Reading Response: Revising your rough draft

Chapter 5 in The Curious Researcher contains a very well thought out scheme of exercises that should be considered while “revising” your rough draft. My favorite of these 4 exercises was exercise 5.2 “Dissecting the Fish.” Three simple steps including: “writing down your thesis, listing at least three questions your thesis raises, and rewriting a new thesis at least three times playing with the language, arrangement, information, or getting more specific about what you are saying” (Belanger 227). This exercise will get you ready for the next exercises by reintroducing you to your main thesis and how you can make it better. It will also refresh your memory on your topic and may raise new ideas you feel important to include in your final draft. Revising your draft is the most important part of writing any academic paper. It is the time when you take all of the information you have gathered and you present it in a more formal and understandable way. One way of revising your draft is by asking for help. “Ask a friend” to read your rough draft and get his or her opinion on your topic and the information you provide. This is very critical in helping ‘you’ see your paper’s faults and the things that make your paper the strongest (229). The “cut-and-paste” exercise is also a very useful strategy to use while beginning your revision. It involves printing an extra copy of your first draft, cutting “paragraph by paragraph,” shuffling the stack, taking out the “core paragraph,” and rearranging the paragraphs, getting rid of irrelevant ones, so all that remains is your main point and the “relevant” information you have to support your point (231). The author Bruce Ballenger suggested using “Verbal gestures” while revising your paper. I think it is a good idea because verbal can “provide background” or “signal analysis” even “signify speculation” or “indicate alignment.” Providing background helps people understand what you already said. Signaling analysis examines or criticizes something someone said. Signifying speculation is important in helping the “writer” think clearer. Indicating alignment involves making your analysis and research match the side you are taking. If you follow these simple steps described in this chapter you should have know trouble ending with a well written, well educated academic paper, deserving an A (232).

Reading Response to Curious Researcher p.121-140

I liked the analogy Ballenger used about how a first draft is like a relationship that has run it's course, it was good but hard to let go of.  I can imagine this as a problem for me, I get attached to an idea and don't want to destroy the flow I've created.
The exercise of exploring the source to analysis ratio was helpfull.  Using this technique you can start to see where the weaknesses in your draft are.  I didn't see the usefullness in the "Dissecting the Fish" exercise, I feel like if my thesis statement was at all veiled in my first draft then I would have seen the problem during those first workshops.  A weak or unclear thesis is usually the first thing a reader will point out to you.
The point Ballenger makes about getting someone to read your first draft and give feedback is critical.  I've always tried to use people whom I respect as thinkers for this purpose.  Most of my "editors" are not trained writers but they do have good ideas about what should be said.  The focus questions might be helpful when looking for specific feedback but I would want them to also give me their own reactions so I can get an honest look at how my audience will react to the paper.
The cut and paste exercise will be done in class as a workshop and I look forward to seeing how the two stacks of paragraphs will compare to each other.  Within the paragraphs I might just bring a big black marker to cut out irrelevant sentences.  Having the rejected pile handy might help me understand which points missed the mark and how I might redirect those smaller ideas to better fit the paper and tie everything back to my thesis.
I like that I will get to go back and further research the finer points on these papers, there were some details that were pretty interesting that got left out because they were discovered at the last minute or after the draft was completed that I would love to include.
The tip about http://www.refdesk.com/ was nice, I can see where the smaller but important factoids might get left off a first draft in favor of meatier research.  Not to mention, some of those little facts can be hard to find, I spent a good hour the other day trying to find out when and where Jimmy Hendrix said one of his famous qoutes and still didn't find it. Being able to find those facts on the fly so you don't leave your own questions unanswered is pretty important.
My largest concern during revision is losing the snap of my own voice in favor of a polished and contrived paper.  I've been told one of my biggest strengths as a writer is my word choice and phrasing.  I don't want to lose that in revision, it's happened to me before and it makes for a boring paper.  Ballenger says that the author's voice can take away from the authority of the paper, making it sound unscholarly.  I can see what he means with the surfer colloquialism paragraph he uses as an example, however, I don't want to sound like a text book.  It would be uninteresting and the point is lost because the reader would stop paying attention.

Juveniles and the Reality of False Confession

Many investigators, both in the past and present of this day’s society, have wound up focusing on a juvenile as the main suspect of a homicide. In these not so rare cases, an interrogator is usually advised to take special care in questioning the suspect. In many places throughout the country a juvenile’s interviews and interrogations all have to be recorded in some way or another, usually by tape recorder, sometimes a video recorder; but not in all places. When Miranda rights are presented to a juvenile they must be explained efficiently and thoroughly in a way this specific child will understand. If a child doesn’t understand his or her rights you may as well not even waste your breath asking them questions. This goes hand in hand with the fact a parent or attorney unquestionably should be present during interrogation. Sometimes, especially when a parent or attorney isn’t present, things can get a little out of hand during interrogation. An example of such ignorance was printed by a threesome of people Bill Moushey, Elizabeth Perry and Cynthia Levy, part of The Innocence Institute of Point Park University, who researched juvenile confessions and came up with the article Fear and Loathing Without Representation Leads To Admissions they now contest. “Paul Riggettz,” interrogated without a lawyer, confessed and “reenacted” the “murders of his wife and two children, and the next day recanted saying he confessed only after police held a gun to his head.” However ten months later seventeen-year-old “John Moss,” also interrogated without a parent or attorney, “accused police of beating a confession out of him in the same homicides, causing Mr. Reggettz to walk free and him to be sent away for Page 2 life.” The police admit the juvenile confessed without a parent or attorney, but deny using “physical coercion.” What should happen is a parent or attorney should inarguably be notified even without the child’s consent. A juvenile is too young to vote. How is someone not responsible enough to choose a candidate supposed be responsible enough to make the decision to waive his or her rights? Rebecca Diloreto described several incidents where a juvenile was wrongfully interrogated in the Supreme Court document, Juvenile Confessions/Right Against Self-incrimination. One of these is the case Woods v. Clusen where a 16 ½ year old murder suspect “who had no prior criminal record and no serious previous contact with criminal justice system confessed involuntarily; suspect was awakened early one morning by police officers hovering in his bedroom, was handcuffed and led away from home ostensibly for theft of chain saw, was stripped of his clothes, given institutional garb, but no shoes upon arrival at police station, and was fingerprinted and photographed and led to interrogation room where he was confronted with graphic pictures of murder scene and subjected to interrogation.” If this was an adult, do you think this would have gone differently? An adult knows when the law is wrongfully mistreating them, for the most part. Well, unless the adult has the same mental capacity as a teenager. On the other hand children are subject to do as they are told as long as it is an adult who is asking them to do it. They are taught consequences come from disobeying elders. This is an indisputable reason why a parent/guardian or an attorney should be present for the benefit of the child. The way an interrogator talks to the interrogated is tricky to say the least. They use special strategies (mostly lying) to get adults to confess to crime they commit, when it Page 3 comes to juveniles, on the other hand, most of the time all you have to do is make them believe they can go home when they are done. Cara A. Gardner, the head of the North Carolina Law Review Association, published in September of 2008, a recent development on Failing to serve and protect: A Proposal for an Amendment to a Juveniles Right to a Parent, Guardian, or Custodian During a Police Interrogation* announced, “One of the most common reasons cited by teenage false confessors is that by confessing, they would be able to go home.” The statement you, can go home when we are done is, of course, usually proven to be anything but true. Police and investigators will stop at nothing to solve a homicide, even if it means putting an innocent teenager’s life on the line. When it comes to the case as a whole, most of the time it will be thrown out of court if a child is wrongfully treated or denied his rights during interrogation, and rightfully so. If the “totality of the circumstances test,” described by Ann Gergen in her article on Constitutional Issues in Juvenile Interrogation, is carefully considered, when interrogating a child the evidence will undoubtedly hold up better in court. Outside of the “totalality of the circumstances test,” having a parent or attorney present is by far the most important thing to consider before interrogating a child of any age. Even though it would be most parents’ decision to be called in while his or her child is being interrogated, it’s not a law in any state. But it should be. The rate of juvenile false confession will not improve, unless we improve our juvenile interrogation procedure first. I’m telling you, making a parent or attorney’s presence mandatory to every juvenile interrogation would make all the difference.

Response to Justin's oped

You could certainly use a few sources to back up what you are trying to say here, even throwing in a few statistics of how many students drop out anyway or how many professors are hired by the university even though they don't have the credentials to actually teach their subject.  I don't agree with your paper yet, you have way more convincing to do.  I know this is more of a satirical paper but it would have more punch if it was organized like a real oped and then had the twist at the end. 
I felt like your voice was very much lost in this, in order to convince your audience it helps to believe in what you are writing, make me believe that you really think this. 

Response to Ella's oped

I thought your citations and facts were dead on.  Your paper had punch and was full of ethos, pathos and logos.  Your tone was heartfelt but logical and made your point very effectively.  Your organization was very good, bringing in the example of the 16 year old was a stroke of genius.  Only things I would take a look at would be a greater attention to grammar, you seem to be missing some "the"s here and there, it makes the paper feel more like a stream of thought than something to be read.  I wouldn't change a thing short of doing a grammar check and perhaps a nod toward the opposition's stance of why they would want to interrogate a minor.  Excellent work.

Responses to Stan's oped by Teslin

You need to site where you are getting your statistics on the suicide rate of soldiers.  It would also be nice to see where you found out the number of standing psychiatrists in the Army (they usually hold personnel strength numbers pretty close to the vest as a matter of information security). 
The tone you take is good, full of ethos and quite passionate but your approach would be more effective if you did a little more research into some of the proposed solutions that others have posited.  Being a vet myself I can tell you that the system has improved as far as access to care is concerned, the real problem lies in the psychological guilt of leaving one's comrades to fight without you.  I got out at the end of February after nearly six years of thinking nothing but "How am I gonna survive this?" only to turn on the news and see that a lot of my friends aren't making it back, this is the cross today's veterans are to bare.  A wounded soldier is still a soldier, you still feel bad that you can't go back, even if you are too scared mentally or physically to return.  This mentality is propogated and encouraged even by the warrior ethos which is drilled into soldiers these days by command because they can't afford to lose even one of us.  Like you said our Army only has 500,000 members, might sound like a lot but if you consider that we are fighting a war on two fronts and that not all of those soldiers are battle ready you will realize how desperate the military is to keep those people it's trained. 
As a result, the only way to ensure better care and prevent future losses of veterans is to get us out of this war that has ground down our numbers for the past 6 years or institute the draft again and bring in new people to replace those we've lost.  Freedom is not free, we can't expect the wounded to rise from their hospital beds and go back to war but that is what's happening.
Your organization was good and your stance was fairly clear but again it's hard to galvanize people to make a change if you don't give them an option of how that might be done.

Stan's rough draft op-ed

When you think about wounded soldiers in combat, you probable think of physical injury or maiming. This subject really hit home this last week with the tragic massacre down at FT. Hood, Texas. There were nine wars and almost 130 violent conflicts across the world last year. That makes for a lot of veterans. What I want to talk about is the lingering effects that combat have on our young men and women in today’s armed forces and why not much is being done to fix this inexcusable injustice. These service men and women place their lives in danger for us and our country and we should give them the best medical care available when they return. Many are returning home with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder or better known as PTSD. What is PTSD? In layman’s terms, it is shell shock or battle fatigue. Can it be cured? The answer is yes. With the right medication, counseling, and time, it can be brought under control. The problem right now is that it’s not. Soldiers are being sent back into combat without receiving treatment for it. Who is to blame for this? Is it the soldier that is afraid to ask for help? The leadership that is more concerned for getting the mission accomplished? The doctors who are caring more about their obligation to their uniform than to the white coat that they wear? Or is the blame on our government who doesn’t believe that there is a problem or that they just don’t want to address it. The answer is all of the blame. They all share a portion of blame. Out of a force of over 500,000, the Army has just 409 physiatrists in uniform. That’s just crazy. I understand that that doesn’t take into account physicians assistants and counselors but still unacceptable. We have over 140,000 troops in Iraq alone. How many of those 409 are over in theatre? Then there are the other side effects of untreated PTSD. Drug and alcohol abuse, depression, suicide, and the list goes on and on. Recent report show that over 95 percent of uniform code of military justice (UCMJ) cases in Iraq and Afghanistan where related to either alcohol or drugs. With the availability of heroin in Afghanistan, many are turning to that. Know we have highly trained junkies with PTSD returning home. Very scary I think. Suicide in the armed forces is skyrocketing. The army is on track this year to have over a 300 percent increase over last year. That’s totally unacceptable. It should be zero percent. There are other issues. I just wanted to throw some of this stuff out there for you to ponder. Do I have an answer to this injustice? No, but I do know we need to figure out how or we are going to have an epidemic that’s going to cost this country more than just money.

Op-ed

Ella Yearicks English 102 Christy Vance November 13, 2009 Juveniles vs. False Confession Many investigators, both in the recent and the non-recent past, have wound up focusing on a juvenile as the main suspect of a homicide. In these not so rare cases, an interrogator is usually advised to take special care in questioning the suspect. In many places throughout the country a juveniles interviews and interrogations all have to be recorded in some way or another, usually by tape recorder, sometimes a video recorder; but not in all places. When Miranda rights are presented to a juvenile they must be explained efficiently and thoroughly in a way this specific child will understand. Ignorantly, this step in minor interrogation is pretty much skipped a lot of the time. If a child doesn’t understand his or her rights you may as well not even waste your breath asking them questions. What should happen is a parent or attorney should inarguably be notified even without the child’s consent. A juvenile is too young to vote. How is someone not responsible enough to choose a candidate supposed be responsible enough to make the decision to waive his or her rights? Rebecca Diloreto described several incidents where a juvenile was wrongfully interrogated in the Supreme Court document, Juvenile Confessions/Right Against Self-incrimination. One of these is the case Woods v. Clusen where a 16 ½ year old murder suspect “who had no prior criminal record and no serious previous contact with criminal justice system confessed involuntarily; suspect was awakened early one morning by police officers hovering in his bedroom, was handcuffed and led away from home ostensibly for theft of chain saw, was stripped of his clothes, given institutional garb, but no shoes upon arrival at police station, and was fingerprinted and photographed and led to interrogation room where he was confronted with graphic pictures of murder scene and subjected to interrogation. If this was an adult, do you think this would have gone differently? Well, yes unless the adult has the same mental capacity as a child. An adult knows when the law is wrongfully mistreating them, for the most part. On the other hand children are subject to do as they are told as long as it is an adult who is asking them to do it. They are taught consequences come from disobeying elders. This is an indisputable reason why a parent/guardian or an attorney should be contacted for the benefit of the child. When it comes to the case as a whole, most of the time it will be thrown out of court if a child is wrongfully treated or denied his rights during interrogation, and rightfully so. If the “totality of the circumstances test,” described by Ann Gergen in her article on Constitutional Issues in Juvenile Interrogation, is carefully considered when interrogating a child the evidence will undoubtedly hold up better in court. Even though it would be most parents’ decision to be called in while his or her child is being interrogated, it’s not a law in any state. But it should be.

Op-Ed rough draft

“College Tuition” Education today has become an abomination. Teachers no longer want to teach and students no longer want to learn. This is why I believe the entire college tuition should be paid in full at the first semester of the freshman year of college. Not only would that eliminate the poor, unintelligent, slacker, and careless students, but it would change the cash flow of the universities to be able to hire teachers who like to teach, not who are there to find an easy retirement job. By paying this tuition, poor , middle class, and unintelligent students would no longer be pressured to go. This would help the workforce and would also cut down on the number of student loans being drawn out of the federal government. Finally an idea to help the budget; teachers, students, and universities get back to a place of respect. Not some day care for eighteen year olds who want a break from responsibility. The most important change that paying the tuition up front is the professors. No longer would it be acceptable for old burnouts of their field to end up at a university teaching classes that they could care less about. To these teachers class is not a big deal. They have already left their mark writing books or publishing research and these students could care less about what is being taught. By paying the entire tuition up front these schools could “clean house” of professors like that and find real teachers. People who enjoy and feel the need to help students who want to be taught. This goes right back to cutting the poor and unintelligent students, creating an environment that professors would enjoy teaching in. In effect this, again, helps reestablish the respect that colleges deserve –not becoming a playground / / / So, i have kinda hit a writing wall and am stuck. Its about 300 words ish and seems scattered. I am giving up and gonna watch planet earth on BBC.

A Day Without Commercials

Jimmy Hendrix once wrote, “When the power of love overcomes the love of power we will know peace.” I ponder on those words in days that seem rife with struggle and bloody contempt but today, on a day when I look around and see the placid looks of apparent peace on the faces of strangers, I wish for some sign of anger or unrest on those faces. I feel I’ve lost my personal power of choice, of free thought; all my rights dissolved for someone else’s idea of peace. Our society has been plunged into an era of decline due to an ever increasing control over what we see, hear, read and consume. We have freely surrendered our personal powers and responsibilities in favor of someone else doing everything and making every decision for us. We have become zombies with wallets who will buy anything we are told to without a second thought.


Our news is brought to us by corporate thugs who want to continue to pollute our planet while robbing us blind. These same thugs also own about 90% of the music and book publishing outlets. They also own drug companies, energy consortiums, food companies and about half the politicians in our own government get campaign contributions from them so that they can get laws passed that allow them to monopolize, privatize and exploit just about everything. It’s rather ingenious really, most dictatorships start with bloody coupes, all these guys had to do was buy up all the news outlets, radio stations, television channels, and willing politicians. After that all they had to do was make the public stupid enough to believe that they are still free. Sounds like the plot of some book I know, what year is this? 1984? Robert Kane Pappas agrees, he even made a film about it called “Orwell Rolls In His Grave” but of course no one has seen it unless they were looking on the internet because the same thugs own the movie studios. If you can’t find that on You Tube go rent the movie “Network” from 1976, still awesome and relevant today.

I know all that is probably distorting that placid grin on your face right now but don’t worry, we have an answer. We have a drug for when we feel blue, a drug for when we feel anxiety and for just about any other type of feeling that could be just as easily assuaged if we simply expressed them. If the drugs don’t work we can try to eat ourselves into a sugar coma or artificially torque ourselves up with caffeine, taurine and L-carnatine. All those things lead to a premature death and random shopping sprees but the recession is over now so it’s ok to shop again, never mind the foreclosure sign on your neighbor’s lawn, maybe they’re just dead beats.

Now that we know how we got here it’s time to figure out how to take our power back. It is so simple it boggles the mind. We close our wallets and stop buying what they are selling us. No more voting democrat or republican, no more campaign contributions of great size from just one person or group of people, no more conglomerates invading the air-waves, sound waves and brain waves of free people. I’m not asking for people to take to the streets, in fact just stay home, do nothing, turn off your television and radio, leave the newspaper on the lawn. If you get bored go to You-Tube and look up “Orwell Rolls In His Grave” and “Food Inc” and when you are done watching them, look up The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt. You will never look at your education the same way again.

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: November 7, 2009

Your body is probably home to a chemical called bisphenol A, or BPA. It’s a synthetic estrogen that United States factories now use in everything from plastics to epoxies — to the tune of six pounds per American per year. That’s a lot of estrogen.

Bisphenol-A (BPA)

More than 92 percent of Americans have BPA in their urine, and scientists have linked it — though not conclusively — to everything from breast cancer to obesity, from attention deficit disorder to genital abnormalities in boys and girls alike.

Now it turns out it’s in our food.

Consumer Reports magazine tested an array of brand-name canned foods for a report in its December issue and found BPA in almost all of them. The magazine says that relatively high levels turned up, for example, in Progresso vegetable soup, Campbell’s condensed chicken noodle soup, and Del Monte Blue Lake cut green beans.

The magazine also says it found BPA in the canned liquid version of Similac Advance infant formula (but not in the powdered version) and in canned Nestlé Juicy Juice (but not in the juice boxes). The BPA in the food probably came from an interior coating used in many cans.

Should we be alarmed?

The chemical industry doesn’t think so. Steven Hentges of the American Chemistry Council dismissed the testing, noting that Americans absorb quantities of BPA at levels that government regulators have found to be safe. Mr. Hentges also pointed to a new study indicating that BPA exposure did not cause abnormalities in the reproductive health of rats.

But more than 200 other studies have shown links between low doses of BPA and adverse health effects, according to the Breast Cancer Fund, which is trying to ban the chemical from food and beverage containers.

“The vast majority of independent scientists — those not working for industry — are concerned about early-life low-dose exposures to BPA,” said Janet Gray, a Vassar College professor who is science adviser to the Breast Cancer Fund.

Published journal articles have found that BPA given to pregnant rats or mice can cause malformed genitals in their offspring, as well as reduced sperm count among males. For example, a European journal found that male mice exposed to BPA were less likely to make females pregnant, and the Journal of Occupational Health found that male rats administered BPA had less sperm production and lower testicular weight.

This year, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives found that pregnant mice exposed to BPA had babies with abnormalities in the cervix, uterus and vagina. Reproductive Toxicology found that even low-level exposure to BPA led to the mouse equivalent of early puberty for females. And an array of animal studies link prenatal BPA exposure to breast cancer and prostate cancer.

While most of the studies are on animals, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported last year that humans with higher levels of BPA in their blood have “an increased prevalence of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and liver-enzyme abnormalities.” Another published study found that women with higher levels of BPA in their blood had more miscarriages.

Scholars have noted some increasing reports of boys born with malformed genitals, girls who begin puberty at age 6 or 8 or even earlier, breast cancer in women and men alike, and declining sperm counts among men. The Endocrine Society, an association of endocrinologists, warned this year that these kinds of abnormalities may be a consequence of the rise of endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and it specifically called on regulators to re-evaluate BPA.

Last year, Canada became the first country to conclude that BPA can be hazardous to humans, and Massachusetts issued a public health advisory in August warning against any exposure to BPA by pregnant or breast-feeding women or by children under the age of 2.

The Food and Drug Administration, which in the past has relied largely on industry studies — and has generally been asleep at the wheel — is studying the issue again. Bills are also pending in Congress to ban BPA from food and beverage containers.

“When you have 92 percent of the American population exposed to a chemical, this is not one where you want to be wrong,” said Dr. Ted Schettler of the Science and Environmental Health Network. “Are we going to quibble over individual rodent studies, or are we going to act?”

While the evidence isn’t conclusive, it justifies precautions. In my family, we’re cutting down on the use of those plastic containers that contain BPA to store or microwave food, and I’m drinking water out of a metal bottle now. In my reporting around the world, I’ve come to terms with the threats from warlords, bandits and tarantulas. But endocrine disrupting chemicals — they give me the willies.

I liked this op-ed piece. Maybe its because I have worked in food for a long long time but its kinda scary to think about.