Nick Mikels GSW 1110 Blog (Fall 2009)

To me, academic honesty means that a student can be loyal and honest to their teachers and professors and have a relationship with them that is trustworthy. To have academic honesty a student needs to know their academic capability and needs to be able to do their own work without too much help or cheating (stealing papers, sparknotes, etc.). If academic honesty exists between students and teachers, the teachers know when they are about to read the paper that the work is done 100% by the students and they didn’t cheat to do it. Academic honesty is also bad because it misleads the teachers and it doesn’t show them the true capabilities of what you can do.

The prompt I am going to chose to write on is the one that has to do with whether or not parents have a right to monitor the various web accounts of their teens. I chose this particular prompt because I feel the most strongly about it over the other two topics.

            The side I am going to argue on this topic would have to be the side that the teens are on, or in other words, I am against parents monitoring their teens web accounts. I feel strongly about this because I do not believe at all that parents should be able to view and monitor their teens personal things online. It’s the same thing as if a teen wrote in a diary every night before they go to bed and put personal things about their life in it, and their parents read it while they were gone. It isn’t right at all. Yes, I understand that the parents have concerns about their kid posting things about themselves online for anybody to see, but for the most part kids only post information for people they know to see, and make sure nobody suspicious can read their personal things.

            There are many things a teen can do online and for the most part they know how to be safe. There is no reason for their parents to monitor what they do. I don’t see anything wrong with a parent asking what they post online or ask their kids if they are being safe online, but asking for information of their kids web accounts is taking it too far. If a kid says they don’t want their parent to monitor what they do online, a parent should leave it at that.

The first half of the Frontline video that we watched in class has good representation with an “Arguing a Position” video. In the “Arguing a Position” videos we watched, they showed how people stated what they believe in and tried to argue their position and why they believe in it. In this video “Growing up Online”, there was an underlying argument between adults, teachers, and parents, against their kid, or any teen for that matter. The parents believed that their kids were unsafe online and could be tracked down by online predators. They believe that even though their children say they are confident they are safe online,  they are still uncomfortable with the fact that they put personal things online that anybody can see. The teens tend to disagree. Most teens think that their parents are “old school” and that they don’t understand how to properly use online sources and they wouldn’t know whether their kids are being safe online because of their lack of technology knowledge.

                This particular movie shows well how two different sides of a topic are arguing their position in what they believe in. Though there really won’t be a true winning side in this argument, there could be a side of the argument that is stronger based off of the facts and information they have on their side of the argument.

There are many different uses in types of support in arguments. People use them to show how they support what they believe in an argument or to show their side of the argument and where they stand. Having certain types of support in arguments is very critical and should be effective. It shows how strongly you feel about something and why you are arguing. If someone is arguing for no apparent reason, that is senseless. There should always be a core reason to why someone argues. It’s alright if there are opposing feelings and sides of arguments because that’s make makes an argument. Disagreeing simply for the sake of disagreeing, would be considered contradicting, and there is no reason why that should ever be a circumstance if you are participating in an argument.

I am going to utilize the strategy of reading my paper aloud  to myself. I have honestly never done this but i think that it would help me out a lot in the sense that while i read if there are any haults or stumbling  of words aloud while i’m reading i will have to check that specific part and possibly change something around to make it more clear and easy to read. Reading aloud will help me make sure the flow of my paper is precise and it will also show me how the people that will be viewing my paper will be reading it also.

GSW 1110-1085

Nick Mikels

9/8/09

            I plan to use the readings and discussions in class strongly while I think about my plans for my revising. I’m very happy that we have done so much preparation for our papers and it is good that we do this much revision and checking our papers numerous times to make sure it can be better. In High School, I would have to revise my papers once at the most then that would be it. That is why my papers were always sub-par. Now that you have showed me many ways to look at a paper or have your paper looked at by someone to show you what you need to do to make it better, I think my papers will now be much more thorough and be better overall.

            I will apply certain strategies towards this revision, including making my story slightly more detailed and possibly making the length longer. I specifically have been told by my peer that I should add more detail to my story and how it related to me and I’m going to take that into consideration. If there is anything that was suggested for me to do by my peer when she read through my paper in the peer review process, I am going to make sure I read what she said I could do better and do what I can to make that specific part or section better.

There are many commonalities and elements among the essays that I read. Some of the elements would have to be friendship, courtesy, well-being, and thoughts. The essay that stuck out to me the most that had to do with friendship and courtesy would have to be Eve Birch’s story. It talked about how she was poor and her neighbors, who didn’t mean anything to her at first, meant everything to her in the end. They gave her food, hospitality, and friendship. The main element I would have to say that is linked to all of the essays I read would have to be well-being. I say this because in all the essays I read, the people telling the story went through predicaments and hard times, but came through and survived. They have a strong well-being and are all good people for that. They all learned something important that they never thought they would need to or want to learn.

            To explain the goals of a This I Believe essay, I would have to say along with what I said in the passage above this, I would also have to say success. Success is a very strong and solid word, but can mean many different things. I would link the word “success” to these This I Believe essays because in each short story, there was a success for someone or something. Like in Isabel Allende’s short story, she talked about how she thought nothing meant anything to her anymore after her daughter Paula died. She talked about how she didn’t want to do anything anymore and how she lost hope. Something sparked with Isabel and she became a better person. She realized that what you give, is what you get, and she loved giving, and not so much receiving. This to me would be considered success.

            So if I had to explain to someone that was unfamiliar with the This I Believe concept, I would have to say that success is what this book of short stories is all about. Many stories have hardships, but something good comes out of the hardships and that’s where the people become successful.

I think there are a broad amount of reasons as to why writing is important. Writing can help someone express their feelings, or emotions. Writing is a form of communication that is easy to use.

An explanation i would share with you about why i think writing is so important would have to be how writing can help someone express their feelings or emotions. I say this because some people can be very quiet and don’t like to communicate in person, so in writing they can express themselves and show people who they really are.

If i had to tell my ten year old child as to why writing is important, i would tell her that writing is a very fun and good thing to do. I would tell her that she will experience many times in the future in school where she will be faced with writing exercises.