Essay Analysis

Essay Errors:
In the Unit 1 essay, I realized that in the introduction, it would have been a better intro if I stayed away from background info and just got into the story. There was also a few grammatical errors that would need changing too. I also realize that I tend to have trouble with transitions. Not just from paragraph to paragraph, but sometimes just from from different sentences. I feel that I also need to be a little more clear with how I word my sentences. By reading some sentences they make sense to me but may not to the reader. And lastly I need to be more descriptive. Rereading my story makes me think that I need more descriptive words to help paint a picture for the reader.

In the Unit 2 essay, I once again catch myself not being fully clear on what I'm trying to say to the reader. Also, in my readership section, I was very general in describing how the readership was strong. I catch myself assuming things rather than describing what it really is. I make some claims in the paper that shouldn't have been made but instead worded differently. Last, I see that I'm using phrases like, "this is a good ad because..." when I need to phrase it like, "by doing this in the ad, it makes the ad stronger by...."

In the Unit 3 essay, I immediatley caught many grammatical errors just in the first paragraph. Also, when I quote the author from the article, I failed to cite where I got it from like page numbers. I do make claims that are true, but don't support my own claims by explaining how my claim is true. I also see that in my paper I also give too much information and sort of steer away from the main point I'm trying to make. Lastly, I feel that I'm repeating myself by saying that "this" made the article stronger, and "that" really helped. Instead I should focus on how to explain and support these claims I make.

Organization of Problems:
1. A problem that is easily fixed is grammar. I found that I often made small grammar errors that could have easily been avoided if I simply re read what I wrote.

2. I need to also be more clear with how I word my sentences. In all 3 papers, I found that the sentence would have made sense to me but may have been confusing to a reader that is not familiar with the topic.

3. I found some trouble with description too. I found myself describing something like a situation or a picture, but not fully. I have to re read a desription to make sure that it flows well and is fully described.
4. I found a few times that I poorly or not even at all supported my own claims with evidence. I would make a claim but sometimes fail to give my own evidence from the article proving why my claim is true.
5. I also feel that sometimes I lose focus on the main point and trend on a different topic. I need to keep focus up and sidetracking to a minimum.

Problem Analysis:

I feel that my biggest problem is supporting my own claims. I do sometimes support my claims but even then I think that they're not supported fully. I have improved the most in how clearly I write my sentences. Comparing the first paper to the third paper, I realized a great improvement on my sentences being more easily understood by the reader. They make more sense and are much more clear, but its not perfect. I know that my writing skills have improved because of how my papers are written. I feel that from the first to the third that my papers are more clear and sophisticated. I saw more general problems in my first essay and found that most were fixed by the third essay, but I'm now dealing with perfecting the more complex problems with my essays.

Unit 4 Reflection

Even though Unit 4 is at an end, I still have a lot of work to do due to technical errors. Although I'm not done, I still learned from it and will soon learn more. So far, I have learned how to take ideas from several sources and create a main idea based off of those sources. Unit 4 was rather hard from what I experienced, but I still have a lot to go. There was a lot of work that needed to be done but it wasn't impossible. It challenged me to work harder and that will help me in the future.

Group Synthesis Activity

Article 1-The thesis of "A Public Option That Works" is that there should be a public health care, like a universal health care, for the people that don't make enough money to pay for a private health care provider. Strong points of the article is that this is happening in San Francisco now. There is a public health care program also called a medical home for people that are under the poverty line.

Article 2-This article was about a plan to cover people in their twenties with health care. There were several ideas to try to cover these people. They wanted to appeal to young voters and their parents.
Thesis: Young voters need an easier way to afford health care.


Article 3-Germany: requires people making less than about $70,000 a year to have health insurance Care is provided by private doctors and a mix of private and public hospitals.

Sweden: Sweden provides universal health care coverage. Doctors can be government employees or private practitioners

Canada: Canada provides universal health care; Hospitals can be either public or private, but their budgets are negotiated with the government.

Italy: Italy offers health care to all residents.There are some private and for-profit hospitals.

Spain: Spain provides universal health care coverage; Doctors are private practitioners, and the majority of hospital beds are government-owned.

Australia: Australia provides health care to citizens, Public hospitals provide free care, while private hospitals tend to cater to people with private insurance.

Netherlands: Everyone living or working in the Netherlands is required to purchase health insurance

United Kingdom: The U.K. offers health care to all people "ordinarily resident" in the country.

France: France provides health care for all living in the country — legally and illegally.


Article 4-Thesis Statement: Obama told his audience the bill is needed because tens of millions of Americans have no health insurance and "live every day just one accident ... away from bankruptcy."

In this article the major points is that some people believe president Obama's induction to presidency was unlawful because they don't believe he is a natural born citizen of the United States, which is unlawful according to the constitution. In addition people believe that if Obama actually came through with this health coverage being a basic right it would basically give him more power and make him more of a success as an African American president. The author is trying to prove that the conservative are trying to do more than break president Obama, they are trying to say it's about political ressurection.

Group Thesis: Health care should become universal in the U.S. and in other countries to provide health care to the general public.

A Public Option That Works

The thesis of "A Public Option That Works" is that there should be a public health care, like a universal health care, for the people that don't make enough money to pay for a private health care provider. Strong points of the article is that this is happening in San Francisco now. There is a public health care program also called a medical home for people that are under the poverty line.

Myspac Generation + STAR Criteria

In the article, there is much evidence to support the claim. They say that social networking is become very popular very fast and it is being backed up by a lot of evidence. Throughout the whole article they give facts to support this such as, the average college student is social networking 6 hours a day.

The data does represent and is typical to basically everyone that is social networking.

They data that was given was very accurate because it talks about the facts that occur when people social network. It is also as up to date as it can be.

The data given is very relevent to the claim because most of the data supports the claim.

Group Statement

Thesis- social networking is constantly taking over the life of students teenagers and even adults and the generation and the interest of people are constantly changing but it's still going to be pointed toward that certain age group. advertisement is also popular with social networking because kids and different people are constantly using these social networking sites.

ethos was showing an understanding of social networking because the author has personal experience with using these sites.
logos was shown with studies of teenagers spending close to 6 hours a day on social networking. We agreed that there wasn't any pathos in our article as there were no emotions being shown.

STAR criteriaevidence- there was enough evidence as there were many examples of social networking targeting teens for different uses of advertisement.
typical- the examples are realistic because we go throw them in our everyday lives.
Data- the data is very up to date because its relatively new and it is mostly used by our generation.
accurate- yes this is relevant to the claim because when you use these social networking sites advertisements are found everywhere and they are almost always directed to our teenage group.

Mercury Readers Article Summary

Music
In this article, Allan Bloom talks about how "addicted" to music this generation is. He explains how younger kids from ages 10 to 20 "live for music." He explains the connection to listeners with different genres of music, such as classical, rock, etc. He also makes the connection between rock and drugs and sex.

The Comics
Athur Berger does a very good job of explaining comics in depth. He talks about the structure, content of the pictures, and the dialogue of comics. He then analyzes The Katzenjammer Kids by explaining whats going on and analyzing each frame of the comic.

The Myspace Generation
In this article, Jessi Hempel and Paula Lehman explain a few sites similar to Myspace and how they started out to help promote bands. This was because they wanted to put their music on their profile so they could be heard. Later in the article they talk about putting advertisements in sites such as myspace. They also explained the complications of putting ads in the sites.

Hate Radio
Patricia Williams starts off the article by explaining when she had first heard "hate radio" and the man and woman were talking about the replacement of Thurgood Marshall. She further explains what was being said about African Americans. She says how influential that radio and television is on "the course of history." She sums up the article by asking the question what kind of future are we setting up for ourselves by having support and investment of hate?