Presentation Feedback

Dear Group Members,
Please review my presentation and use the critique sheet that Dr. Archibald has provided to give me feedback so that I can improve my presentation.

Conference Notes

Going into the conference I felt very confident of what points I needed to address in my rough draft because I read his comments which I all understood and had an idea of how to go about making the corrections. During the conference Professor Archibald reassured my previous thoughts while talking and was able to explain how I could build off a researched story to help introduce my paper's purpose and guide the reader to see what points I was trying to get across. He then gave an example of a story that would benefit my paper and ironically that  morning before my conference I read the same story on the NY Times. So it was very easy for me to understand his point because both of us were on the exact same page. The story was about how Hispanics in low populated regions of Kansas were saving the small towns from falling apart in due to years of decreasing population. This story supports my arguments of how illegal immigration positively affects our nation's economy which is why my paper needs it.

Sources for the 3ResProj

To start off my research I made a grave mistake by letting myself get discouraged too earlier and easily. As a result  I ended up looking at infromation that would have worked well if my topic was slightlty different. I unfortunately convinced myself that I needed to change my topic to one that I could find the most info on. Then when I tryed to google for resources on my second attempt I had far more success finding info that backed my first original idea for my paper which was to analyze wether or not illegall had more of an overall negative or positve effect on our nation's economy. Once I started my rough draft I noticed that my first strong source only provided enough material for my first three pages. After that I had more trouble finding other helpful sources through google.For now I feel confident in my new strategy to find other key terms from my first source and use those terms in efforts to find new information.

Conference Notes

Going into the conference I was pretty confident about having a strong research paper proposal. To start, my research question that I proposed was How has the public's view of immigrants changed throughout the years and do immigrants have a negative or positive effect on today's U.S. society? Primarily the most important idea that I took out of the conferance was that my question was too broad and I need to narrow down my paper's topic. I have decided to mainly focus on finding whether or not illegal immigration is hurting our country's economy today.

ResProj Paper Ideas

"Some even argue that the immigrants in one or more ways actually help not hurt the economy because they are more willing to do the jobs that are in high demand but not attractive enough for the majority of the population to be willing to do."

- This is the example of what would be included in my paper if I were to focus on analyzing wether or not immigrants have a negative or positive affect on our society.

"I believe that people today hold grudges against the immigrants for living in dirty conditions and in a way taking the beauty out of the neighborhoods in which they live."

- This quote shows my other option of exploring how the U.S. publics' view of immigrants has changed through out history. 

Integrating Sources

Example 2

Nazario reveals the power of these stressing emotions when she also that when she illustrates his mom’s sorrows during her babysitting job, “The girl, so close to Enrique’s age, is a constant reminder of her son. Many afternoons, Lourdes (Enrique’s mom) cannot contain her grief. She gives the girl a toy and dashes in to the kitchen. There, out of sight, tears flow” (9). As you can imagine immigrants had it rough as it is without having deep conflicts like this.

Integrating Sources

Example 1

This is held true even in the past as one can see in Riis’s book when he describes(sp) a community’s changed appearance “The garden gate no longer swung on it rusty hinges. The shell-paved walk had become an alley; what the rear house had left of a garden, a court” (5). Now that you see the similarity(ic) in how communities where negatively affected by containing immigrants and you can experience the perspective in which fellow citizens view immigrants.

English Composition: First Paragraph of my 2Syn Paper

English Composition: First Paragraph of my 2Syn Paper: How has dieting changed from Kellogg’s era to today’s generation? How has it stayed the same? By looking further into the two docume...

I feel that your first paragraph does a real good job of simply stating what your paper will be about. From reading it I can expect your paper to analyze how dieting has come up throughout history and gained public attention to the point where it is so easily evident in today's society.

First Paragraph of my 2Syn paper

For my synthesis I plan to compare and contrast Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives (1890) and Sonia Nazario’s Enrique’s Journey (2002). More than a hundred years separate the time in which these two documents were published. However I believe both carry many similarities and differences that became apparent to me when I compared the two documents. A reason supporting why I believe there are similarities is because Nazario and Riis both wrote their book to raise awareness of the rough life in which most immigrants were forced to live in hopes that their writing would help bring social reform during their time. In general because of the span of time in which the two books were written, there are consequently several differences too. Through this comparison I began to grasp how they were both relevant to each other which lead me to ask several deep questions like why are immigrants in the U.S. negatively viewed by the majority of the American population throughout time, has fear of immigrants coming to the U.S. risen over the years, and what can be done to help the immigrants? These questions are very broad but at the same time they are increasingly more relevant it today’s society.

After reading this paragraph what do you think my paper is about? 

Legacy Meetup: First step in writing the 2Syn paper

I found this very helpful towards figuring out what I should focus on for my synthesis. A reason being that like the blacks in the past there were also immigrants who were mistreated and disriminated against. Now granted the immigrants were probably a good bit better off than the blacks but none the less still looked down upon and were taken advantage of. However I learned that it very important and interesting to compare how the majority of U.S. society viewed immigrants during Riis's and Nazario's (today) era. It is tough to clearly say which generation of U.S. immigrants had it worse. You cannot overlook the fact that Riis documented legal immigrants and while Nazario reported on illegal immigrants. Don't let that make you completly disregard comparing them however. Simply because it is a reflection of that time period for those immigrants. During Riis's life there was no purpose for immigrants to enter illegally because they were all mostly welcome. Today on the other hand it seems like it is the polar opposite because for example the U.S. government is funding walls to keep immigrants out. Wow this is probably what my synthesis paper will probably look like but going into more depth.

Insights from Enrique's Journey

Surprisingly, there seemed to be more similarities between Riis's How the Other Half Lives and Nazario's Enrique's Journey than what I previously thought. One big reason for this was because both authors wrote their stories for the same purpose which was to raise public awareness of the many immigrants' hardships in order to bring social reform. Nazario and Riis then hoped that the reform which occurred would help immigrants to reach their goal to live a happier life. There was no doubt that both immigrants during their separate eras struggled to fit in to society. Another similarity is that immigrants were always taken advantage of and mistreated just for someone else's greed. The effect of immigration in the U.S. regardless of when in history is noticeable. Immigration during Riis's era doubled or nearly tripled New York City's population and caused industrialization to grow at a rapid speed. Riis even shed light on how the increase in pollution from industries destroyed the beautiful elements in NY city. Now during our time the population as a nation is reaping the consequences of the massive inflow of immigrants. Unemployment is consistently rising which in turn starts degrading our economy. However I learned that the rise in immigrants is not always negative. For example the work that they are willing to do helps local businesses from where the live. Now that I think about it immigrants all came here primarily in search for a better life throughout anytime in history. The government during the two different stories contrasted very much. Today most measures by the government are to lessen the amount of people coming into the U.S. by building walls while during the mid 1800’s immigrants were freely welcome to in.    

Revising the 1Report

To start, it took me a while to understand what I did wrong on my rough draft because it was not clear to me in the way the report was supposed to be written. So by comparing the sample that Dr. Archibald had shown to the class to my rough draft I believe that I have figured it out. The comments posted by Dr. Archibald on the sample paper were great guidence for me. It also helped that during my writing conference session my tutor explained that the format of the paper was a rhetorical analysis not a summary of our chosen document. The problem was that I summarized Riis's document How the Other Half Lives instead of taking a slower appraoch by analyzing how he writes to unveil his ideas and beliefs. I learned that just by seeing the writer's tone and style of how he fromatted his work I can understand the author's true motives and what exactly he or she is trying to point out. Before I thoght the focus of the report was to report all that we learned from reading our chosen document. However the focus is more of a mix of what questions do I have from reading it and what we understood. I should use most of my quotes and paraphrases from my other sources to either help anwer my questions or help get my point accross. I also need to leave out more of my opinion on the subject. The paper is suppsed to be our reaction to reading our document and waht we don't and do understand from it. I need to use more info from my other sources that connect to my topic. At the end when we have to mention how our subject relates to today's world, I plan on connecting Riis's ideas and actions to today's relevant issues. I am very optimistic now that I can successfully write a hopefully great final draft. 

They Say/ I Say Response 1

The exercise I chose to do is number 1 on pg40

After reading Zinczenko's main claim that there aren't any inexpensive and convenient alternatives to fast-food restaurants I decided that I whole heartedly disagree. The groceries that one could get for one week could easily cost less than buying fast food for a whole week. Also all the grocery bought food would be at the person's house. How is that less convenient than having to go out to eat everyday? That person is also responsible for chosing the healthiest food for the most cost beneificial price, and even that isn't impossibly hard to do. Lastly fast food is so unhealthy to start that nearly everything in the store is healthier regardless.

To say that obesity and other medical issues linked to it has gone up a bit the past years is an understatment. It has increased so much that the government simply refers to it as an epidemic. Zinczenko backed it up himself by stating health care costs since 1969 has gone up by at least 100billion a year! Wait there is more, that is only from what diabetes has caused. Diabetes is only one of the many health concerns linked to obesity. I strongly believe that being overweight is greatly more of a medical problem rather than a problem of cultural stereotypes. Mainly because a sterotype doesn't put your own health at risk or cost the government health care fees.

blogger1

The topic for my report is immigration and I chose to focus on Jacob Riis's work How the Other Half Lives  to gain some more knowledge on this subject matter. This was the topic that I chose because since reading the book Enrique's Journey I believe that I have grown into an interest about the stories of immigrants' lives. Also I wondered what kind if any at all connections and similarites there might between todays immigrants and those seeking a better life in the U.S. from the past. I started my research with Riis's book itself which I found easily on the course mindmap. I learned that this book of his depicts what the living conditions were like in NY city for many immigrants and it didn't take me long to see that Riis was focusing on how poor life was in the tenements.Also he further explained how the owners of these tenements were driven by their own unsympathetic greed to completely disregard the immigrants' health and safety. Finally I found an article about Riis while using the library search engine. In this document I located some key info on Jacob Riis's personal life. For example, Riis was an immigrant from Denmark who struggled to get off his feet in the U.S. while facing many similar obstacles that nearly all immigrants encounter. However through hard work and perseverance he rose to fame and I believe he used his success to help all immigrants by covering their stories through his writing and photography for the whole world to see.

- Westin Fisher