PA#11
Post the paragraph by Thursday at 5 PM as a comment to this blog entry.
Write the introductory paragraph(s) for your research project. Note that
1. The intro could be more than one paragraph if you decide to separate your hook from the more substantive elements of the introduction.
2. A good introduction includes (a) a hook to capture the reader's attention, (b) a bridge to the thesis, (c) the thesis, and perhaps (d) a statement of the pattern of organization but only if you can do so without referring to the writing process or the essay directly. (No "this essay argues" or "I will discuss," please. Instead, think in terms of your argument. For example, "Global warming is causing the destruction of the Antarctic ice shelf in three ways: x, y, and z.")
3. Note that in PA#10, I asked you to write a BODY paragraph. If you wrote your introduction instead, not is the place to write a body paragraph.
Having a child should be an exciting and blissful experience. Parents have hopes that their child will be happy and a become successful adult. For the mothers that took the “miracle” drug, thalidomide, their experience turned into a nightmare. Thousands of babies were born severely deformed due to the side effects of the drug that was given to alleviate morning sickness. The hopes these parents had for their children were shattered. Although states provided specialized facilities and assistance for the affected families, it did not lessen the impact of stigmatization and personal anguish the families would have to endure. The amount of care these thalidomide babies would have required was substantial and would undoubtedly have taken a toll in the psychological state of mind of the parents.The bleak outlook that these families faced led many to advocate for abortion. Unfortunately, due to the laws at the time, this option was illegal in most of the affected states. In many cases, abortion was allowed under special circumstances that would often involve the mother’s life being in jeopardy. However, I posit that the damage to the mother’s mental health would have jeopardized her life in a different context. The states allowed the distribution of the thalidomide, doctors continued to prescribe the drug, anyone would have confidence in the judgement of these authorities, yet the families, who were not at fault, were forced to bare the life long burden of having a baby suffering from thalidomide syndrome. The state’s should not have denied these families the decision to abort. The states did not fully understand what a life of caring for an afflicted child would have entailed.
ReplyDeleteImagine a world where every human being has a place predetermined by the make-up of their DNA. Those with DNA less prone to disease and coded for athleticism and intelligence hold the highest positions of power, while those with less favorable genetic make-up are relegated to menial jobs and have no chance for advancement in society. Sounds like a science fiction movie, right? However this scenario isn’t as far off as you might think. Right now scientists are hard at work to develop methods of reconfiguring DNA to benefit people by getting rid of certain genes that cause some diseases and allowing infertile mothers to conceive. While sounding good and all this technology could be used to enhance humans, most likely to the benefit of the richer minority of the population. With regards to this topic of controversy my stance is that while human engineering might have the potential to be beneficial, the genetic manipulation of humans opens too many door ways for this technology being misused or otherwise unfairly exploited to the benefit of a small majority of people.
ReplyDeleteIf you had the technology to create a perfect society would you do it? This technology may be accessible in the next century. Direct manipulation of DNA by humans outside of the breeding process, or more commonly known as genetic engineering, has existed since the 1970s. And since the birth of the first mammal cloned from an adult cell was born in 1997 (Dolly the sheep), further research is being pursued by scientists around the world. These scientists are working to apply genetic engineering to humans, but the first steps to learning more about genetic engineering involved cloning. A clone shares genetic information with the donor meaning that the donor and clone are basically identical. Genetic engineering differs from cloning because the desired outcome of genetic engineering is to add a new trait or traits to an organism instead of making a replica of the donor. Thus, only a few traits are extracted from the donor and applied to embryo that is being engineered. However, with this great technology great unpredicted consequences can arise, such as a large divide between affluent and non- affluent citizens, a battle with Mother Nature and unpredicted health consequences.
ReplyDeleteJon Griggs
ReplyDeleteIntro WA 5 paper
Picture being a young man with one shot and one shot only to prove yourself on the big stage and make your dream a reality. All the work you put in before is now just an afterthought. Your friends and family are depending on you to succeed. You have one chance to show your boss that you can get the job done under pressure. Young men are faced with this scenario all the time in life when they graduate from college and try to make it into the workplace. Young baseball prospects are no different. They have spring training to show coaches and organizations what they can do on the field in hopes of making a big league roster.
Steve Bechler, a young pitching prospect for the Baltimore Orioles, was a soon to be father and needed to perform well in order to make the Orioles roster for the upcoming season (Jarret Murphy, “Ephedra tied to pitcher’s death”). Since Bechler was drafted straight out of high school by the Orioles, it was a miracle that he even got the opportunity in the first place. According to baseballweb.com, the probability of being selected in the MLB draft straight out high school is less than 0.5%. It is naïve to suggest that Bechler was not feeling any pressure going into spring training. Bechler was “fighting losing battle” to make a spot on the regular season roster and he failed to complete conditioning (Murphy). Bechler knew he had to do something drastic to improve his performance, so he took ephedra, a dangerous dietary supplement used for weight-loss (Ephedra is on the list of banned substances by the MLB). The next day, Bechler collapsed on the field and died due to heat exhaustion (Murphy). Cornoner Dr. Joshua Perper who examined Bechler, said that Ephedra was deserves part of the blame for Bechler’s death. This death of a young promising baseball prospect that perhaps could have been avoided adds to the negative view that doping is having in the sport known as America’s past time. Players are continually using these dangerous banned substances to gain an unfair advantage of other players. While their performance on the field may improve, they are painting themselves as bad role models for our nation’s youth and are gradually losing respect of the sport’s most loyal fans.
Imagine waking up one morning and knowing that you would never see your house again. This was just the case for the people who lived in the surrounding area of the Soviet Union nuclear plant. Almost 36 hours after radioactivity material was dispersed into the atmosphere, people in the surrounding areas were evacuated from their homes (Chernobyl). Well people were already suffering from acute radiation sickness, people left their homes never knowing if they would see them again. This horrific event occurred on April 26,1986 when one of Chernobyl's RMBK reactors failed (Chernobyl). Thus sending radioactivity material in the air for people to inhale.
ReplyDeleteGlancing from the board to his opponent, the boy slowly pulls a smile as he acknowledges his opponent’s inevitable loss, he said decisively, “Checkmate.” The victory of this chess game consisted of complex plans meticulously laid out more than three steps ahead. Constructive board games allow for players to really think and work muscles they do not usually use because they contain “rules and challenges that may transfer to other parts of life” (Price-Mitchell, “Effects of Video Games”). A study shows teenagers who play video games to have better engagement with family and surroundings than those who do not play (Price-Mitchell, “Effects of Video Games”), but what are the odds when there are not enough authorities to control the entire population of gamers? Frankly, it could be analyzed and argued that video gaming rather leads to aggressive behaviors and decrease in prosocial actions, rather than being constructive like what many believe. This could be supported by actual news reports from Fox News and other psychological studies conducted especially for, or related to this problematic case.
ReplyDeleteIn 1998, the FBI showed a nine-year-old Amy (last name omitted for privacy) a less explicit version of the pornographic images that her uncle had taken of her. Upon seeing these images, Amy denied the claim that her uncle had abused her, insisting that he had called her “special” and bought her treats like beef jerky. After months of therapy, Amy began to open up about the abuse. She remembered her uncle trying to have sex with her, and she remembered chatting with men on the internet at her uncle's orders. Her uncle pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison for 12 and a half years. On the other hand, Amy was diagnosed with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
ReplyDeleteIn 2004, the Congress passed a law that stated that it was compulsory for crime victims to receive notifications whenever a suspect is arrested or has a court appearance. When she was 17, Amy received her first crime-victim notice from the Justice Department. That was when she learned that her uncle had distributed pictures of her to other men via the internet. According to the Violence Against Women Act, victims of sex crimes had “the right to restitution,” which means that those who pleaded guilty had the option to compensate for the losses incurred by sexual abuse victims in monetary form. The provision for restitution, however, hadn't been invoked in the case of possession of child pornography. As a result, victims like Amy had to somehow prove that the mental distress that she endured was not just the fault of her uncle, who was responsible for sexually abusing her, but also the fault of any man who downloaded pornographic images of her (Emily Bazelon, “The Price of a Stolen Childhood”). However, if the availability of child pornography and its distribution weren't so easily aided by the internet, victims wouldn't have to live with the trauma of knowing that numerous pictures and clips of themselves exist online for millions to view.
David Herbawi
ReplyDeleteThe reactor meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was the worst nuclear accident in history. The disaster had an impact on the environment not seen before in terms scale and lethal toxicity. The forest near the power plant withered and died while radionuclides released from the explosion spread across an area over 200,000 square kilometers. The contamination effected all aspects of the environment, from the air, water, soil, flora and fauna. Hundreds of thousands of workers took part in the cleanup, but the majority of the decontamination was done by the environment itself. Much of the radiation released from the reactor still has a palpable presence, however, and the remaining wildlife in Chernobyl and areas beyond have had to adapt to it.
ReplyDeleteIn the United States, there are about 300,000 sports-related concussions per year. High school football players account for 43,000 to 67,000 of them per year. Football is not a sport that should be relinquished, but a sport that should be looked at carefully due to the excruciating head injuries. A concussion is a traumatic brain injury that alters the way that the brain functions. Concussions can occur from a blow to the head, an upper body shot or an impact caused by the ground.