Final Reflection

English 103 focuses on the theme Culture, Identity, and Society. We finished assignments on visual rhetoric, including the ideas of logos, pathos, and ethos, and assignments that focused on our ability to use technology. We incorporated rhetoric into each assignment throughout the semester, and used rhetoric as a main tool of influence and argumentation to either persuade or move our audience to our point of view.
In the first assignment on advertisements, we focused our attention on how well an advertisement accomplished bringing in clientele for its business and how rhetoric was displayed in pictures, words, and setting. In our second assignment, we conducted research on important issues in our society today, and tied together background information of the issue and personal ideas about how our culture should react to the issue. In our third assignment, we used rhetorical strategies to develop an argument about either problems in our immediate society or in our broad culture today. We used technology, including Windows MovieMaker and digital cameras, to capture videos and pictures that would generate and support our argument.
Each assignment incorporated rhetorical ideas to provide basis for argument, but also included influences from culture, our own personal identities, and society. English 103 has taught us to use rhetoric to form our ideas over an argument and use them to define our place in society today.

p. 210-Group Discussion

1. Our presentation will consist of our movie and pictures with oral speech.
2. Our audience is the class, students who also have eaten at the dining halls and understand everything we're talking about in the videos. That common background will help our audience relate to our purpose and views. Our audience deals with dining hall food everyday and will probably agree with us completely.
3. Our purpose is to show how bad the dining hall food is and to convince enough people to try to change what is offered in dining halls.
4. Our presentation is considered deliberative or legislative discourse. It is designed to argue a position.
5. We want to come across as concerned and friendly to our audience. I want to be seen as an equal that happens to be doing something about a common problem.
6. We want to use an informative and concerned tone in this paper.
7. We'll use quotes and data from research and photographs and videos in a movie/photo essay.

p. 219

Format for our presentation:
Our presentation will sort of be a mix between a photo essay, with pictures and written comments about the pictures, and a movie, with videos and interviews with people around campus.
Materials used for our presentation:
Digital camera with video, Windows Movie Maker
Potential outline:
-What foods could be better
-What students want to replace the current dining hall foods
-What dining hall faculty think is available to replace dining hall food
-What are some healthier choices available

p. 174 At a Glance-Draft Revision

When looking at my first draft after a long break, I noticed that I often assumed the reader already had background knowledge on my topic, which led me to leave out important definitions and statements that would help the reader understand my argument. I also noticed that I would give evidence to support my argument but not say where the evidence came from or elaborate on how the evidence backed up each point of my argument.
In the middle of my paper, where I defined different types of stem cells, I need to use sections to clearly separate the differences in each type of stem cell. I also need to improve my transitions within each paragraph of my paper, and include an image.
Revising my paper would help the paper flow better and make it easier for the reader to understand each specific point of my argument. All of my revisions will help connect every idea in my paper.

Christopher McKee
Research Paper Outline
March 3, 2009
Stem Cells in Treatment of Parkinson's Disease
Introduction:

1. Give my own personal experience growing up watching my father's Parkinson's disease progress, limiting his ability to work and enjoy many activities that were everyday life.
2. Give background information on stem cells and Parkinson's disease.
3. Talk about how the idea of treatment using stem cells gives not only my dad, but my entire family, hope for finding a cure for this disease.
4. Thesis: Stem cells could provide a potential cure for Parkinson's disease in a short amount of time, and with new noncontroversial forms of stem cells, we should waste no time in research and the pursuit of a better quality of life for Parkinson's patients.

1. First Body Paragraph: Parkinson's Disease

• Causes
• Symptoms
• Current treatments
• Use interview with my dad and the book by Evelyn B. Kelly

2. Second Body Paragraph: Stem Cells

• Define what stem cells are and where they are found
• Differentiate between embronic and adult stem cells, and how the use of adult, or somatic, stem cells would eliminate the controversy of stem cells.
• Discuss the past research developments that placed stem cells as a top priority for medical treatment.

3. Third Body Paragraph: Somatic Stem Cells in Treating Parkinson's Disease

• Embryonic stem cells have proved fairly successful in treating similar diseases to Parkinson's disease in mice.
• Somatic stem cells can be researched and developed to be just as useful as embryonic stem cells.
• Discuss how transplantation of stem cells into the brain can reproduce lost neurons that produce dopamine.

4. Conclusion:

• Somatic stem cells should be researched further in order to produce an effective treatment for Parkinson's disease.
• Stem cell therapy could provide the cure for Parkinson's disease.
  

Plagiarism

Plagiarism in any form can not only damage a student's grade and reputation, but can also reflect badly on the original author of the work. Students who are caught plagiarizing are viewed as slackers and cheaters who will do anything to get a good grade for the lack of work. Here at Clemson, the idea of a good grade gets knocked out immediately upon the decision to copy someone's work because of the anti-plagiarism policy, and the sudden consequences of copying another person's work can be a failed assignment, course, or expulsion from Clemson University all together. The student who is caught copying another work automatically brings a negative reputation to his or her name and negates whatever is claimed original in the assignment. Plagiarism also damages the original author's work, leading people to associate the negative work of the cheater with the authentic work of the author. Plagiarism, or any other form of copying another person's work and claiming it as one's own, is wrong and should not be accepted anywhere for any assignment.

Log - February 16

I found another book title Stem Cell Now, by Christopher Thomas Scott, which mentions the use of stem cells for Parkinson's Disease on page 3 and talks about the development of the nervous system on page 31 and discuss how neural stem cells work on the following pages, mentioning Parkinson's and other diseases. Starting on page 78, there is a section titled, "Can Embryonic Stem Cells Cure Parkinson's Disease?" My paper is on somatic stem cells curing Parkinson's Disease, but this section might have useful information relevant to my topic.