Evaluation of Rhetorical Situations

For this post, I analyzed 3 biased sources on one of my possible research questions.

Wuest, Kyle. Screenshot taken 9/26/15.

Here's a link to the document.

Developing a Research Question

Now that Project 1 is complete, it is time to look to Project 2. In the first Project 2 post, I will explore possible research questions in my field, biomedical engineering. Since I am planning to go into the medical field and I find the medical field more fascinating, some of my possible research questions pertain more to the medical field than biomedical engineering.

"Gattaca" (n.d.) via Wikipedia. Public domain.

Why is genetic engineering unethical?

This is interesting to me because genetic engineering has clear benefits and the only disadvantage is some think it's not right to modify a person before they are born: it's viewed as playing God. I don't know a lot on this topic nor do I have a solidified stance on it. That makes it interesting to hear the arguments as someone without a strong bias and make my own decisions about the facts.

How can we make animal testing more humane for the animals while maintaining advancement?

I'm not crazy about animal rights like I know some people are. I did a debate against a group in high school about animal testing and some of the numbers of animal deaths due to testing were astonishing. I'm interested to find these numbers for myself and compare them to how many human lives are saved by the drugs produced. I do not have a moderate stance on this subject and I am interested to see if one side appears better than the other after I do my own research on it.

Where should the ethics line be drawn in medical research?

This question is similar to my first. It is also similar to the cloning controversy, which I focused on in Project 1. This question may be too broad for this project but it seems to be the root of the controversy of cloning and genetic engineering, and possibly many more issues in my field. I am interested in taking on the problems at the source rather than deal with them on a case to case basis, although I may find that these issues can only be dealt with on a case to case basis.

Reflection Project 1

After 4 weeks of working on the QRG, I am finally done. In this post, I will reflect on the process of writing this project.

Prabhu, B. "Tso Kiagar Lake Ladakh" 7/19/07 via Wikipedia. Attribution 2.0 Generic

What challenges did you face during the Quick Reference Guide project and how did you deal with them?

This was challenging because I had to write in a genre I have never heard of before. Some conventions are similar to other genres I am familiar with but other conventions were totally new to write with. Time spent in class breaking down this genre helped a lot. I don't think my QRG would look nearly the same if we hadn't gone over so much in class.

What successes did you experience on the project and how did they happen?

I think there were many successes during this project. My research was more vigorous than any project I've ever done (except a debate project senior year) and general writing conventions are clearer to me now. The research was done in multiple blog posts, the most important of which is the annotated bibliography. Writing conventions were focused on in the two "Clarity" blog posts.

What kinds of arguments, rhetorical strategies, design choices and writing practices did you find the most effective for your project? Why?

The kinds of arguments, rhetorical strategies, and design choices were decided for me by the genre. There is no bias supposed to be presented in the QRG, it's supposed to be informative so direct rhetorical strategies were used, and design choices needed to follow the QRG genre with plenty of white space, subheadings, etc. I don't usually revise my paper as much as I did in this project. Usually I write BS for the rough draft then totally rewrite the essay for the final draft, but in this project, I kept most of my rough draft and edited it where needed.

What kinds of arguments, rhetorical strategies, design choices and writing practices did you find were not effective for your project? Why?

Arguments, rhetorical strategies, and design choices were decided for me in this project. Writing practices I did not find effective in this project was trying to write according to the rubric. I tried to write this so that I checked points off the rubric but this rubric is so massive that it really didn't help. Instead I wrote what I thought was important and it checks points off the rubric anyway.

How was the writing process for this project similar to other school writing experiences you’ve had in the past?

This project is similar to a debate project I had senior year. It had to follow a very particular structure and it was heavily research based. They differ in that this project doesn't pay attention to details as closely as the debate project did.

How was the writing process for this project different from other school writing experiences you’ve had in the past?

In comparison to the debate project and this project, all my other projects were not structured very well. We were just told the requirements then forgot about the project until the week it was due. The debate project and this project built up to the final product in small but USEFUL steps. Some projects attempted to give smaller steps but they were not helpful whatsoever and often just added more work to be done.

Would any of the skills you practiced for this project be useful in your other coursework? Why or why not?

The generic writing conventions and analyzing a new genre can be applied anywhere.

Final Draft of QRG

Here is the link to the final draft of my QRG.

Clarity, Part 2

A week ago, I read about and reflected on four aspects of clarity. In this post, I will read and reflect upon four more.

Gandy, Dave "Edit font awesome" (n.d.) via Wikipedia. Public domain.

1. Active Verbs

This is a subject that I never think about. I write what I think get the point across. This usually happens by using a passive voice. I learned that using an active voice can emphasize the importance of the actor if the receiver is not important and a passive voice emphasizes the importance of the receiver if the actor is not important. This is useful for wording a sentence exactly how I want it to be worded.

2. Shifts

For most of my high school essays, I wrote in the second person whenever I could. This is frowned upon in my senior English class. I try to avoid writing in second person but old habits die hard, or in my case, don't die at all and frequently returns when trying to avoid it. Because of this, I shift point of view quite often. I usually catch myself mid sentence but I still need to read through my writings at least once just to look for shifts.

3. Appropriate Language

I use a few styles of speech that this book deems "inappropriate language". I frequently use jargon and euphemisms. I understand why jargon is not appropriate in this genre but I think euphemism could be justified in cases. The book says that euphemistic "doublespeak" is "deliberately evasive or deceptive language". Most of the terms they use sound like words a politician would use to avoid conflict. Similarly, a writer can use doublespeak to avoid showing bias.

4. Exact Words

I think I'm relatively careful about picking the exact word that I want in a sentence. I need to be aware of using standard idioms and avoiding clichés. I use unidiomatic phrases and clichés in my regular speech so I occasionally write using those too.

Identifying Basic Grammar Patterns

For this post, I analyzed the basic grammar patterns in my longest paragraph of my QRG.

AnonMoos "Basic constituent structure analysis English sentence" 9/14/14 via Wikipedia. Public domain.

Copy for Paragraph Analysis

In this post, I will analyze the effectiveness of my paragraphs. Here's a link for my copy for paragraph analysis.

McPhee, Nic "2008-01-26 (Editing a paper) - 27" via Flickr. Some rights reserved       

All in all, my paragraphs aren't awful, but they are pretty bad. Most problems are from lack of transition. that really hurts the organization and cohesiveness of the paragraph, which then affects how well developed it seems. I will need to add better transitions to make my paragraphs stronger.

Reflection on Project 1 Draft

I peer edited Brandon and Savannah's QRGs. In this blog post, I will reflect on the effectiveness of my QRG relating to audience and context.

Audience

1. Who is going to be reading this document?

The only people that will read my QRG are my classmates and professor. To be honest, the only one that matters is my professor because he will be the one grading it.

2. What are their expectations?

My classmates don't have any expectations for me. I guess the only expectation they'd have is for me to peer edit their documents, which I have already done. My professor's expectations are clearly written out in the rubric for this project. I am not reaching all of those expectations as of now but I have hit more than I thought my rough draft would.

3. How much information do I need to give my audience?

This is supposed to be written with the assumption that my audience knows little to nothing about my controversy. So I need to start this from the very beginning. A QRG is useful in that it is broken into sections such that if someone does know more than others about the topic, they can skip unneeded parts with ease.

4. What kind of language is suitable for this audience?

The language should be appropriate and concise. There shouldn't be any swearing and sentences should be relatively short and to the point.

5. What tone should I use?

The tone can range depending on the severity of the subject. My controversy can be very serious to some people so I went with a more serious tone in my QRG. It's pretty consistent throughout but there may have been some points where I got bored and tried to make it more humorous for my own enjoyment.

Unknown author "Mount Hood reflected in Mirror Lake, Oregon" Date unknown. Public domain.

Context:

1. What are the formatting requirements of the assignment?

The formatting requirements follow the QRG conventions. It is formatted with subheadings, short paragraphs, and ample white space. My QRG fulfills these requirements.

2. What are the content requirements for the assignment?

The content requirements are specified in the rubric. I do not meet al these requirements, most notably my number of sources is low and I have a grand total of zero images. It's not called a rough draft for nothing.

3. Does my draft reflect knowledge or skills gained in class in addition to my own ideas and voice?

I don't think this draft demonstrates my full potential if that's what this question is asking. This draft reflects some of the knowledge gained in class pertaining to the conventions of a QRG but I didn't analyze the few sources I have in my rough draft nearly as in depth as we analyzed arguments in class.

4. Have I addressed any grammatical issues that my teacher highlighted in class or in my previously-graded assignments?

I read through my QRG to check for grammatical issues and fixed all that I saw. No classmates have peer edited my draft yet so I don't have any other revision suggestions for the time being.

Clarity, Part 1

Everyone has flaws as a writer or something that they can improve. In this blog post, I will briefly describe what I learned from 4 topics pertaining to sentence clarity.

McPhee, Nic "2008-01-26 (Editing a paper) - 31" 1/26/08 via Flickr. Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic 

1. Parallel ideas: I have already learned all the content of this section but I'm not very good with parallelism. It's a good reminder to know what makes a sentence parallel and what's a faulty parallelism. I need to be careful with what part of speech I should use in a sentence because it's really easy to screw it up, especially with infinitives. an example is the sentence "The clerk told me to change my flight or take the train." The correct way to write that sentence is "The clerk told me to change my flight or to take the train." It's a very subtle difference but it matters.
2. Add needed words: This is only tricky in compound sentences. It's the kind of clarity that makes sentences like "my brother and I went to the park" correct and not "my brother and me went to the park". This type of clarity seems like an extension of parallel ideas to me. This section can be summed up by making sure a sentence makes sense if it were to exclude the extra subjects or direct objects.
3. Misplaced or dangling modifiers: Like the other subjects, I have also learned about this one. I learned it long ago and I think I still make mistakes with this form of clarity. Misplaced and dangling modifiers seem like a pretty obvious issue but at the same time, they seem like easy mistakes to make when typing out as much content as possible as quickly as possible.
4. Wordy sentences: I frequently make wordy sentences. This section goes through many ways to tighten sentences. Most examples ultimately say that a sentence can be shortened by changing a modifier to an adjective or by finding a better word to take place of many.

Reflection:
I read Brandon and Savannah's QRGs. After reading these sections about clarity, I felt like I was more aware while reading their drafts. I wouldn't say that I learned anything but being aware of clarity issues definitely helps when editing a paper. In Brandon's QRG, there was a wordy sentence that said "Since the end of 2002, medical science has been working tirelessly to make gene mapping- or the recording of the human DNA code and all of its genetic qualities- more cost effective so that diagnostic professionals may treat genetic diseases before they harm the patient." He could fix it by splitting the sentence after "more cost effective" and replacing "so that" with "This will allow". I read over Savannah's QRG multiple times but I cannot find a point where it is unclear or too wordy.

Thoughts on Drafting

For writing the rough draft of the QRG, we looked at advice that our Student's Guide had on different, key aspects of a successful essay. In this post, I will reflect on what I found useful and what didn't fit in with the QRG genre.

"Man sitting at drafting board" 11/19/11 via the National Archives and Records administration.

Helpful Points

The PIE format was helpful information. During my junior high and high school years, this format has been drilled into my brain so most of it comes naturally and doesn't need to be thought about. I didn't quite succeed on all parts of PIE in my rough draft. I think my point and explanation are strong but illustration needs work. Most of my "illustration" came from general information or paraphrasing. I will look back on my rough draft with this in mind and hopefully add more sources in the process.

A few points in the "Tips for Writing Introductions" section are helpful. Grabbing the reader's attention is definitely something that needs to be done. The way QRG's are written helps this by the fact that they are broken up into subcategories so that the reader doesn't drain their attention span completely. QRG's still need a good hook at the very beginning so that people actually care about these subjects. Avoiding the "too much information" trap is also good advice to keep in mind while writing an intro. Sometimes I just write what's on my mind which quickly goes from an introduction to my whole case and point.

The whole conclusion section is useful to me. When I was writing the conclusion, I was at a loss of what to write about so I just summed up the arguments, but this gives plenty of content to write about in the final section. I need to keep in mind that this is the last thing readers will read so it needs to "drive my message home".


Not So Helpful Points

The entire thesis section is irrelevant to this genre. We do not have a thesis statement.

Some parts of the "Tips for Writing Introductions" are not helpful. We do not need to forecast the direction of the QRG - that's what subheadings are for. As long as our subheadings have some sort of logical flow, the direction doesn't need to be clear but it needs to be intuitive. So I guess in a way it is clear. One of the tips is "include a thesis statement". See brief paragraph above.

It seems to me that a lot of the organization advice is irrelevant to this genre. Most of their advice has to do with transition which I completely excluded from my QRG. The subheadings and short paragraph conventions of the QRG eliminate the need for well thought out transitions. Like I said before, the next paragraph should be intuitive and no transition is needed.


Reflection:
After reading the posts by Morgan and Mika, I decided I need to make these changes to my QRG:

1. I need to remove my bias from the QRG. I thought it said that we needed that in the final draft somewhere on the rubric but I read through it again and it in fact does not.
2. Make a more intriguing introduction and conclusion.
3. Make my evaluation of sources more concise so that it fits the standard paragraph length of this genre. 

Draft of Quick Reference Guide

I am not 100% confident in what I produced here. It needs more hyperlinks but that's pretty difficult to implement when the entirety of this is a paraphrase of all my sources. Anyway, feel free to absolutely cover it in red ink. I won't take it personally, it will only help my paper get better, help that I know it needs.

Here's my QRG.

Practicing Quoting

This my practice to be able to quote effectively.

 

Wuest, Kyle. Screenshot via GoogleDocs (9/10/15)

 

Cluster of My Controversy

My controversy is cloning. Last week, I collected various sources to research my controversy. For this post, I made a cluster for the controversy of cloning.

For my cluster, I broke this controversy into two distinct sides. Cloning can do so many things that some people think some aspects are good while others are bad, but I just made it into two sides of the controversy when in reality, many will find their views in the gray area. Also notice that the only groups mentioned are animal activist groups and that's because people don't consistently talk about cloning, most give their two cents then walk away from the subject.

 

 

Reflection:

 

After seeing Isabel and Jessica's maps, I see that mine is total garbage. I don't consider myself to be very artsy or tech-savvy and this just reaffirms what I already know about myself. I tried to use Google Drawing but I think I didn't completely utilize its abilities. Isabel and Jessica both used Coggle and both maps are so much better than my own.

 

I didn't find making a map very helpful but it seems way more useful the way Isabel and Jessica did it. My map divided into the pro and con sides, like Jessica's, but my descriptions of the viewpoints are not nearly as detailed. I think the map is most useful the way Isabel did it. She broke it up by the questions we needed to answer then explained the pro and con side of each question.   

QRGs: the Genre

After a week and a half of researching my controversy, I can almost start writing it, but not quite yet. Before trying to write a Quick Reference Guide, it is a good idea to know what a QRG looks like. In this blog post, I will analyze commonalities between five examples of a QRG.

1. What do the conventions of this genre - the Quick Reference Guide - seem to be? All these QRGs share a set of conventions. They all include images/visuals, short paragraphs, a relevant and descriptive title, subheadings, and use of white space.
2. How are those conventions defined by the author’s formatting and design choices? All examples exhibit these properties. Every subheading introduces a new aspect of the subject and the explanation is broken up into short paragraphs with plenty of space between. Most sections include a visual to help provide context or evoke emotion.
3. What does the purpose of these QRGs seem to be? These QRGs seem to be for the sole purpose of informing the reader on the subject. It is broken up into smaller categories to make it more readable and allow someone to skip a section if they already know all about it.
4. Who is the intended audience for these different QRGs? Are they all intended for similar audiences? Or different? How & why? The intended audience for the QRGs is anyone who doesn't know a lot about the subject. An expert on some subjects are not meant to read QRGs. Like an expert on Russian politics should not read the Sochi Opening Ceremony Explained or an expert on European economics would not need to read up on the Greek debt crisis.
5. How do the QRGs use imagery or visuals? Why do you think they use them in this way? Some QRGs use images to evoke emotion while others use visuals to show statistics. Their purposes vary greatly. The emotion-evoking shots can make the viewer feel like action needs to be taken on the subject while the stats make a difference look more profound.

Laughlin, Nicholas. "reading waugh at luquillo" 3/3/08 via flickr. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic



 

Reflection:

I read Alyssa's blog, Tobin's blog, and Isabel's blog. We all had nearly identical answers, most likely because we went over these questions in class, which was very helpful. I don't know how I would have answered these questions had we not gone over it in class. The most interesting point I found on Alyssa's blog. She wrote that the purpose of a QRG is to be a story-telling medium. I was treating it as an informative piece but I think viewing it as a story-telling medium will make revision much easier and help it flow better.

 

Annotated Bibliography in ACS Style

Throughout this week, I have been exploring sources for information on the controversial topic of cloning. In three previous posts, I evaluated two general internet sources, two scholarly sources, and two social media sources. In this post, I will make an annotated bibliography of the six total sources in the style my major uses: ACS. I am using the linked style guide. Since ACS requires sources to be organized by order mentioned in the paper, I will just organize it in order I found them. I cannot get the space formatting down using Blogger, so note that if the source takes more than one line, the second line and beyond should be flush with the first line, not the number.

(1) Human Cloning Controversy. https://humancloningcontroversy.wordpress.com/ (accessed September 5, 2015).

The purpose of "Human Cloning Controversy" is to inform the reader about the basics of the cloning controversy, equally representing both sides of the argument. It mentions many reasons for and against cloning such as the assistance it gives infertile couples to have a biological child and the hazardous procedure of cloning. This source will be used to counter opposing viewpoints as well as strengthen my own points.

(2) debate.org. http://www.debate.org/debates/Cloning/1/ (accessed September 5, 2015)

The purpose of this debate featured on debate.org is to allow two individuals of opposing views on the subject debate in a formal manner. It is open to public view, giving anyone seeking information useful points to make in their own work. In this debate, both sides mention multiple points, most prominent of which are cloning has medicinal benefits and cloning is an imperfect process, creating incomplete and often defective results. This source will be used for the same purpose as the previous: to counter opposing viewpoints and strengthen my own arguments.

(3) Rollin, B. Keeping up With the Cloneses: Issues in Human Cloning. http://www.jstor.org 

(accessed September 5, 2015)

The purpose of "Keeping up With the Cloneses: Issues in Human Cloning" by Bernard E. Rollin is to prove false concerns of those against cloning. The works cited section of this essay is omitted, leaving the reader to guess how studies were conducted. He writes about the points that cloning is considered ethically wrong, cloning inevitably leads to negative results, and cloning harms the produced organism. Since this essay is on a polar end of the spectrum in this debate, it will be used to represent the points of that end and the points will be countered.

(4) Stabile, B. Demographic Profile of States with Human Cloning Laws: Morality Policy Meets Political Economy. http://www.jstor.org (accessed September 5, 2015)

The purpose of "Demographic Profile of States with Human Cloning Laws: Morality Policy Meets Political Economy" by Bonnie Stabile is to determine a trend between general demographics of a state and their laws pertaining to cloning. Demographic information was taken from federal records. Studies show that tend to have more liberal politics are more likely to be permissive of cloning. A surprise in the study is that states with higher Roman Catholic citizens are also more likely to be permissive of cloning. This source will be used to draw ties within the liberal side of politics, now divided over cloning due to animal welfare.

(5) Cloning - A Catastrophe in the Making. http://www.ciwf.org.uk/news/cloning-a-catastrophe-in-the-making/ (accessed September 5, 2015)

The purpose of "Cloning - A Catastrophe in the Making" published by Compassion in World Farming is to bring attention to recent legislation in the European Union to make the ban on animal cloning permanent. It states that cloning often does not produce good results for the clone, which frequently has major health problems and a short life. This source will be used to point out major ethical problems of cloning now embraced and promoted in media often associated with liberal politics.

(6) Cohen, H. Vanity Fair News. http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/07/polo-horse-cloning-adolfo-cambiaso (accessed September 5, 2015)

The purpose of the article "How Champion-Pony Clones Have Transformed the Game of Polo" by Haley Cohen is not to tell how champion-pony clones have changed polo, but to tell us how great Adolfo Cambiaso is at polo and that cloning does have merit. Using the cells of one of Cambiaso's champion horses, modern science was able to create a clone - Jurassic Park style. This source will be used to address the merit of cloning in finding a middle ground between the positions of this debate.

(7) whenderson1900 P3reverenceforlife https://p3reverenceforlife.wordpress.com/2015/06/11/cloning/ (accessed September 10, 2015)

The purpose of the blog post "Cloning" by whenderson1900 is to briefly explain the religious views against cloning. It goes through many reasons why Christians think cloning is a form of playing God. This source will be used to explain the anti-cloning side of this debate, particularly the religious anti-cloning side.

(8) Cash, A. LexisNexis Academic http://www.lexisnexis.com.ezproxy2.library.arizona.edu/hottopics/lnacademic/ (accessed September 10, 2015)

The purpose of "Attack of the Clones: Legislative Approaches to Human Cloning in the United States" by Adrienne Cash is to explain legislation regarding cloning in the United States. The main point is that legislation blocks human reproductive cloning but not therapeutic cloning. It explains that legislation blocking all types of cloning would violate rights to scientific inquiry. This source will be used to explain cloning laws in the United States.

(9) The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/09/08/world/europe/ap-eu-europe-animal-cloning.html?_r=0 (accessed September 10, 2015)

The purpose of the article "EU Lawmakers Back Animal Cloning Ban" by the Associated Press is to inform the reader that EU lawmakers support legislation banning animal cloning. It was a decisive vote at 529-120. This will be used to call attention to the irony that many find it inhumane to clone animals but have absolutely no problem with human cloning.

(10) The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/07/world/asia/07briefs-australiaclone.html (accessed September 10, 2015)

This is a very brief article stating that the Australian government voted to lift the ban on human therapeutic cloning. This will be used as evidence that some are ironically in favor of forms of human cloning but totally against animal cloning.


Reflection:

I read Jayni and Ayra's annotated bibliographies. Ayra used APA style, which was different from mine. APA style looks like a slight pain to format which is better than most styles, but I'm certainly grateful to have ACS. She stated the audience in her bibliography which I didn't do so I'll make sure I clearly explain the context in the QRG. Jayni used ACS style which is the same as mine. Her annotated bibliography looked different from my own. She had hanging indents and more detail about the content presented in each source. This is from differences in style guides. When I need to make an ACS bibliography again I will ensure I have the right formatting since our guides conflict.

Ideology in My Controversy

In my previous 3 posts, I evaluated general internet sources, scholarly sources, and social media sources pertaining to my controversy: cloning. In this post, I will analyze the ideology behind differing viewpoints.

1. Who is involved in the controversy? If you live in a democracy, you are involved in this controversy. There is a definite split between sides in my older sources: liberal ideals tended to favor cloning while conservative ideals tended to disapprove of it. As my sources get more and more recent, the division isn't black and white, it's gray. People disapprove of certain aspects about cloning while endorse other aspects. These aspects range from human cloning to animal cloning to cloning just for genetic enhancement.
2. Who are the major speakers of these groups? The loudest groups are animal welfare groups. Human cloning is not to the level of advancement that we can argue about it; it's not even a real thing yet (so they tell us). Animal cloning, however, is a different story. With increased sympathy for animals over the years, animal welfare groups have attacked animal cloning with increased intensity. Views differ by whether or not it is ethical to clone an animal or clone it while revising its DNA to be more beneficial for consumables produced by animals, or if animal cloning is ethical at all. Legislation in the European Union bans animal cloning.
3. What kind of social/cultural/economic/political power does each group hold? These welfare groups hold a proportional amount of power to the number of supporters they have. This power is rooted in social and cultural attributes of those who support them and in democracy, that shifts to political power. With high sympathy for animals in today's world, these groups hold a formidable amount of power.
4. What resources are available to different positions? Welfare organizations have news resources to keep an eye on legislative developments regarding animal welfare. It's a bit odd to think, but their supporters are a resource. They can use the voices of their supporters to promote popularity of their ideals.
5. What counts as evidence for the different positions? Animal welfare groups do not use logic to attack scientific advancements in the animal cloning department. They use emotion of their supporters to deter the use of cloning of animals and promote legislation banning animal cloning.
6. Is there power differential between the groups? It seems to be pretty even between those who think animal cloning is okay to enhance the gene pool and those who oppose all animal cloning. I think this is because some know more about the process of cloning and find it okay or not okay while others just take a stand based on their prior views of the topic.
7. Is there any acknowledged common ground between the groups? It's difficult to tell what is all going on in commenters' heads when they write a comment about this subject, but I'm sure most people do not want animals to be harmed for the sake of scientific advancement. The line turns to gray when discussing whether or not we should clone to feed the world's population at the expense of these animals' health.
8. Is there any unacknowledged common ground? Like I stated before, there is an excess of gray area in this debate. Not everyone discussing this subject knows everything about it and they take a stand based on what they do know. Common ground or lack thereof constantly changes when a new fact emerges on the subject. That change of common ground expresses how much unacknowledged common ground there was between one of the many viewpoints in this debate.
9. Do the groups listen to each other? With so many positions in this debate, it's almost impossible not to hear the other viewpoints. Many arguments in this debate are not a matter of logic, but an argument of whose emotional disposition to the subject is most popular. People in today's world are so good at sharing their emotions and getting very defensive if someone else thinks differently, but often times positions hold some emotional commonalities which makes the debate less heated unless two people on total opposite sides of the spectrum "discuss" it.

alliserdem, "Peta2 Stop Animal Slaughter" 8/2/12 via deviantart.com. Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported

*note: I do not endorse nor oppose PETA. It's just an image depicting an animal welfare organization.

Evaluation of Social Media Sources

Evaluation of Scholarly Sources

In my previous post, I evaluated general sources pertaining to my controversy: cloning. In this post, I will evaluate scholarly sources from the JSTOR database.

Source 1: Keeping up with the Cloneses: Issues in Human Cloning

1. What is its purpose? This article aims to debunk what the author considers to be real concerns about cloning.
2. How and where was it published? This is an article in The Journal of Ethics Vol 3, No. 1 published in 1999 by Springer. Springer in recognized as one of the top publishers in the scientific fields. They have offices in New York, Germany, and The Netherlands.
3. What kinds of sources does it cite? This article sites journals, polls and news articles.
4. Who is the author? The author is Bernard E. Rollin. He is a professor of philosophy, animal sciences, and biomedical sciences at Colorado State University.
5. Who is the intended audience? The intended audience is anyone that wants to read up on the cloning debate. This article presents arguments from both sides but tries to debunk the anti-cloning side of the argument, therefore one cannot conclude that that side was properly represented.
6. How did I find this? I found this article on the JSTOR database.

Source 2: Demographic Profile of States with Human Cloning Laws: Morality Policy Meets Political Economy

1. What is its purpose? This article seeks do determine a trend between the demographics of people in a state and their laws pertaining to human cloning.
2. How and where was it published? This is published in a compilation of works called Politics and The Life Sciences Vol. 26, No. 1 by the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences at Utah State University.
3. What kinds of sources does it cite? This article cites news articles, journals, and US government statistics.
4. Who is the author? Bonnie Stabile wrote this article. She is an assistant professor for the School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs at George Mason University.
5. Who is the intended audience? The intended audience is anyone researching the subject of cloning. The article states interesting findings linking policy and moral bases of various populations.
6. How did I find this? I found this article on the JSTOR database.

xXFoxxy-SilverFangXx "Cloning". 8/17/12 via deviantart.com. Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported

Evaluation of General Sources

Although biomedical engineering is a nerdy major, it has some controversies that affects everyone. One of the biggest controversies is cloning. When scientists cloned a sheep named Dolly in 1996, the world saw the potential of cloning and the pros and cons that go with it. To this day, almost 20 years later, cloning is a major subject of controversy. In this blog post, I will go through two sources that I find useful in researching this topic.

Source 1: Human Cloning Controversy

1. URL: This site's URL ends in .com, which usually indicates that this site is not trustworthy for quality information. However, this site starts with https, the "s" indicates that the site is secure. After just skimming this site, one can tell it looks like a blog. The .com may be because the author used another site to write this post.
2. Author: This site does not state an author. This detracts from credibility.
3. Last Updated: This source was last updated on August 16, 2011. There are links on the page that direct to other entries on this blog-like site. They have an "Introduction to Cloning" as well as a post about the cons and another about the pros. All links work.
4. Purpose: The author's goal is to inform the reader on the basics, pros, and cons of cloning. Both sides are covered with a roughly equal amount of information.
5. Graphics: There is one image for each post. They are generic pictures that relate to cloning and don't say much about the topic. The most recent image may be taken as something philosophical. The image depicts many fake faces lined up on a clothes line. They all look the same. This may relate to the point that an excess of human cloning will make people start to seem like objects more than people, but I think it's just a picture with no underlying meaning.
6. Position on Subject: The author takes no position on the subject, they simply inform the reader on the two sides of the argument. This information is easy to verify because the topics discussed are mostly opinions on the subject and reactions to hypotheticals from relatively minimal knowledge of real time progress in cloning research.
7. Links: This blog does not give links to other sources.

"Hello, Dolly" Barros, Toni. 1/28/09 via Flickr.com. Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

 Source 2: Debate Issue: Cloning

1. URL: This is a .org site. debate.org is a pretty well known site to get a lot of information fast on a controversial subject. However, I will look at databases for my quotable information instead of sites on Google.
2. Author: This site allows users to share their thoughts in a professional manner (as well as say whatever they want unprofessionally in the comments section). This has two users go back and forth on the subject. The usernames are gibsonm496 and Riikashi. No information on Riikashi can be found and no real name for gibsonm496 is found, however his profile does reveal that he is conservative, yet takes the generally recognized liberal side in the argument.
3. Last Updated: This debate occurred six years ago. There is a link in the comments section that leads to a site that walks through the process of cloning. There are no links in the debate section of this site.
4. Purpose: The text is trying to come to a conclusion on whether or not cloning should be continued. Two users debate in two rounds then the community is supposed to vote on it. Unfortunately, no one voted by the time voting closed, so it is indecisive as to which side is more popular.
5. Graphics: There are no graphics on this site.
6. Position on Subject: The user that started the debate is in favor of advancing cloning. However, this is a debate site, so the other side is represented with just as much text by another user.
7. Links: There are no links other than the aforementioned link. This link seems legitimate, but I have not read into it too much because I always use database articles for research. Most things I can Google are not recognized as scholarly.

My Major

My future was pretty much set in stone at the end of junior year of high school. I was going to go to the U of A to seek a future in medicine.  That's nice, but I really had no idea how I was going to get the medical field. I needed a real and "pre-med" wasn't one. My father influenced me to look into the engineering field, and he introduced me to a new major called biomedical engineering. My reaction was, "Cool ... but what is biomedical engineering?" After doing some research, here is what I found.

Milorad, Dimic. Monoplace hyperbaric chamber, Serbia. via Wikipedia. Attribution 3.0 Unported 

1. What do students in biomedical engineering learn to do? Biomedical engineering merges the medical field and the engineering field. Biomedical engineers make equipment to assist the medical field, such as bioimaging, bioprocessing, and cardiovascular equipment, nanomedicine, and sensors & implementation.
2. What do people who get degrees in biomedical engineering go on to do for work? Biomedical engineers can do a number of jobs. They are qualified to create and maintain various types of medical equipment, depending on the engineer's experience. This is helpful in hospitals, where there is an abundance of medical equipment, as well as in companies that make the equipment and constantly innovate it.
3. What drew you to this field? I was drawn to this field because I want to go into the medical field. I am proficient at math and science, which is a good fit with engineering, and biomedical engineering gives me knowledge of the medical field so I can do well on the MCAT down the road.
4. Who are the leaders/most exciting people in biomedical engineering right now? Why?Biomedical engineering is a relatively new area of study, but there are some individuals who have utilized it. Nicholas A. Peppas is a chemical and biomedical engineer. Most of his work has been done in drug delivery. Yuan-Cheng Fung has written many books on biomechanics, which is an integral part of biomedical engineering. There's an equation he made and named after himself. I'd try to explain it but honestly it's so far over my head that I can't. But if you have an equation named after you, it must be important.
5. What are the leading academic/scholarly journals in biomedical engineering? Where are they published? The top biomedical engineering journal is Nature Nanotechnology. It covers a variety of geeky subjects including biomedical engineering and consistently ranks in the top 25% every year since its conception. It is published by Nature Publishing Group based in the United Kingdom. Another journal is Nature Biotechnology. It is similar to Nature Nanotechnology in that it covers a variety of topics and has rated in the top 25% for the last 15 years by nerds all over the world. It is also published by Nature Publishing Group. Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering is also highly regarded. It does not cover a wide variety of subjects like the first two. It is published by Annual reviews Inc. based in California, USA.

Reflection:

I found two people in the class on a similar path as me, Savannah and Nick. I can relate to their posts because they aren't exactly sure what they want to do but they know that they are interested in engineering. Similarly, I knew I wanted to go into the medical field but I didn't know how I wanted to get there through much of my senior year in high school. I am very happy that I chose an engineering route rather than trying for a major in chemistry or biology. Like Savannah and Nick, engineering compliments my ability for math and science. They both mentioned that engineers work to better society and I agree 100%.