Research Log #1

Topic:  Media’s Effect on Body Image

2/20 –  dayofthegirl.org/girls-issues/negative-media-images-of-girls-and-teens/

This image pertains to my main argument that media has an effect on girls body
image.  The media is constantly subliminally telling girls that they aren’t pretty enough, skinny enough, or talented enough if they don’t look like the people on tv, billboards or in magazines.

2/23 - http://blogs.psychcentral.com/weightless/2010/10/why-the-media-isnt-to-blame-for-eating-disorders/

2/24 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/428392.stm

This blog post and this article on BBC news both counter my argument that the media isn’t responsible for girls’ negative view of their body image or eating disorders.

Academic Integrity Pledge

            Academic integrity is something that all students should have.  It is the foundation for a successful college career and ultimately a career after college.  It is similar to an honor code.  Students who have academic integrity uphold this code of honesty in their schoolwork.  When a person has academic integrity, they don’t cheat or plagiarize and when they use other people’s work, they give him or her credit for it.

            Cheating is taken very seriously at most schools, especially Clemson.  When a person cheats, he or she does their work in a dishonest way such as using a peer’s work or letting a peer use their work.  Both people involved are compromising their academic integrity and are only hurting themselves.  Plagiarism is a common problem when it comes to academics because a lot of papers, essays, and projects require research to write about the topic.  Some people find resources to use in their assignments, but do not cite them and this is a violation of academic integrity.

Academic integrity is very important because, without most people having it, the school system would become corrupt.  The value of a college degree would greatly decrease and the students who actually had academic integrity will be among the people who don’t have it.  People will realize that they can cheat and get by without doing much work.  When you take away the incentive of success through hard work, people will stop wanting to work hard. 

I will do a lot to make sure that I have academic integrity.  I will make sure everything is my own work, thoughts and opinions and, if I use someone else’s work, I will make sure to give credit to them.  I will not use any of my peers’ work and I won’t let anyone use mine.  I know the importance of academic integrity and will uphold it in every assignment I do.

Visual Rhetoric Essay

           All throughout grade school I struggled with writing papers.  I was never good at processing ideas and putting them in a logical order and it always seemed like I had to do three times the planning and idea mapping as everyone else.  Also, it always took me about five times longer than everyone else to write papers and I still found myself getting lower grades on them.  Writing this paper has helped me significantly with planning out my ideas and putting them in a logical order through the various techniques that you taught us and all of the ones listed in the DK handbook.  However, I still had some trouble putting my ideas together into a paper.  I had all of them listed in a logical order, but they all seemed to link to one another so I didn’t know how to separate them into paragraphs.  In my rough draft, I ended up putting almost all of my ideas into one big paragraph, which made my paper not flow correctly.  That was a big problem that I struggled with, but when you handed back my paper with the feedback, it helped a lot.  I found it easier to write my paper once I realized how to categorize my ideas into separate paragraphs.  I did have some other problems though. 

The problem that I struggled with the most was that I couldn’t seem to get to 1500 words.  I got to about 1000 words and it seemed that all I had to write left was my conclusion and I would be done.  I felt that if I added anything else to my paper that it wouldn’t flow together or I’d have to force myself off topic just to get to the word limit.  However, after going back over and over again and stretching thin every topic that I had, and after adding a few things in, I reached 1500 words. 

I think I can improve on a few things for my next paper.  I will definitely try to do a bubble map to plan out and narrow down my thoughts.  I feel like that will help me be able to stretch out my ideas so the word limit isn’t a problem and I also think it will help my paper flow better.  Also, I will make sure to not procrastinate as much.  I had a lot of tests and assignments due for other classes the same week the paper was due so I found myself continuously pushing it off. Next time, I want to try to write a little bit every night so I’m not spending hours at a time writing it and stressing myself out.