Topic Proposal for Policy Paper

For my Policy Paper I plan to argue for the necessity of keeping the death penalty in place. It has been in issue up for debate in many states throughout the United States and I want to go into the details for the importance of keeping it in place. I might even be able to extend to the global level depending on the amount of information I can gather.
There are two main sides to the issue of the death penalty. The opposition to it argues that it is not only a cruel punishment, but also is not effective in deterring criminals from committing those criminals that commit crimes that warrant the death penalty from doing so. They think that life in prison is a viable alternative to the death penalty. However those in support argue that solution to be ineffective. They feel like the death penalty does in fact deter criminals from committing such crimes. Supporters also that it is the only way to hold people truly accountable for the crimes that they commit. The two sides don’t seem to be anywhere close to deciding the issue, so until it is the decision has been left to the individual states.
Ideally they could come to some sort of consensus that keeps the death penalty in place. If they were make the restrictions on the death penalty a little more stringent then they could hopefully agree and pass a bill that makes the death penalty legal in every single state.
The justification for my proposal will hopefully come from websites that have figures and data in support of the death penalty. Also quotes from key figures in the debate will be helpful as well. Through those my goal is that the justification for the death penalty will be one of simple reasoning; if a person commits such an appalling crime the death penalty should always be there as a possible sentence.
I’m going to be basing my proposal from many of the ideas that were brought up in my exploratory paper by the supporters of the death penalty. I should hopefully be able to use all of the sources that I used for that portion of the exploratory paper in this paper.
My main concern about the paper is going to be finding new sources that are reliable. There are plenty of unreliable sources in favor of the death penalty out there, but is going to be a lot of work to go through and sort out the good and the bad.

Campus Issue

Something that I feel USC needs to change is the attendance policy. Before there used to be no rules regarding class attendance, but now students can be bumped down letter grades or fail a class for poor attendance. I am not saying that students should not attend class, however if they are able to pass the classes without going to them than why should they have to go? Students at this age should have the maturity to make their own decisions, and if they feel they can excel academically without attendance then they should not be penalized.
However I completely understand the university's stance on their attendance policy. They pay the teachers salaries for them to teach students, so how can they teach if there are not students in the classroom? Also students that go to class tend to do better, so making attendance mandatory is about one of the only things that the university can really do to help ensure student success.

In-Class Writing 3/23

Last year when I wrote my research paper, I had a very different view on illegal immigration. I believed that every single illegal alien living in this country to should be kicked out and sent back to their countries. However as I began researching the subject I started to realize that my stance was perhaps a little too harsh. I came to find out that it is often times the illegal aliens that are the ones that do the jobs that many in the United States deem themselves "too good" to do. They come to this country in hopes of making their lives better for not only themselves, but their families as well. By the end of the paper I had changes my stance a great deal, and now believe that if they begin paying taxes and are not being a cancer to our society they should be allowed to stay in the country.

SWA#11

When it comes to articles, I believe the most important part of credibility is where the article comes from. Credible sources, such as newspapers, will seldomly allow pieces that lack a level of credibility to be put into circulation. They usually tend to not be as biased as say the Shelly The Republcan blog. A lot of credibilty can come from a moderately written article; people tend to believe it more because the information is not completely slanted one way or the other. The source plays a big role in bias because of that, they need to make sure that they remain a reliable source of information to their readers. Because of that they need to keep their credibility, which is why the source of an article is very often the most important part about the credibility of an article.

Warm-Up 3/16

Out of the three Carolina Reader articles I believe that the "Plan for Homeless Gets Mixed Reactions" was the most rhetorically appealing. It appeals to the logic of the readers very effectively. It represents the logic of the both sides for the possible move equally effectively by giving the reasons for and against the move. Any reader could understand why the side would or wouldn't be opposed to the move. The article appeals to the emotions because both sides realize the importance of the problem of the homeless in Columbia and how important it is to fix it. They share their feeling about how dire an issue it is, but just not the same ideas on how to go about and fix it. I think because of the justifications of that both sides give along with the emotions that they express to give the readers a better understanding about the issue of the homeless in Columbia.

In-Class Writing 3/2

The main argument in "The Controversy behind Barbie" is whether or not Barbie is a positive or negative role model for young girls. There are those who believe that Barbie portrays negative female stereotypes and that Barbie is responsible for the poor body image that girls have. And then there are the others that say Barbie is a good role model because she is able to do everything.
The audience is mainly intended to be women, especially those that have had a Barbie. The rhetoric appeals are intended to make them feel one way or another about Barbie.
It seems like feminists hold the first viewpoint because of the way they try and over-analyze a doll and blame all negative female stereotypes on Barbie. The second position seems to be Mattell because it makes Barbie seem like the perfect role model that can inspire girls to do anything they want to do. And the third view seems to be that of logical people. They realize that Barbie does portray some negative stereotypes, but yet is not responsible for all of the negative images of females.
The author is for the third position. She explains how she believes that Barbie does in some way teach girls to look up to the material things, but she also feels Barbie is a scapegoat that gets blamed for more than she should.

Warm-Up 3/2

The most interesting piece of information that I found while researching for Paper #3 was that it is legal to grow marijuana in certain counties in Northern California. In fact it accounts for almost two-thirds of their economy because they grow it and sell it to the government. I found that interesting because that is very different from the rest of the country and I wouldn't have expected the government to buy it back.