One

#1

“This demonstrates that ID is clearly a religious movement.”

This is a hasty generalization. Where I placed this statement in my paper I had not yet provided sufficient evidence to argue that it is clearly a religious movement. I would change this to:

These statements suggest that the motives of the ID movement have a religious basis.

#2

“When the Court held that evolution could be taught, conservative Christian groups entertained a new strategy, which was to push for the teaching of  ‘creation science’ alongside evolution.”

This statement may be an example of false cause. There appears to be a link in time between the two events which could be interpreted as cause and effect, but might not necessarily be so.

It is interesting to note that when the Court held that evolution could be taught, conservative Christian groups entertained a new strategy, which was to push for the teaching of  ‘creation science’ alongside evolution.

Two

My poster will contain various categories. The title is “Intelligent Design’s Changing Faces.” Sections include: what ID is, religious movement, creationism, history of movement, attacking evolution, becoming a science, not being a science, the wedge document, the popularity of the movement, the future and the truth. There will be a timeline of the picturing the ID movement’s progression of terminology.

PART ONE:

Fallacy number one:

Women in the world such as Angela Merkel and Oprah Winfrey inspire millions of women everywhere so that they may do what is best to actively help the world.

This is a non sequitur because I am implying that what Angela Merkel and Oprah Winfrey do has correlation with how the Catholic Church is run. I plan on constructing an entirely new sentence to begin this paragraph.

Fallacy number two:

Women are taking on far more responsibilities within their communities, and these skills of managing these important tasks prove them as an excellent candidate for helping the Roman Catholic Church in their time of need.

This is a false analogy. I’m assuming that because they do well with community responsibilities that they’ll be useful to the church. Again i will probably reconstruct the paragraph so that the fallacy will be removed. Perhaps I will create a new focus within that paragraph so that such a statement is supported by evidence within the church.

PART TWO:

There are many graphs on the trend in priesthood that I can put on the poster board, but I would also like to show images of the Catholic Church in general. So I may put statistical and graphical information on the sides and in the middle express the hardship and hope of the church with images and (using my three hundred words) quotes from those who are knowledgeable in the crisis. I also may have a chart of the things Dean Hoge wrote to help change the numbers in the priesthood amongst the images.

Part  I

A Non Sequitur fallacy in my paper appears on page 6:

“According to Hans Geser in his article Understanding Mobile Technology from a Sociological Perspective in the book Thumb Culture, ‘the cell phone is prone to increase the pervasiveness of the most intimate personal relationships in individual life… it offers an easy escape route from unfamiliar public encounters’ (Thumb Culture 31). As a result, society has become more and more individualized.”

This can be fixed by going explaining Geser’s quote and going more in depth into it. Additionally,  clarification of the claim that society has become more individualized might also help.

A Hasty Generalization fallacy can be found in the same paragraph:

“Uncertainty and unfamiliarity are high in public places; the mobile phone only adds to this. Instead of facing that fear and overcoming it, people shrink away into their phones. What’s easier: talking to a stranger or texting your best friend? Society would say the latter, but is society always right?”

This can be corrected by doing more research about cell phone usage in public, as well as changing the language and meaning of the sentence “Instead of facing…”

Part II

For my poster presentation, I will probably need to find more graphs and charts to really bring out what my paper is talking about. I will most likely put these in the center of my poster, and have a paragraph explaining the graph.  In addition, a picture or two of people on their phones in public wouldn’t hurt. This could go on one of the panels of my poster. Lastly, I might put my the concluding paragraph of my paper (which describes what action should be taken with regard to proper cell phone etiquette) on the other side panel.

The process of putting my presentation together has made me realize that I need to pick specifically what other, more commonly accepted treatments to Alzheimer’s diesease I am going to compare to that of coffee. I also feel that I need to look at more case studies and experimental analysis of both studies using coffee as a treatment and another form of treatment. I did find some studies on coffee, but I would have to look at more than one in order to see if the results vary between how it affects Alzheimer’s in one case verses other cases. The same goes for the other treatment that i will eventually choose.

The questions that people asked has allowed me to realize that in my research paper I will need to include background information on the disease itself so that people will understand the cases i am anylzing. I also must make it more clear that my question is that because coffee is so accessible does its affects on Alzheimer’s disease compare to the treatments that are more commonly accepted?

The presentation in some ways helped to focus my research, considering how each article I came across interacted with my research question. In preparation I looked at more general background research in the subject, which helped me to get a grounding in the literature and to begin to focus my question accordingly. In putting together the presentation I also began to get a sense of some differences in viewpoints not just within any individual scholarly society, but between sources of scholaraly information–that is, educational research vs. cognitive science and psychology research vs. more neuroscience oriented research.

The questions I was asked presented some direction for further research, and the idea of using my paper as a forum to present an experimental methodology that would mitigate some of the differences within curernt experiments and answer my research question by considering individually the contributing factors which are currently not often considered in isolation.

I feel like my research question is focused in that I’m going to use a specific film adaptation as a context for how Asians/Asian Americans are represented in US films. However, I realized that I’m not sure what the thread of my project is. The movie adaption of Avatar: The Last Airbender (A:TLA) stripped away the Asian/Inuit elements of the show; the main cast is mostly Caucasian, and the one character who’s non-white is the villain; etc. Is my argument that the casting perpetuates racism in Hollywood? Is my argument that the movie was an opportunity to “re-image” Asians (from traditional/negative stereotypes) but the opportunity was wasted? Am I talking about the representation of Asians or Asian Americans? Am I talking about Asian actors or Asian American actors (e.g., I feel like Asian actors get some exposure in Hollywood but not so much Asian American actors)? Am I going to talk about how the casting of the movie reflects (subtle but still insidious) racism in America (e.g., one source I read talked about how some people argue that racism has almost disappeared)? So really, I feel I like I need to know what position/direction I’m going to take/go.

Putting together my presentation on Creationism, ID, and evolutionism most helped me clarify what my specific research question should be. There is quite a bit of information pertaining to this issue in terms of scholarly resources in the field. I was able to identify that I was not fully clear in my question and it was not focused enough. My focused question is: Should Intelligent Design be taught as an additional theory to evolution in the public school science classroom?

The questions after my presentation helped me realize that I need to find resources on the side of the Design proponents to have a more balanced argument. These sources may come from websites, books, or other publications. However, there are no peer-reviewed resources on the topic of ID, so I will need to use websites of these Design proponents and books they have written.

Putting together the presentation for my research question made me realize that my topic was still too broad and that I needed to narrow down the focus of my paper even further than I had anticipated. As well, the presentation allowed me to organize my thoughts into a more manageable format; this was useful because my research now has more direction and my argument is easier to follow.

The questions asked about my presentation in general helped reinforce the notion that my topic needed to be more focused. The question about the incorporation of “Elmo” in my presentation was helpful because it allowed me to reflect upon the larger implications of a cultural icon seemingly unimportant to my research topic.

While completing my Power Point presentation I realized that it would be much easier to narrow my focus down.  I had to choose what good I would concentrate on, which developing country I need to research specifically, as well as other aspects.  I realized that I need to pull together conclusions I make from various studies about poverty, trade and international relations to produce a new argument.  After presenting and evaluating other presentations, I now realize how much more I need to narrow my focus because I am being flooded with information.  I should narrow which industry in the meat market to study, like the beef  market.  I should narrow my study of the Ethiopian population affected to the rural farmers, etc.  I need to research so much more information about economics and economic implications of the global food trade.

By putting together my presentation, I realized the necessity for defined goals as it comes to my research.  I mean, in order for me to say that the market for human organs is “good” or “bad,” I must first define what good and bad are.

The questions after my presentation really relate to this, because they somewhat represent what others define as good and bad.  For example, I received a few questions on how ethics will apply to my research, and the significance of ethics compared to other ways of judging the market for human organs.

When I was creating my presentation i realized that I need to work on defining and limiting the variables in the analysis I do.

After presenting my pecha kucha, the questions asked by the class revealed that I needed to explain why it was important and who has high stakes in the outcome, as well as summarizing the current research better.

After putting together my presentation I realized that there is a lot more information on this subject then I had originally thought, which will be helpful, but at the same time that information is not always easy to find. It also helped me realize that Catholicism in elections is truly a debated subject as everyone had questions on the topic and I had to be cut short. The question my presentation helped me realize was “How can I show that the Catholic influence in elections is truly a problem?” because what I got from some people’s questions and reactions to my topic was that they didn’t really view it as a problem or that they hadn’t even know this was really affecting elections that much.

Going through the process of putting my own presentation together made me realize multiple things.  Firstly, that my topic was still incredibly too broad.  Other students had topics similar to mine, and that made me realize that I needed to narrow my research into a more specific topic.  I went from a broad take on the relationship between technology and society to a more focused look at the role that computers play on the youth in public schools in the United States.  After giving my presentation, the questions helped me realize that I needed to pick some criteria.  I need to figure out exactly how I’m going to measure internet and computer usage in elementary schools as a failure or success.  Also, I need to make sure to stay on topic with one type of technology (internet), instead of straying into other things such as smart-boards or podcasts.

By putting together my powerpoint presentation, I realized that I actually have a lot more information on my topic than I first expected. When the information was floating around in my head, I was anxious that it all was not substantial enough to turn into a 12-page paper. Once I had to put it all down in words to turn into the presentation, however, I realized how much I really do have. So, this presentation assignment worked to quell my anxiety about the paper. It also greatly helped me to clarify my argument and highlight the parts I need to investigate more – so now I have a clear idea of what I need to do next to beef up my research. I realized that I have been collecting a lot of research for one part of my paper while I’ve been neglecting an equally important part of my paper. This means I’ll spend less time researching what I already have enough of.

Putting together the presentation made me realize how much information there are out there on my topic, and from how many view points you can look at it.  There was so much I found that I didn’t know what to do with, so I kind of just meshed everything together.

The responses I received helped me see that there were a lot of other really good studies done on my topic out there.  Also a comment I received about whether I would look at my topic from a psychological or a cultural viewpoint is really helping me decide how to narrow it down.

The first thing brought to my attention while putting together my presentation was that “gun control” was an unacceptably wide, vague topic. I simply couldn’t fit enough information into twelve pages to do it justice, let alone nine PowerPoint slides. That was what led me to narrow my focus to two particular cities, and that may yet be narrowed further.

The post-presentation questions reminded me to look at specific pieces of legislation, so as to draw a precise timeline of gun control law and crime. Putting together a chronology will help me establish whether crime increases follow anti-gun legislation or vice versa, and how closely gun control and crime rates are related.

In the beginning, putting together my presentation made me realize that my original topic was far to broad and that it needed serious revision. After actually revising my topic and getting into the research, putting together this presentation made clear the main points that I will need to focus upon in order to fully address all aspects of my topic as well as make a sound argument. It also made me realize that there are several possible solutions to the governmental conflict between the Sunni and Shiite’s in Iraq.

The questions afterward were also helpful by helping me to consider the wording of my actual research topic. At this point it may be to vaguely worded to actually convey the message I am trying to get across. Also, the questions afterward helped to lead me to new sources from which I will be able to gather useful information.

By putting together the power point presentation I began to coherently formulate the basis of my project. Before, the concept of my research question was vague and ephemeral, whereas now doing this presentation has forced me to make it much more concrete. Doing the presentation also forced me to more clearly see and understand the “They Say” part of the argument, something I had been rather confused about previously.

The questions after my presentation helped me to realize that I really need to find a definition for my topic (science fiction). A definition will help in pinpointing an origin for the genre by giving me a solid background from which to work off of.