After reviewing the originality report from safe assign, I learned that plagiarism is easy to catch with today’s technology. My paper received a 42% plagiarism rating. Safe assign caught almost everything. It found four different parts of my paper that were from another student’s paper. One was my work cited so that does not really count. One thing that I did purposefully wrong on my paper was only analyzing the abstract of my source. Obviously, safe assign would not be able to understand that. However, it would be very apparent to a professor that I did not read the entire source. I think this is a good source for teacher’s to use because it is a fast and easy way to see if a student had plagiarism in their paper and the teacher can take appropriate action.

My Race Card: *Now, Actions Define Race, Not Color

First off, I will clarify that this is not what I personally believe. However, this is how I believe people view different races. Any time someone ignorantly dislikes a certain race, it is because they dislike the stereotypical behavior of that race that does not apply to everyone. When in reality, the color of your skin has nothing to do with the way you act or think. Specifically dealing with whites and blacks, I have heard on many occasions when people would say a white person “acts black” or vise versa. This makes no sense. How does one act a certain race when a race does not have one specific behavior? So instead of viewing race as a simple fact about a person’s physical life, it is often times perceived as a behavioral stereotype which leads to ignorance and hate.

I thought “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” was a very eye-opening and interesting. I am, and have always been, white, so just as explained by Peggy McIntosh, I have been oblivious and took for granted the privileges given to me. I also believe that racism and oppression is improving greatly and most people are getting more accepting. However, racism now, is just more under the radar. Most people are not blatantly racist, but it is still hidden beneath the surface of some people. I have never been a victim to racism so I could never fully understand what it feels like to feel oppressed, and I cannot say exactly how much racism there still is today. But undoubtedly, there still is much room for change in the treatment and views of all races.

So far, I have had all of my critical responses graded. While I believe that I wrote the responses well, I understand that I lost points because I did not entirely follow the directions. I should have looked at the rubric before submitting my papers. I know now to do so and I will make sure to include all of the necessary components of the assignments in my future papers. If I had read the rubric i would have know that I needed to separate my sentences into paragraphs and I needed to include a title.

I think Gerard’s ideas are very different but valuable. Once I thought about what he said, I tried to envision myself using his ideas in my own writing and it actually seemed nice. I think I would enjoy writing a paper and perhaps even do a better job if I were to write about something that I want to find out about rather than picking a topic that I already know and boring myself. If I am learning and enjoying it as I research my topic then my writing will benefit. His idea applies to the topic I chose. I am writing about stem cell. My research question is, “Is the Use Of Stem Cells in Medical Procedures Morally Justified?”. This topic is very controversial and I do not know about the topic in depth. However, I am very interested in it. Because of this, my research will be done more effectively because I want to know more. This topic is very important because it gives rise to many opportunities to help patients in need of desperate medical care and, if they are continuously pursued, they will greatly benefit the future of the medical field.

For my research paper, I will be researching stem cells and how they are an important area to study and pursue in the medical field. I have always been interested in the topic and I understand some aspects. However, I still have a lot more to learn and research about stem cells to really understand them. know some of their benefits to medical procedures but I do not know exactly how they work. I also know that this topic can be very controversial. I have my own opinion already on the implementation of stem cell research in medicine, but perhaps my viewpoint will change after I do more research. To prevent myself from assuming I know the answer before I begin I can make sure that I look at all of the research objectively and set aside my opinions and biases until after I have done an adequate amount of research and gained sufficient knowledge of the topic.

Dear Ella (younger sister),

I have to choose a topic to write about for a research paper and I am not sure what to pick. You will definitely have to write one of these at some time in your academic life. It is paper about a certain topic that you have to take a side on. The topic has to be exigent which means that the topic is very urgent or pressing. I want to choose a topic that I am interested in because I think that will help me write better. My main interests are science and music so perhaps I will choose a topic based on one of those. Also, I think both of those topics can be interesting to a lot of other people too. I do not have to choose the topic right now, but it is very important that I start thinking about it now so I can be ready to begin the first step in the writing process. Let me know if you have any ideas of what a good topic would be for me.

Sincerely,

Austin

For my first critical response, I think i did well analyzing my sources and writing about them clearly. I am pleased with the substance of the paper. I did not know until looking at the rubric and the yellow comments that I was missing key components of the assignment. I should have looked at the rubric before writing the paper and I will definitely do that know. I did not include a title and I wrote the entire paper as one big paragraph. From now on I will make sure to view and understand the assignment in its entirety.