Project 3 Reflection: Confusion

            Having never done an assignment like this before, I would say this was the most difficult project out of the three we had this semester. However, I would like to say the strongest part of my audio essay is not being monotone. I tried hard to make my voice seem persuasive and confident for which I feel that a confident and persuasive voice makes my argument stronger. When someone is monotone, the listeners tend to go off into their own world; not paying attention to the argument or the speaker.

            What I struggled with the most is the editing of the audio essay. I feel the majority of the students  (including me) have never seen audio equipment like this before, therefore, it was difficult to use. Because I am not technology savvy, it was extremely difficult for me to try and figure out how to combine my recordings and edit them. Overall, the audio section of the project of the project was frustrating and time consuming.

            The development of the script was difficult for which I have never written a script before. The format of the script threw me and my ideas off course. I feel my argument would have been stronger if it was written in a format I was more familiar with.

            Project three was the most difficult assignment this semester, but every challenge comes with a lesson. My lesson from this project is to always adapt to every assignment given to me. Every assignment will always have different guidelines and expectations. It is my job as a student to adjust to the best of my ability to those assignments. I must understand what is being asked of me, brainstorm the best way to tackle the assignment, and then revise the assignment before the due date. If I am unable to do what is asked of me, then I have failed as a student on that assignment.

            With that being said, I am not sure if I have crafted the strongest argument. As I made my opinion clear in my essay, I think I left a lot of room to allow the readers to develop their own opinions about the issue at hand, which is not the goal in a persuasive essay. I also believe that my topic was a big issue that contains a lot of small details that needs time to be explain; four to six minutes is enough time for this particular controversial topic.

            For the future, I believe the best solution that will help alter my recording and writing process is practice. If I continue to practice, then I will get better with time. Script writing and audio recording was definitely out of my comfort zone.

Script Draft

Seasons after seasons, fans set aside their differences and become united as one to watch their college teams play with hopes of winning a championship. Many fans prefer watching the NCAA instead of the professional league because of one difference. In the NCAA, one of the most important rules is that the athletes cannot be paid for play and cannot accept any improper benefits. Anyone who violates this rule may experience severe consequences.

As these rules were created years ago, some people believe that they should be adjusted to fit today’s society for which college athletes are on the struggle during their school years and could use the extra cash to survive. When it comes to the athletes, they are not allowed to apply for jobs for which the NCAA does not want the athletes receiving an advance in their paycheck based off of their collegiate status.

On the other hand, there are multiple people that believe the athletes should not get paid. Many think that the athletic scholarships given by the school is already a form of payment. Others believe that the money is the major difference between collegiate and professional leagues; it is what separates the two. People are also worried that if college athletes get paid, money will take over everything; ultimately ruining the industry that we all love and cherish.

*Each person interviewed will be asked the following question. The interview opinions/answered will be inserted after the paragraph that supports their argument.

Interview Question: Do you believe NCAA athletes should be paid? Why or Why not?

~Interview with a retired high school football coach~

~Interview with an average Arizona State student~

~Possible interview with football player~

Whether if they are off-season or not, these athletes devote their whole lives to their sport and team. Eat, Sleep, Study, practice: that’s their schedule everyday. They do not have time for friends and they do not have time for relaxation. In the off-season, they’re training to become better in order to satisfy their coaches and fans.

With that being said, for myself I personally believe that the athletes should get paid, but not a salary like the professional leagues. The universities should give more money in the scholarships that are handed out to these hardworking athletes. The amount of money these athletes receive each semester is minimal; they are on an extremely tight budget and not all families of these athletes are willing to support them. They aren’t allowed to make extra cash because of NCAA rules nor would they have the time for a job even if they wanted one because they put literally all of their time and effort into their sport whereas the average college student could squeeze in a part-time job. They bust their bottoms trying to put on good entertainment for their fans and to bring in revenue for their schools; the least the universities could do in return is ease up and give a little more scholarship money so the athletes don’t have to stress about budgeting so much; they already have so much on their list of responsibilities. 

ASU Reacts: Election Theories

Every American has their own beliefs, theories, and strategies for predicting the winner of the presidential elections. With the recent re-election of President Barack Obama, many Americans have been contemplating the results; wondering why they came out as they did.

In the article “What Earthquakes Can Teach Us About Elections”, the author, Shankar Vedantam, discusses how the political historian, Allan Lichtman’s, strategy works every time when it comes to presidential elections. Lichtman has tested his theory on previous elections on a time lapse of 120 years. Lichtman states that elections work just like earthquakes, “You either have stability, or you have upheaval.” In elections, if the administration in power was failing, meaning they put the nation into disastrous situations, they were not reelected. However, if the administration was in power and showed success in areas such as the economy and foreign/domestic policies, the people reelected them.

We asked a young adult about her reaction to Allan Lichtman’s theory,

“I agree with Lichtman's theory about how elections work.  My point of view is that if nothing has happened in the country then people assume the president isn’t doing his duty. In result, they compare the presidents to each other when they should be taking a look back at the years and look at what has been done, because I believe the president can only do so much in four years. I also think elections are just presidents competing against each other saying what they can do and what the other cannot do for the country. Citizens should be looking at what the presidential candidates have done for us, and what they have done in the past years not just the yap that they are saying to win the election.”

The reaction of the young adult is a common thought for which many Americans do not review the president’s full term; they often think about the recent events that have taken place. If the president has not done anything amazing within the last year, citizens begin to believe that the president is not being active; not being successful which often turns many voters against him in result, not voting him for re-election. 

Genre Analysis: What Earthquakes can teach us about elections

            This story caught my attention because I think it is truly one of a kind. I was intrigued on how earthquakes are related to United States presidential elections considering we just re-elected our president not even a week ago.

            The author, Shankar Vedantam, does not start off his report with a typical introduction. Instead, he starts off the report by introducing the political historian, Allan Lichtman, and what makes him a credible source when it comes to every presidential election. Vedantam discusses how Lichtman has predicted the winner of every presidential election since 1984. As the report continues, Vedantam gets more into depth with Lichtmans methods. Lichtman has had conversations with geophysicists about earthquakes and that is how he came to the idea of applying that method to politics.

            At this point, the story continues to go into more depth of how earthquakes are related to elections. The author analyzes the method by comparing earthquakes and elections while incorporating words from Lichtman. Lichtman said that “he decided to test the idea that elections follow earthquake principles: You either have stability or you have upheaval” (Verdantam Par 7).  

            For my project three assignment, I will be discussing how the modern student plans out how they will achieve their bachelor’s degree at ASU. I will be interviewing a student about how they plan to travel down their road to success and will compare it to what experts say a student should do in order to obtain the particular degree. I would also like to find and interview a graduate that obtained the same degree that the student is pursuing in order to analyze what happens in reality with that degree. Finally, I plan on evaluating the students plan to see if their road to success will be a failure or an accomplishment.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/09/164711093/what-earthquakes-can-teach-us-about-elections

Project 2 Reflection: Confusion

            To be honest, I was not a fan of project 2. I found it to be very confusing, a struggle. I was never completely sure if I was doing things the right way, which did not make me, feel very confident about my work. What I struggled with the most was interpreting the format of the project. With that being said, I did go to workshop where I did receive advice, however, it was still a little confusing. I had tried going to others for help but they had never worked on a similar project so they did not know where to start either. Now I am worried about how my grade will be affected by this project.

             As I was very confused with the project, something I believe I did well was finding sources for evidence. In my research, I learned health facts that I did not know of before this project. I was able to incorporate the facts and ideas that came from the sources to help make connections between the mountain and fitness, therefore, I believe that the sources played a big role in supporting my claim of how “A” Mountain is great for alternative exercise.

            Aside from learning more about health and fitness, I learned how important it is to ask questions. There is no harm in asking questions if the answers could potentially help my project. I feel I did not ask as many questions as I should have. In future assignments to come, I will make sure I continue to ask questions until I have a full understanding of the project expectations.

            For my future writing assignments, I plan on adding an extra step in to my writing process. If I begin to create multiple drafts of the paper, my assignment could only get stronger and better. For each draft, I plan on writing the draft, revising, editing, and then start the process over again. I will also have more people revise my assignments for which the more feedback I receive the better.

            A huge part of this project was crafting a strong evaluation. In order to craft a strong evaluation, one must have set criteria they follow in order to make their evaluation more credible. I believe that was an issue for me in this project. I wasn’t sure how to explain to my audience how based off my criteria, the paths are good for fitness. I feel the sources made a stronger point than my criteria. For the future, I will try to pick a broader topic for which it will be easier to decide what criteria will be used in my evaluation. A broader topic may also bring stronger criteria.

            The good thing about my evaluation is the fact you can conduct a similar one almost anywhere in the community. For example, if I wanted another fitness alternative, I could evaluate a local park or gym. The criteria may be different for each place but I will have a general idea of what the criteria may be after evaluating “A” Mountain.