to associate with a firm who were disloyal.

People say that business ethics and moral ethics are the same but they aren’t. Moral ethics are what you learn from your parents. While business ethics is more of a one way streak there we must follow it one way however the rules are of that certain company. There is no other way to follow it because of how your parents taught you differently that does not fall into place within the business world. If an employee does not want to follow the firm’s rules the outcome is usually to be fired. That is when employees start realizing how the world really works and whatever moral ethics they had are gone because of the business world.

Works Cited

Investopedia. “Enron Scandal: The Fall of a Wall Street Darling.” Investopedia, 23 Oct. 2017.

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

Berenson, Alex. “S.E.C. Opens Investigation Into Enron.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 31 Oct. 2001.

Tribune, Chicago. “Ties to Enron Blinded Andersen.” Chicagotribune.com, 12 July 2008.

4. Self Reflective – Yoshi

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.

Core Value One is the understanding that writing is a multi-stage, recursive, and social process. Writing is a multi-stage process because it involves prewriting, drafting, revisions, editing, and submitting. I demonstrated Core value one by doing multiple drafts. My first draft of Stone Money wasn’t the best, but with revisions I improved it and received a better grade. The social process of writing involved my professor reading over my essay, and talking to me about revisions I can make; to enhance my essay. For my Stone Money essay, my professor read over my essay and gave me constructive feedback. With his feedback, I rewrote my essay and improved it. Rewriting my essay multiple times and having my professor revise it, demonstrates how I understand Core Value

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.

Core Value II is about being able to understand, your own and other’s, work. Writing creates shapes, and conveys meaning, that goes beyond what the text says. In my visual rhetoric I demonstrated Core Value II. In the visual rhetoric we were told not to listen to the video, and write what happens in each time frame. By doing this and analyzing what happened in each of the time frames, I was able to understand what was happening in the video. I learned that texts are not just limited to words, but instead something can be understood by just visuals. Also by analyzing each time frame, I was able to see that different settings and communities can make the text have a different meaning than the writer intended.

 

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.

Core Value III is understanding that writing is formed by audience, purpose, and context. I demonstrated core value III in my first draft of stone money. In this draft I added cows and chips, which means I fixed my writing so it wasn’t so dry and boring. When revising this draft, I kept in mind my audience, but more specifically, what I can do to keep my audience more interested. So I changed the purpose of my essay to inform my audience about what money means to other people around the world. This way it was easier to relate it to my audience, and keep them more intrigued. I demonstrated core value III by adding cows and chips into my stone money assignment, and making it more interesting and relatable to my audience.

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.

Core Value IV is about using different source in order to backup certain information. Throughout the course I have use different sources to prove my facts. One assignment I demonstrated this core value in is my casual argument. In my causal argument I had to write about the cause and effects of police brutality, and use sources to backup my claims. I paraphrased these sources into my writing and had to cite them at the end of my paper. In order for my paper to make sense, and not sound made up, I had to locate the right sources and use information from them to support my opinion. By having a works cited at the end of my essay, and using information from certain websites shows how I have incorporated, and used core value IV into my writing.

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.

Core Value V is all about being moral and respecting the work of other people. In my research paper, I had to prove that police brutality happens more often to black people than it does to white people. In order to achieve this, I had to make my argument strong and have an opinion that went against mine. I respectfully disagreed with the writer’s opinion, and explained why by backing up my opinions with facts. Also, I added a works cited page to respectfully give credit to the articles of other’s that helped me form my opinion. I demonstrated core value V by being able to refute someone else’s opinion with respect, and by including a works cited page in order to give credit to the other people that helped me form my claim.

5a. Rebuttal Rewrite – Yoshi

P1. Overall, white people are killed more often than black people because, in America, there are nearly one hundred and sixty billion more white people than black people. But when the population is proportionalized black people are twice as likely to get killed in police shootings as white people. The killings, according to data, are not a racism problem. The problem here is that America has a violence and gun problem causing many police to walk around in fear.

P2. Cops walk around fearing for their lives everyday on the job, they never know how many people that they encounter are carrying guns. In 2014, U.S. residents committed more than 14,000 murders along with about 1.15 million other violent crimes. 68% of the homicides were caused by firearms. This is not surprising considering there are 300 million guns owned by residents of the United States. This raises the concern that police should often fear their own lives. Police are usually in a crime ridden areas trying to diminish the crime rate. Over the years of documenting where these police have patrolled correlate with the same areas that some black people reside in. It is unfortunate that communities and crime are now going hand in hand with creating a targeted locational problem.  This stirs up the issue that black people are targeted and killed more often than other races just by being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

P3. My worthy but mistaken opponent believes that, police officers kill more black people because they come in contact with them more often. Traffic stops are very random, for the most part officers pull you over for doing something wrong. The officer can not profile the victim, because they do not see the victim until the officer has walked up to the car.  In Cincinnati, Officer Tensing pulled over a 43 year old black man, Samuel DuBose, for not having a front license plate. DuBose began to drive away from the officer, and three officers pursued on foot. After running for a block or two officer Tensing shot DuBose in the head, killing him instantly. In court, Officer Tensing claimed, “I meant to stop the threat, I didn’t shoot to kill him. I didn’t shoot to wound him. I shot to stop his actions.” There was not threat in this situation, police officers exaggerate the word threat and use it in defense for their actions. Officer Tensing had many other decisions to make while in pursuit. He could have shot the tire, this way the car would stop moving. Officer Tensing could have called for back-up this way a police officer could chase DuBose in a car. There were many other options to avoid killing a citizen, there were many other options in order to avoid killing a father, but instead the officer decided to shot DuBose in the head and taking his life away. 

P4. My faulty opponent would claim that black people are more likely than white people to flee from police, resist arrest, and attack police and that is why they get brutalized more often. Black people tend to flee in fear for their lives. Police do not approach black people calmly, they often approach them in a hostile manner. Police are trained to be racist, and they are trained to fear black people. Josh Correll, a psychology professor from the University of Colorado, ran test with a video game. His findings showed police officers avoid shooting unarmed targets of all races, but as soon as the conductor of the experiment told the officers to shoot anyone deemed suspicious, the officers would shoot more quickly against blacks suspects over white ones. This shows that officers do display some racial bias in shooting suspects. His research found that the police are less likely to view black people as “innocent.” In another study of Cornell’s, police officers were challenged to make fast impulse shooting decisions with speed and accuracy. The data from this experiment showed a racial bias in the speed of their shooting. The police shot more black targets than white targets, and the police shot so fast that it was deemed an impulse, which demonstrates how police develop a bias in their training.

P5. America has had a problem with racism for centuries now. Everyday black people have to overcome their racial-based discrepancy in schooling, employment, economic status, etc.. Black people are more likely than white people to be unemployed, less likely to finish high school, and more likely to live in poverty or go to jail. A study done by a sociology major, shows that employers are less likely to hire someone with “Black sounding names” than someone with a “white sounding name” even when their applications were identical. Similarly enough, only a racial bias can explain why a white man with felony charges is more likely to get an interview than a black man with the same qualifications and a clean record. Even black children get treated unfairly compared to white kids. Tamir Rice for example a little boy that was playing with a gun, at the park that had an orange tag on it. The orange tags indicates that the gun is a toy gun. The officer shows up to the park and within two seconds the officer shoots Tamir Rice, leaving him dead at the park. In the same instance two boys from Ohio were playing on the street with BB guns. The police was called but this time they did not see an orange tag on the boys gun. The officers did not draw their weapons on the two boys. Instead, the officers approached the boys and arrested them. The same incidents in both situations, but the single black boy with a specified toy gun was killed in two seconds; while the two white boys were calmly approached and arrested.

P6. Black people are seen as a threat in not only police related situations, but also in communities. 27% of all black people live in impoverished communities compared to the 11% of Americans according to Black Demographic studies. 1 out of 3 impoverished area is crime ridden. Black people get shot more because police are usual in crime ridden areas; so there are more encounters with black people over white people; but the reason they do get shot is because of the racial bias police have implemented throughout their training and work life not because they are doing something wrong. Research shows that police officers gain a cognitive bias based on their instinct. Police are more inclined to shoot at black males over white males even if the reasoning is the exact same.

Works Cited

Brooks, Rosa. “America’s Police Problem Isn’t Just About Police.” Foreign Policy, Foreign Policy, 5 Jan. 2016.

Juzwiak R, Chan A. Unarmed people of color killed by police, 1999-2014. Gawker. 2014. Available at: http://gawker.com/unarmed-people-of-color-killed-by-police-1999-2014-1666672349. Accessed March 30, 2015.

Adams, Kenneth, Geoffrey P. Alpert, Roger G. Dunham, Lawrence A. Greenfeld-Garner, Mark A. Henriquez, and Patrick A. Langan. 1999. Use of Force By Police: Overview of National and Local Data Series [Research report]. Washington, DC: U.S. National Institute of Justice. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1745-9133.12269/full

Klinger DA. On the Problems and Promise of Research on Lethal Police Violence: A Research Note. Homicide Studies. 2012;16(1):78. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1088767911430861

Black, D. (1976). The behavior of Law. New York: Academic Press. Google Scholar. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0734016805275675

Press, Associated. “Samuel DuBose Shooting: Second Mistrial Declared in Officer’s Murder Trial.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 23 June 2017, http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/23/samuel-dubose-shooting-ray-tensing-trial-mistrial.

Reflective – theintern

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 place to explore, discover, conceptualize, and develop. It involves an multistage (evolution), and recursive (repeating). Writing does not come so easy to everyone and if someone says that they are great, I say nobody is great because they must practice and keep practicing to be great at something, it requires repetition and peer review to understand what you did wrong. Once you know your flaws and correct them you still will never be great because you never stop learning, and you will always be stuck practicing to be better than before. This semester I haven’t taken feedback to hear as much and try to improve as I did last semester. My work has demonstrated a few flaws here and there but it also have proven what it is worth. For example my stone money assignment wasn’t the best but with some advice the stone money rewrite was one of my great improvements of revising and improving.

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. 

How I demonstrate this work is by picturing myself in which ever topic that I am writing about and try to put my perspective on this topic but at the same time implement texts from different sources that I gather information from. For example in class we got this visual rhetoric assignment and as a class we went through a 30 second video trying to understand what is happening in the video with no audio and at the same time have detailed descriptions what we think is happening within the first 0 secs Prof Hodges helped me identify more details within the video for my rewrite. The video assignment was to watch every few seconds of it with no sound and then make assumptions of what the people are saying, feeling, or doing and then create a scene in the scene they are in.

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.

Understanding audience, purpose, and context is a multiple step process. The audience represents the people you are displaying your information to. The audience are the critiques of your paper, movie or review. The purpose is about why you are writing what you are writing, what is the point of your essay, movie or article. The final step is the context which is the outside detail you mix into your writing and cite it. For me to adjust my writing I must know the audience I am presenting to like what age group they are in. For example the assignment that best fits this core value is my white paper this was where I analyzed the purpose of essay especially have two working hypothesis.

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 through writing my proposal5+. The proposal 5+ was an assignment preparing ourselves for a big research essay. We were asked in class to be prepared for a big research essay and to have at least 5 sources with description of what the source is about and what does it prove or will prove. I learned a lot from the proposal because it helped me brainstorm and understand what the articles are about and try to piece them together to form a well written essay. Through writing this proposal5 I have interpreted my own ideas and have connected it to the supported statements within each source especially the biggest 5 corporate scandals helped me see more drama that I did not know. Incorporating these illustrations have really helped me arrange my ideas and not overthink to much and overwhelm myself.

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. 

My work is my own work and I respect my ethical responsibility to represent complex ideas fairly. Before ever submitting a completed essay or research paper it must have a work cited because I know that it is not fair to steal ideas from other writers who put their time in writing terrific sources and then to not get credited. I believe in appropriate citation but at times it gets difficult citing sources where some of the following information is missing. Easy bib has helped me with any kind of format I wanted and/or needed. Before writing anything I respected the rules of academic honesty by citing any source I used or quote from any article. I can making the annotated bibliography has helped me write the 1000 words for each argument especially finding statistical data by Peter Arlow who writes about students and adults who are more likely to be unethical.

Causal Argument – ChandlerBing

Frequent testing impedes on students’ ability to learn new information and apply it correctly in their lives. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, rules that schools are accountable for performance of the students. Moreover, harsh sanctions are put in place for those school districts that do not meet the “adequate yearly progress,” or AYP. The act also requires schools to administer standardized tests and report the results to the state. Subjects such as math, reading and writing are commonly found on these assessments, causing school districts to stray away from other important subjects i.e. social studies, foreign language and the arts. The standardized test movement has changed the very nature of education and learning by forcing educators to focus on test-taking skills rather than important concepts. These assessments do not further contribute to educational growth because they questions are generalized, they instill fear of failure in students, and they do not allow for teachers to update 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 can determine whether a school is fulfilling the responsibility of effective teaching or not by the results of the tests. It makes sense for there to be a way to evaluate if a school is up to state standard, but there needs to be a surefire way to measure student improvement. 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. Developers of standardized tests are not in the classroom with these students daily. So how can they cater to these individuals? They cannot. Teachers interact with students every single day, and they know and understand what works best for their students.

Since the tests are standardized, all students in the state must take the same assessment. This leads the questions to be general in nature. The questions do not evaluate the skills of the students simply because the questions are vague. When developing these tests, an important factor is not considered; each student learns at a different pace. For English language learners, it becomes difficult to take these tests that are in English. Another critique on standardized testing, emphasizes the belief that tests are procured 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. This causes teachers to become test-taking instructors instead of meaningful mentors. Test-writers have even admitted that they write questions they know students are unable to answer. This is to create a wide score spread, which makes the test more desirable for a school to purchase and administer. With this mentality, the test scores do not accurately reflect the main curriculum. The main goal should be to expose the minds of the youth to new ideas and provide deep explanations of the world around them. If making money from a test is the goal, it must not even be considered; although it is considered.

Testing becomes the focus in a classroom. Teachers spend countless hours obsessing over the content of the tests. 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 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. 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. No one should take a high-stakes test in an anxious state. These tests are administered to thousands of students. It is unlikely that every single student can be present on test day. There are actual instructions on what to do if a student throws up on a test. 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.

High-stakes testing is not causing students to excel in their learning. Standardized tests hold schools and teachers accountable for their students. Rewards and punishments are given based on test results. Politics and money are too much involved in education. Students need to be taught in a way where they want to engage in school activities. When they show interest in a subject, students will excel. Weeks of test preparation distract teachers from teaching other non-tested subjects. Learning is a complicated process where the person uses their past experiences to make inferences of the world surrounding them. Standardized testing lacks creativity; a new way must be implemented to promote critical thinking in today’s students.

 

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.

 

Bibliography – theintern

1.  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.

Background: This article discusses the millions of phony accounts that Wells Fargo employees made. Each employee at Wells Fargo are required to meet a certain amount of new accounts being opened. So each of them took customer’s information and opened up multiple accounts under the customer’s name without telling them. Wells Fargo soon found out what the employees were secretly doing and fired around 5,300 people. These employees showed their true unethical behavior.

How I used it: How I used this article in my essay was to make sure the audience knows that working for a company and trying to meet certain standards changes a human being and their ethics. These employees had to choose the route of unethical behavior to meet their margin in order to keep their jobs.

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

Background: This article contains a list of companies who have been the most ethical companies of 2017. Now the companies that aren’t on this list are not most ethical probably because of something that may have happened in the past or is happening now.

How I used it: How I used this article was to demonstrate how smaller companies are more ethical than bigger companies because of the less customers they have to satisfy and the less employees that must be paid. While bigger companies tell us that they are ethical but in reality they mostly aren’t.

3. “The Rise and Fall of Enron.” Journal of Accountancy, 1 Apr. 2002,

Background: This article summarizes the rise and fall of Enron, a once so successful energy company that rose to the top so quickly in just a couple of months. Enron was a great company but the CEOs were very greedy with the profits that they wanted to have more. So as Enron kept on rising they skyrocketed at one point because of the fraud the CEOs decided to commit, they lied on their books.

How I used it: How I used this article was to explain another situation of how big companies always have unethical problems that they want to keep hidden. Enron was a great example to explain because it really changed everyone working for that company the minute you walked in.

4. Tribune, Chicago. “Ties to Enron Blinded Andersen.” Chicagotribune.com, 12 July 2008.

Background: This article summarizes the effect Enron had on Andersen; Andersen was one of the big five accounting firms until Enron became one of their customers. Enron asked Andersen to lie on the books about how their company were making profits but in reality they were losing. Soon when the SEC found out that Enron committed fraud it also came into ties with Andersen and how they didn’t announce what Enron was doing.

How I used it: How I used this article was to explain how easy it is for one big company to influence other companies. I made an example from Enron and how the company encouraged Andersen to behave unethically with having money thrown at them. Greed, money, moral ethics and business ethics all come into play its the survival of the strongest and who is willing to disobey the rules.

5. Investopedia. “5 Most Publicized Ethics Violations By CEOs.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 5 Feb. 2013.

Background: This article contains a list of CEOs who publicized ethic violations. For each CEO named there is a summary of what harm they caused to their company. The CEOs are come Enron, Yahoo, Tyco, Worldcom, and Hollinger International.

How I used it: How I used this article’s information was to elaborate and have more evidence about Enron and how the unethical behavior wasn’t the fault of the employees. The person who usually enforces ethic behavior rules must stand by them but not Kenneth Lay the CEO of Enron who personally wasn’t ethical which means the whole company had not been either. “CEOs have always been expected by shareholders and investors to maintain high ethical standards. Although it doesn’t always happen, today’s regulatory environment makes it easier to identify transgressions and bring violators to justice.”

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

Background: This journal discussed how the age, years of experience, and sex goes hand in hand to determine whether someone will commit unethical behaviors. Arlow took many surveys with older people, college students, males/females to measure the correlation between who is more likely to be unethical when in a difficult situation. In the end he figured out that students’ ethical attitudes are influenced more by exposure to the larger socio-cultural norms.

How I used it: How I used this journal was by evaluating the age of employees who worked specifically at Enron. I noticed that older employees were more likely to be unethical in order to keep their jobs because they are families to take care of rather than younger people.

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

Background: This article is similar to some other ones but has a bit more information of how Enron made their profits in just a short span of time. This article compares the amounts of hours between other companies in the 2000s and Enron and the ratio of hours to revenue don’t quite just add up.

How I used it: How I used this article was to explain the certain years Enron started to skyrocket in profits and how before hand they were following the rules. I made sure to explain how that Enron’s numbers couldn’t have been so high in revenue within 3 years and with a small amount of employees it is figuratively impossible.

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

Background: This database explains what CSR is a how it pays off to have enforced in a company. CSR was announced in the mid 70s but was never really looked upon because every business company were doing fine without it.

How I used it: How I used this database was to discuss how Enron had corporate values and responsibilities but they never really enforced it like they should have.

9. Tribune, Chicago. “The Fall of Andersen.” Chicagotribune.com, 12 July 2008.

Background: This article focuses on the fall of Andersen a big time accounting firm that was part of the big five. Well once known as the big five now it’s just the big four. Andersen had great clients but because of one mistake they fell and lost all of their clients because none of them wanted to be bothered getting investigated after what happened to Enron. Enron brought Andersen down because they asked and paid much money to Andersen to help them cover and falsely write on their books.

How I used it: How I used this information was by explaining the methods of how Andersen dealt with Enron. I intend to expose Andersen and how they could’ve used common sense and not get mixed up in this mess. Andersen could of followed their normal ethics by doing the right thing of just letting Enron go and slip away from their fingers or could have told the SEC what they were doing.

10. Berenson, Alex. “S.E.C. Opens Investigation Into Enron.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 31 Oct. 2001.

Background: This article discusses about the SEC and what they are capable of doing. S.E.C. stands for Securities and Exchange Commissions which stand for what is right and what is wrong. The SEC follow the corporate rules just as moral ethics. In Enron’s case, the SEC were not keeping a close eye on Enron until word was busy through Wall Street about Enron skyrocketing in the stock market as well as Forbes magazines as being the best place to work. That is where the SEC just opened an Investigation on Enron and wanted to know how they were making so much revenue in small span of time, Enron tried to tell them their profits were real but once the SEC got a hold of Andersen and the books; Enron as everyone knew was ruined.

How I used it: How I used this article was to explain how the SEC works and what they are allowed to do through an open investigation. I also plan to say that companies that say they are ethical like Enron are never truly ethical. Since the Enron incident I intend to say that the SEC has been more strict upon businesses and because of Enron there is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

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

Background: This article describes the differences between business ethics and morals. It explains the definition, where do they come from, why, origins and etc. Knowing the differences helps identify what each company follows by.

How I used it: How I used this article was by understanding the concept of the two and make sure to keep reminding myself the difference. I intend to implement them into my writing and talk about different companies and how they have gone through unethical phases and how that hasn’t done any justice for them. While those who have been ethical like on that list are active, I also plan to write about how sticking with our morals from birth will help us become successful. If we intend to do the opposite of what we were taught because of business standards then we shall know what happens to those who fall in that trap. Being unethical ruins environments and causes more strict rules that other businesses do not deserve to get penalized.

12. Investopedia. “Enron Scandal: The Fall of a Wall Street Darling.” Investopedia, 23 Oct. 2017.

Background: This article elaborates more about what happened in each year. Enron started back in 1985 and was rising slowly up without and frauds or lies. Though it says once management changed within Enron everything changed and profits were skyrocketing but the SEC got suspicious that within 3 years Enron went bankrupt and was the fall of wall street.

How I used it: How I used this article was by elaborating the skyrocket of Enron and the cause of downfall. Within the article there is a timeline where it states that in 1998 Andrew Fastow was promoted to CFO. I used this information to connect the pieces of when the business was going to fail because when Fastow became the new CFO he hid there debts by falsely cooking the books with Andersen and since Enron was in the stock market they wanted their shares to keep rising so they “increased” revenue to have people buy more shares and increase profits that would then be put in the CFO, and CEOs wallets.

13. PBS. Public Broadcasting Service,Web. 02.

Background: This article is a timeline of all the years of Enron and what happen in almost every month of each year. The timeline gives detailed information about the stock market, the revenue of the business, the CEOs who fined and charged for the fraud offense.

How I used it: How I used this article was by backing up any sort of explanation with each time year and what happen to Enron and the amount of stock it went up or when they changed CEOs or even the time they wanted Arthur Andersen to be their auditing team to help them increase their profits.

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

Background: This journal contains information and statistical data from the UK proclaiming that small to medium businesses perform best and follow the ethics they have as rules

How I used it: How I used this journal was by confirming about how business have less of a lack of ethics like big businesses do. I will use think link for my rebuttal and say give examples that can go along with this journal I got off of google scholar.