The FInal Countdown

So again the question is What is a Blog? To me a blog is still an alternate place to communicate. More and more people are communicating through the Internet and text messages rather than going and talking to whom ever face to face. If you think about it soon that will be the main mode a communication rather than picking up a phone to talk to some one.
Blogging is a new way to communicate and get ideas across. It can be used for all types of reasons. In this class it is a class assignment and different type of homework and class participation. For some people, blogs can be a type of diary and a way to vent about their feelings or what ever has been going on in their lives.
Up until this class, I had never written a blog. They just never appealed to me. I didn't need to write a blog about my life and what is going on in it and put it on the internet. I had no reason to ever think about writing a blog. I still don't think I will ever use a blog after this class, it just isn't who I am. I find it interesting to read blogs from other people. There are many talented people on the internet and many of them use blogs to put up short stories, poems or other things. So I guess I like blogs but not for my own personal use. I would just rather read others blogs and admire their talent and ideas.
For this class, blogging has been an interesting new way to communicate with the class. It has been a way that is out of the normal do homework and come to class ready to discuss, to learn the current subject. Personally, I don’t think I really like blogging as an assignment. I always forget to do the blog and it obviously counts against me. It’s not like I am purposefully not doing it, it’s just that other things come up and the blog is pushed out of my mind.
Overall I think that doing a blog has added something to the class. They were a new way to learn and express our views as students. Plus most of the time in class there’s only one or two people that talk in class and it makes it hard to hear what everyone has to say. When it’s only a couple of people that talk the class gets boring and people start to loose interest. Through blogging we have been able to see what those silent people have had on their minds through out the semester. It’s been really interesting seeing everyone’s personalities through the layout that they have chosen for their blogs. Everyone can change the colors of the blogs and where everything is located, it’s like a new Myspace. It’s fun to change it up when ever you feel like it.
I like looking at everyone from the class’s blogs. It is fun to look at their ideas. I think my favorites have probably been Cari and Susanne and Mitch’s blogs. Their blogs have always been really interesting and funny in some aspects.

picture

School Uniforms don't have to be stuffy like these are. They can allow students to have their own freedom in choices of which different uniform parts to wear.
The picture can be used to show one side of uniforms, the more rigid side that I don't really like.

Prospectus

I was wondering what are some of the ways people plagiarize?
The questions seem broad.
I wasn't sure what her thesis was.

Black English not a Language?

James Baldwin puts up a great argument about Black English in his essay "If Black English Isn't a Language, then Tell Me, What is?” Language is one of the main ways that we communicate with each other. Baldwin points out that the main reason why Black English isn't thought to be a language because of the discrimination on them from when they first came to the Americas. Black people came to the country as slaves and were not thought of as humans and none of them spoke the same language, so their version of the English evolved from there. Baldwin points out about the different versions of most languages. For example, the French language has so many different dialects like a person in Paris speaks completely different French than a man in Quebec. The Black culture, not just the language, has influenced our society. We wouldn’t have the music and many of the phrases that we commonly hear today. So if they have influenced our culture so much than why can’t Black English be considered a language? Baldwin does a really good job of arguing his position on Black English. He does a really good job of infusing the history of Blacks to help his argument.

Annotation

1."UNIFORMS/DRESS CODES." ECS. 2008. Education Commission of the States. 25 Mar 2008 .

2. The website has a couple of pages related to my topic of school uniforms. There's an overview of the uses of school uniforms in public schools. It also has some statistics and other issues regarding uniforms.
3. It doesn't say who exactly is the author but Education Commission of the States is the group that put up the website.
4. It's overall purpose is to inform people of the issues regarding uniforms. It isn't really for or against uniforms so it gives both sides of the story.
5. It was really helpful to my paper because of the overview page. It was really easy to get a basic summary from it so I could find something else to research and add to my paper. I don't really think it's a good site to reference in my paper but a good jumping off place for it.

CRAAP Test

I did the CRAAP test on the Improbable Research website.
Currency
It seemed relatively current. The only date that I saw was that it was published in Sept./Oct. of 1999. It didn't seem like the site had been updated or revised since it was originally posted. It seems current but it's just random to me. The links on the page are functional.
Relevance
It answers my nonexistent questions about how cats react to men with beards. I think it was more for entertainment because it's all really random. I could be for people who are really interested in cats.
Authority
Annals of Improbable Research seems to be the author. It doesn't really show any credentials given on the page. The writers don't seem really qualified to do the experiments. It was a .com website. I didn't see any contact information on the page.
Accuracy
The information seemed to come from a bunch of college students. It is clear what their intentions are. It seemed more like a science project because of how they wrote up their "findings". It was like the ones that are done in Junior High. The language doesn't seem biased and I didn't see any spelling or grammar mistakes, but I also wasn't paying that close attention to the spelling or grammar.
Purpose
Its purpose was mainly to entertain the readers. They make a purpose clear in the beginning. Because it is set up like a science project, their intentions are clear in the Abstract of the project. Its mainly opinion because some of the things they tested aren't really the easiest thing to test, like how much hair was shed. It was objective in a way. It didn't seem to had any biases.

Middle Schoolers and the pill

The article talks about the issue of Portland, Maine middle school girls getting the pill from the school nurses on their school campuses. These girls are usually between the ages of 11 to 13 and are getting the pill and the patch from their school nurses without their parents knowing. These girls are too young to be becoming sexually active and many of them who are don't know the consequences of having sex.
One of the counterpoints is that if they are planning shouldn't they at least be safe. They should be able to learn the consequences and learn how to use the pill or patch safely (taking the pill daily and the patch being changed weekly. The areas where this is being taken affect are in lower class areas where these girls don't have the resources to go to a gyno and this is the best they can do. If being safe is their whole idea then why not just condoms rather than going so far?
They overlooked the parents in this article. Why do they not say anything about how the parents think about this? But at the same time if these girls are just going to their school nurse for protection then they are most likely not telling their parents everything.