Reflection
Essay
My experience in this course has been interesting
but throughout it all I have learned a great deal of information about how to
properly write a paper, brainstorm, drafting, and peer editing. This portfolio
does express my best work which I’ve spent a great deal of time in brainstorming,
making an outline, writing the paper, and editing the paper multiple times.
This portfolio also reflects how my work has improved throughout the semester
beginning to end. All in all if I look at my work in the beginning of the
semester I found out in order to create a good piece of work you need to draw
up an outline to have a good finished product that flows well for the reader.
As said before the issues I had in the beginning of the semester is I didn’t
create an outline for my papers which would cause my papers not to flow very
well. The skills I acquired throughout this class is my ability to brainstorm
and properly draw up a outline. The skills I have acquired through the course
will help me when writing all my papers through my college career. The ability
to formulate good ideas and a solid outline will dramatically improve the
effectiveness of my papers, which will lead to a better paper to read for
readers and from a student standpoint it will create a better grade on my
papers.
Literacy
Narrative
Remember
your first time sitting at a computer, looking at it and wondering how to even
turn it on? Every person has been there to an extent. If you look back 40 to 50
years ago when there weren’t computers and computers weren’t integrated into
the schooling system and most businesses and now it’s part of our everyday
life.
If
you stop and think about how the main way to write a short while ago was mainly
by pen and paper and if it was something official a type writer was used. Now
days pretty much everything is done electronically on a laptop, cell phone or
tablet. In most schooling systems today you submit your papers online instead
of printing off a hard copy and handing it in. With this type of technology
today I feel like more is expected out of the students when it comes to writing
and reading.
Looking
back to my middle school years, I remember doing keyboarding exercises,
learning how to use Microsoft word, excel and PowerPoint in my seventh grade
computer class. At first in school when I was learning all this stuff about
computers I was a little intimidated by all the technology and the fact that it
was something new to learn. Now using a computer is like second nature to me.
Now looking back to one specific time where I
remember a certain writing experience. It would be my junior year of high
school. All of the writing assignments we did for this class we turned in
online through our school website a lot like the D2L site we use here.
That
same year of high school I was assigned a four page
informative paper to write on whatever subject I wanted. I chose to do my
research paper on The Latin Kings. The Latin Kings were a gang based out of
California and they were fearless and lived their lives to full extent.
In
doing the research and writing the paper for that particular assignment it
changed my life in a way, because now even on the weekdays I still find a way
to not just live for the weekends. I know everybody has their bad days and just
wants to move onto the next day. Living for just weekends though isn’t good
because there is much more to life than the weekends. Life should be about
enjoying every moment possible that we have.
I also learned that we live in a world that never
rests. Our lives consist of putting in our 40 hour weeks or more at work and going
out and having fun on the weekends and during the week we just cruise right
through it without really taking anything in. It’s almost like we are robots in
a way and are just doing the same process over and over. We repeat this dull,
boring process pretty much till we die. It’s a sad thing to think about but is
true fact we should come to realize.
The
experience I had I would have to say encouraged me in a way. It made me want to
live day by day instead of just for the weekends. Life is too short just to
look forward to those 104 weekend days we have in a year, because before you
know it we will all be like 80 something
sitting in a nursing home having regrets about not cherishing every moment of
or short life we live. We need to realize how short life actually is.
The
way I write today I don’t think has changed due to my experience reading and
writing on a computer. Although over time like every person, it has improved to
several writing assignments I have done in high school. I am sure it will
improve much more throughout college. I believe writing and reading is the main
cause for success in our world.
As
I have stated above, doing the research for my informative paper my junior year
has changed my life and I learned a lot about myself and the world around me.
Doing the research taught me how to use my resources for my writing. It has
vastly improved me as a writer, reader and academic learner. I hope by reading
this you may come to realization about how we should live our life’s not for
the weekends but for the weekdays as well. Doing this you will be much happier,
it will make your days go by faster and it will make you much more enjoyable to
work with in the work place or school setting.
Rhetorical
Analysis
In
the beginning of June of 2012, the Anti-Doping agency charged Lance Armstrong
with doping and trafficking performance enhancing drugs. The article by Alex
Bath, a sports journalist at CNN, "Legacy at stake: Lance Armstrong's
legal fight against doping charges.” The author’s main goals in the article are
to inform readers about the topic and show facts that prove Armstrong’s
innocence. A closer analysis of the
article shows charges against Armstrong for doping were set in June of 2012.
This to me leads to a semi-persuasive article for readers providing facts
throughout the body of the article on his innocence. The publisher of the
Article was CNN. Throughout the article, the author is writing to the general
public because in the editorial he’s not referring to anything or anyone in particular,
he is more so trying to persuade readers with factual information on the topic.
During the peak of his career, what seemed to
be so perfect wasn’t. Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer which
spread from there to his lungs and brain. Despite doctors giving him a 50-50
chance of living he immediately began chemotherapy and other special treatments
recommend by doctors. His results began to improve dramatically and as an
effect he thought more and more about getting back on his bike. After Armstrong’s
miraculous recovery from cancer and return to cycling after trial and error, he
won seven consecutive Tour De France titles from 1999-2005. Armstrong retired
from the sport in 2005 after his final championship but his work still
continues to inspire people to this day. He formed a partnership with Nike to
form the yellow Live Strong wrist band which has become a sign of hope to many
in hard times. Despite his miraculous fight with cancer and return to the sport
of cycling. Armstrong faces a number of allegations from the USADA in which the
author tries to persuade the readers on Armstrong’s innocence. Within the next
couple of paragraphs I will cover Aristotle’s appeals of ethos, logos, and
pathos.
When
we read a typical article or essay we don’t ask ourselves about the writings
logical appeal, or in short Logos. Logos is recognized in the structure of the
article, which is written in a chronological order from the first event,
moment, or step to last event, moment, or step. Throughout the body of the
essay the writer has a topic such as “what are the charges” (Bath) then he
branches off of that telling the reader what they are. The author then goes
into his next topic such as “what is the USADA?” (Bath). The USADA is an agency
that enforces in and out of competition drug testing. He then continues to
repeat this process throughout the paper. In the article, the introduction
opens with a very short narrative about how Armstrong is fighting to keep his
seven Tour De France titles as well as to keep his reputation as one of the
sport’s most premier athletes. Stated earlier the author then starts to write
the paper chronologically from the first event, moment, or step to last event,
moment, or step. The end of the article doesn’t have a conclusion, leaving the
reader to critically think about all the information presented in the article,
slightly persuading the readers with factual information. The article as a
whole really only has one argument and it is whether or not Armstrong doped
during his seven years of winning the Tour De France. The argument is presented
to the reader in the beginning of the writing. Some of the strengths of the
argument is it provides the fact that he has passed 500 tests over 20 years of
competition. This to me is more than enough evidence to prove that he is
innocent. If you stop to think of it 500 tests in 20 years equates to an
average of 25 tests a year, which is about two drug tests every month. So if he
was doping how did he pass two tests every month for 20 years straight? The weaknesses
of the argument is that several of Armstrong’s teammates from the United States
Postal Service Team (USPS). Two doctors and a trainer have been suspended as
well, who were all part of Armstrong’s USPS team (Bath). That statement above
made me think that although he passed all those drug tests was it his team doctor
that issued the tests or someone from the USADA that issued them? If it was the
team doctor I could possibly see him cheating. Otherwise I think the facts
prove that Armstrong is innocent.
The article presents a casual argument, being
that the particular argument looks at the primary cause, which is if Armstrong
was doping or not. The author really supports these claims by going on in
detail about different facts like how all the drug test he’s taken and passed
and the author provides both sides of the story I think but ultimately leaves
it to the reader to decide if Armstrong doped or not. "Lance has passed
nearly 500 tests over 20 years of competition,” On the other side the author
provides examples that he was doping: “Along with the cyclist, several members
of Armstrong's former team were charged (Bath). These included Luis Garcia del
Moral and Michele Ferrari, both team doctors, trainer Jose ‘Pepe’ Marti, team
physician Pedro Celaya and Johan Bruyneel (Bath).” throughout the article
several types of evidence were used such as facts about Armstrong, facts about
his teammates, and other cyclists that have faced similar situations. The USADA
alleges that Armstrong took steroids throughout his career, and says it has
testimony from former teammates to support the charges. The organization has
refused to reveal who has provided the evidence (Bath). The first example is
simple and states how many drug tests Armstrong has passed over the years. The
author uses this to persuade the reader that he hasn’t doped. Later on in the
article the author provides a statement from the USADA stating that Lance’s
teammates came forth and testified against Armstrong. The audience will probably respond in
different ways due to how the author wrote the paper allowing the readers to
form their own opinion on the subject using pieces of evidence from the
standpoint Armstrong is innocent and from the standpoint he is guilty using the
USADA information. In the article the author presents a vast amount of
information to the reader, but is the information credible? Within the next
paragraph we will discuss the ethos of the article.
Ethos
to me is the hardest form of rhetoric to find in an article. In this particular
article it wasn’t entirely too difficult to find the credibility of the
author’s sources. Ethos is established in the beginning of the paper showing he
has credibility because it is published by CNN, which is a highly observed news
source. Throughout the paper the author builds his credibility by stating he’s
a sports journalist. The author gains credibility by the reader are how he uses
information from the USADA and other very reliable sources. A few brief
examples are when former chairman of the USADA says Armstrong has passed
numerous drug tests throughout his career. This statement makes the readers
believe Armstrong’s innocence. Another example would be when Jeff Novitzky a
Food and Drug Administration agent’s investigation didn’t result in any
charges, but it’s understood he did help the USADA on their case. The second
example really just backs up the first being that a federal FDA couldn’t charge
Armstrong for anything illegal. The audience will respond to the ethos in the
article by having confidence in the author and the sources he uses to persuade
readers to be certain of Armstrong’s innocence. The most common of Aristotle’s
appeals in the article is pathos. With this being a news source it used a lot
of imagery and other writing techniques to appeal to the readers emotions.
The
most common form of rhetoric in the paper the author presented to the readers
in the article would be pathos. This is because in the article the author
really appeals to the reader’s emotions by using Armstrong’s story of his
battle with cancer and his fight to gain dominance in the sport of cycling.
Also, the author uses imagery or pictures in the article to get the emotional
appeal from the audience. The images displayed in the article are very
positive; a majority of the images are with Armstrong in first place or him
smiling with his kids. This has an emotional appeal to readers in the way that they present the fact that he’s
an honest family guy that doesn’t have the need to cheat to be the best. Throughout
this analysis I have provided you with in depth information on the three
appeals of Aristotle. In the paragraph below I discuss my overall view point on
the article as a reader.
After
going over all three types of Aristotle’s appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos
in depth I discovered many different things throughout the article such as: the
strength of the article’s argument, which is that it provides hard evidence or
in other words it provides factual information that can be proved to attest to
Armstrong’s innocence. The weakness of the article’s argument is the fact that
so many of his teammates were accused of doping and some teammates have been
charged with it. Overall as a reader I was personally persuaded by the article
that Armstrong is innocent. The reason being is the fact that all of the
factual information provided to me throughout the article was credible and was
from a reliable source. The two best types of the appeals used in the article
were pathos and logos being that they were the two most persuasive elements
used in the article.
Research
Paper
Racial
discrimination is something that we think of as a past time, something our
society would like to forget about. We generally think of racial discrimination
as name calling but it’s much more than that, it occurred and still takes place
in hospitals, schools and other public places. All people no matter what race or
ethnicity should be able to expect fair unbiased treatment when in a public or
private setting. When it comes to medical treatment, medical testing, and daily
medical practice we as American’s expect fair medical practice and the ability
to have the right to know what the doctor is performing or doing to your body. Is
knowing what is being done to your body is irrelevant if you’re a different
race like African American? Is this
right to have race superiority when it comes to the medical field and have
different races be the test subjects? Is it okay to exploit the rights of
people due to their race or ethnicity? What is fair medical practice? What’s
happened to people in the past that this subject is so hard to talk about?
After reading the books The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Medical
Apartheid, and Health Care issues in black America I had very little to no idea
of what was done to African American people in the past. In the rest of the
essay below I will discuss my standpoint on how what we did to those people in
the past was wrong and is not okay. I will discuss why and provide different
cases and stories of what’s happened.
Your
probably wondering what racial discrimination is. “It is defined as
differential treatment on the basis of race that disadvantages a racial group
and, treatment on the basis of inadequately justified factors that disadvantage
a racial group, and has been linked to racial/ethnic disparities in health
outcomes (Shavers).” African American’s and other races being exploited isn’t
something we’ve been facing problems with since the past decade or past 50
years it’s something that’s been going on since the 18th Century. “This
matter is hard to understand due to the distrust the history it generates which
is confused and distorted because few know its facts beyond a few oft-cited
experimental horrors such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (Washington 7)” or another
example being in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and how doctors were
taking cell samples from black patients without consent and using them for medical
testing purposes and research. Below I will be discussing a number of different
topics the first being African Americans and why they were demoralized.
Why
were African Americans being exploited? To discuss this we will have to
sidetrack a little and go back in time. “African American’s being exploited
leads back to slavery which could not have existed and certainly could not have
persisted without medical science. The doctors were so dependent upon slavery
for economic security (Washington 52).” Doctors were hired by slave owners to
keep the slaves healthy so they could work efficiently. This allowed for
African Americans to really become “clinical material (Washington53)” that
could further American research and training in medical practices. Some would
come to think why is this wrong? Well it’s wrong in many reasons being that
just because someone is a different race than a predominant one it makes that
one race better. I don’t think it does and from a medical perspective you’d
certainly learn more by doing research on multiple races and people of
different ethnicity that are willing to. It is arguable that the research done
on African Americans in the past did benefit the medical field to this day but
who gets credit for it? The doctors that unwillingly took the cells and did the
research, or does Henrietta or the patient get the credit? Well society thinks
the doctor should get the credit just because he thought of the idea to use her
cells and did the research, but if it wasn’t for Henrietta there would have
been no advance in medicine. So in my opinion the one to get the credit is
Henrietta for her contribution to the advance in the medicine. I’m not trying
to talk down upon the doctors because they do all the scientific things to find
cures to disease’s and viruses, but without the person contributing they’re not
able to do the research and make new discoveries.
As
I briefly mentioned in the beginning of the paper about horrors that have
occurred due to African American medical research the Tuskegee syphilis study
to me is by far the worst. While reading the book Medical Apartheid I stumbled
upon a quote in the beginning of the chapter before reading of Tuskegee. “The
future of the Negro lies more in the research laboratory than in the school..
When diseased, he should be registered and forced to take treatment before he
offers his diseased mind and body on the altar of academic and professional
education (Washington 157)” This quote to me really grabbed my attention and
what I got from it is that it says is all African Americans are good for is research.
There are many things wrong with the statement, I wonder how a moral person
could think this and think it’s acceptable to think of someone or a race for
that matter. I guess it’s partially why the Syphilis study was conducted. The study was conducted by the U.S. Public
Health Service (PHS) in 1932. It was supposed to promise free medical care to
the sick and poor in Macon County Alabama. The PHS were going to go about doing
this by finding a group of black men with the disease, not treat them and the
doctors would record the progression of symptoms and disorders. The African
Americans in the study were lied to and convinced into thinking they were being
treated for the disease and were not being studied for research. This event is terrible and there are others
like it such as the one discussed in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks when
in February of 1954 a doctor by the name of Chester Southam injected HeLa cells
into patients saying and reassuring them he was testing their immune system,
but he said nothing of injecting them with someone else’s malignant cells.
Southam also did this to his patients at other hospitals he was working at and
if the patient asked he would modestly say he was testing them for cancer.
These are just two brief examples of African Americans being treated just as
test subjects and not humans. Whether you know you’re going to die or not, no
matter what disease you may have it still does not give any doctor or anyone
the right to go behind your back and perform a study on you or take cells or
anything without your consent. The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks book is a
good example of racial discrimination and the medical field.
In
the book The Immortal life, October 4th 1951 was when Henrietta died;
the doctors started performing radiation therapy mid-march of 1951. These dates
are significant because as I read in the book Medical Apartheid in the late
1940’s doctors extensively began using radiation on African Americans. Although
there was minor guide lines to follow drawn up by the medical board of review
which consisted of a panel of Manhattan project scientists and university
faculty to observe research being done. “The guide lines that were drawn up
were “(A) that a reasonable hope exists that the administration of such a
substance i.e. radiation will improve condition of patient, (B) that the
patient gives the gives their complete and informed consent in writing, and (C)
that the responsible next of kin give in writing a similarly complete and
informed consent, revocable at any time during the course of treatment (231).”
These guidelines were put in place for patient’s safety and so the patient knew
what they were getting into, but guidelines do no good if they’re not used when
being performed on African American patients. In Henrietta’s circumstance she
signed a form giving John Hopkins hospital consent. On the other hand there are
many recorded cases where patients were taken in and given large doses of
radiation such as plutonium just for research purposes.
With
all the advances in medicine in the last 40 to 50 years we’ve been able to do a
number of great things such as develop cures for deadly disease’s such as
smallpox, develop vaccines for virus’s like the flue. Among the greatest of our
accomplishments is the ability of our doctors and surgeons to perform organ transplants.
Without this a number of many lives are saved every day and some are even lost
to give others life. With the ability to do this comes great responsibility to
hospitals and surgeons. To handle the responsibility of trying to treat
everyone fair hospitals came up with waiting lists, but are these lists that
are supposed to be fair really all that fair? “According to figures from the
United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), which administers the organ-allocation
system, ethnic minorities make up 50 percent of the 96,581 people on the
waiting list, but white patients receive 63 percent of organs (Whitford).” The
information stated above proves to show differently that to this very day with
all of our advances in every aspect of life we still face racial discrimination
in the medical field among minorities.
The year may be 2012 and we’ve had the civil
rights movement and many other things and people that have taken a stand
against racism and its effects in the medical field and everyday aspect of our
daily life. With all these things that have been done to prevent it, racism in
the medical field still occurs to this day. To this day there are three major explanations
of the health conditions of the African American population of America; they
are “institutional racism, economic inequality, and access barriers (Jones 6).”
Institutional racism is discrimination in the vision of medical services,
economic inequality is when economic factors affect your ability to purchase
effective healthcare. And access barrier is the amount of healthcare access
available to African Americans. “Each of these approaches has a common thread,
each views race as the primary factor in the distribution of health care
services (Jones 6).” “The institutional racism barrier that exists in hospitals
and health care institutions exhibits itself in the adoption, administration,
and implementation of policies that restrict admission, the closure,
relocation, or privatization of hospitals that primarily serve the minority
community and the continued transfer of unwanted patients by hospitals and
institutions. Such practices have a unequal effect on racial minorities,
banishing them to either distinctly substandard institutions or to no care at
all.” These problems are a few to the very many African Americans and many
other races face not only in the United States but in other countries as well.
So
far I have discussed racism occurring to only patients in the medical field but
it occurs everywhere in the medical field. Racism happens with doctors in the
work place and even in medical school. This problem is first of acceptance into
medical schools, it is found in several medical schools African Americans had a
better or the same GPA as others but a lower number of African Americans was
selected. Not only does the discrimination occur in our schools but as well as
the work place. This subject that was solved decades ago with the civil rights
movement, people of different race or ethnicity should not face these problems
in our schools, the workplace or at home. You never know that one African
American or other person of a different race that was rejected from medical
field could have been the person to find a cure for cancer which maybe could
have saved someone you know, since this disease is something that affects many
Americans t oday.
The
horrible things that have occurred to African Americans in the past due to
medical research, experimentation and treatment are horrendous and extremely
wrong. They’re rights were violated as humans and were treated more like
animals in some cases. To this day we do not face problems like that our
problems are underlying in things such as acceptance into medical school,
racism in the work place, economic factors liken not being able to purchase
health care and access barriers to the proper kind of treatment. As a person
and as a citizen of the United states we expect fair treatment in our
hospitals, we expect non biased opinions wherever we may be and we expect the
ability to pursue our dreams in an equal and fair manor without discrimination
in acceptance in such programs like medical schools.
By
writing this essay I hope as a reader I’ve been able to persuade you and you
have learned the history of racism in the medical field in the U.S. Looking
past all the terrible information, facts, and stories shared with you
throughout the paper I hope you realize how bad things were in the past for
African Americans. They have improved extensively but like all things it’s not
perfect and still needs a great deal of work. In order to fix what’s wrong we
need to stand up for what is right and not be quiet when we see or hear of
wrong things being done. As well I hope you have learned and come to thank the
many African Americans that allowed the advance in medicine with her and others
like her that made contributions to medicine and have received no credit for
doing so. I hope I was able to thoroughly answer the questions is knowing what
is being done to your body is irrelevant if you’re a different race like
African American? Is this right to have
race superiority when it comes to the medical field and have different races be
the test subjects? Is it okay to exploit the rights of people due to their race
or ethnicity? What is fair medical practice? What’s happened to people in the
past that this subject is so hard to talk about? Since you’ve read this you’ve
learned on why and how wrong it is to have racial discrimination in the medical
field. As stated previously things are and have gotten a lot better not only
for African Americans but for other people that come from the many cultures
that make up the United States of America.
We as a country, small, and large communities have to come to learn to
accept that it is not one race that makes the face of our county; it is many
races and ethnic groups that make it. It wasn’t just one race of people that
fought and made the ultimate sacrifice for our rights in the revolution; it was
a band of people from different cultures and of different races that came
together with the same motivations and ideas to form our country. It even
states so in our declaration of independence and bill of rights which is the
foundation of our country.
