Source Analysis

Steven Schwarz

English 102

4/10/2012

Source Analysis

Throughout the second paper about animal emotions, there were a series of scholarly sources being used.  Half of them are well known household names in their respective fields, and half not so.  As opposed to using these sources as a means to only verify what the writer is agreeing with, they also used scholarly sources such as Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle, to show the alternative way of thinking.  This shows actual turmoil within scholarly sources to show that this topic has been debated over amongst the leaders in the profession.

Every source has been given its frame of reference.  When the writer introduces a new source in the paper, they state what the source does and most times they give information as to where they received their training and what generation they were from.

Stakeholders

Steven Schwarz

English 102

4/5/2012

Stakeholders

The stakeholders of my research paper are as follows.  My first stakeholder is ABC itself.  They are the channel in which my show exists.  What lies at stake for them is their integrity as a network, and of course ratings.  My own stake in comparison is different simply because I don’t care about their ratings, or their network’s success.  My concerns exist for who wins the show, only because My family and I bet on the winners.

The second set of stakeholders would be the contestants on the show.  The 25 women being chosen care about their personal image, and finding love.  If they are publicly humiliated on this show for any reason it will carry over into their lives off the show.  Once again my stake in the matter only matches the one girl I chose to win.  I wish for her to maintain a good reputation and end up winning the show as to preserve my good taste in women of course!

The Bachelors themselves hold stake in this.  Their decisions week by week are heavily criticized, and they too wish to pick the right girl for them.  If his taste for women matches mine, then his stake partially matches mine as well. I of course don’t have a reputation publicly riding on his decision, but I do want him to pick a good girl for his sake.  Should the girl I pick be that good girl he’s looking for, it’s a win-win situation. 

Chris Harrison, the host of the show is another source who holds stake in the matter.  His ability to diffuse problems on the show and manage the contestants while also making his dialogue in the show entertaining for viewers are his concerns.  He appears to want what’s best for the bachelor, either from genuine concern, or to maintain the show’s integrity.  For the most part his stake doesn’t match mine aside from wanting the bachelor on the show to make a good decision that he’ll be happy with.  He has pressures to publicly manage the contestants well, in order to keep the show as classy but still entertaining as possible. 

The rest of my resources are critics and scholarly viewers who wrote about the pros and cons of shows such as this one. Their stake most accurately matches mine, because they wish to know and spread the understanding of why and how this show affects the public.  They want the show to be as real and unscripted as possible, and to believe that what happens in the show can stand as lessons for people in the world to learn from.  They want the truths that ABC doesn’t address publicly about the staging  of the show, whether it’s true or not.  

Revision

Steven Schwarz

English 102

4/3/2012

Revision Strategy

I chose to revise my paper page by page here.

Page one

First thing I’ll do is completely remove my first paragraph.  Across the board, everyone told me it was too broad of a topic to start, and it doesn’t capture the essence of what my paper is about. I’ll have to start with something a bit more practical and relevant to my topic.  I have a series of questions in my second paragraph that preview what I will be talking about throughout the paper.  Everyone told me I should draw more attention to the main topic of my paper and explain how the other questions relate.

Page two

I was told that the second paragraph could be strengthened by using a source.  I will do that.  The beginning of the last paragraph on this page needs to be drawn to the main topic for relevance as well.

Page three

One source told me to clarify what I was writing in this page for both relevance and in how I explained things.

Page four

Revise the first sentence of the second paragraph for clarity on what I was saying.  I was told to break down the quotes in the last paragraph for more detail as to what it is implying.

Page five

I need to elaborate more on societal pressures in the first paragraph.  There is also a quote in the second paragraph that needs to be cut down in length.

Page six

Using a source in the first paragraph with help my paper.

Page seven

Explaining who my sources are will help readers to understand why things are said by certain sources.  Once again relating the things I say in this page to my main topic will help strengthen my paper.

Page eight through the rest of the paper is without comments.  I assume I did well on these pages for my conclusion.  Some ending comments after the paper was read were made.  I need to draw more attention to my main topic.  Working on my transition sentences will help as well.

Assignment 8.2

Steven Schwarz

English 102 8.2

3/1/2012

Assignment 8.2

Ruzich used the Starbucks coffee company promotional site Schmoopy, as a direct source to Starbucks company advertisement and marketing.  It increases credibility of the overall research, because it is a direct source that contains factual information.

Another useful resource that Ruzich used is the Starbucks company owner Howard Schultz and Dori Jones Yang.  This is a great resource for the same reason as the Starbucks site because the information is coming directly from the people who are the topic of the research.  Quoting these people within the research paper, and being able to use those quotes to support what she is saying, help make the overall product much more powerful.

Using direct sources don’t always mean everything in the topic of marketing.  When the topic of your research weighs in heavily on advertisement it’s good to have the consumer’s point of view.  The consumer can be considered the largest source on the matter.  This is because everyone who isn’t selling the coffee is considered the consumer of it.  A lot of those sources for Ruzich came from www.proquest.com.  All the articles from the journals on the site are written by people who were not directly associated with the Starbucks company.  Therefore Ruzich cover the spectrum of sellers and consumers as a resource.

What I’ve come understand about the sources in my research essay by that it’s equally important to consider where the sources coming from as much as what they’re saying.  What source you choose can greatly increase your credibility and support for your purpose.  If you haven’t covered every source that could help support the research, then you have an unfinished research paper.

60 Minutes Reaction

Steven Schwarz

English 102

2/28/2012

60 Minutes Reaction.

After watching the video in class I realized that without every single point of view you lose total credibility.  A one sided argument is a bad argument.  Audiences will respond more positively to one side or another when presented with all of the facts.  I found the video in class to be an ignorant response to what really happened.  They were so caught up in making the accused look guilty that they never bothered to consider if they were innocent.  I noticed the majority of the interviewees were women.  You can disagree or agree with me on this, but it isn’t that hard to get a group of women to side with a girl who claimed she was raped.  The preconceived notion would be that if anyone was raped that night it was her and not the other way around, simply because she is a woman.  If one of the basketball players had claimed they were raped, people would simply disregard it.  There is some truth to that no matter how small.  If I want to apply what I learned from this to my own research, I’d better get all sides of the story.  The Bachelor has a lot of people involved in just the production alone.  There are viewers as well as contestants.  I’ve found that the majority of my annotations are about the viewers’ own responses, interviews of the former bachelorettes from the show, and the bachelor himself.  To further explore every aspect of the story it would be best for me to discover what Chris Hansen himself has to say about the matter.  He is the host and is there through all of it.  In bulk, he’s the most important piece of the puzzle.  He is my greatest source for truth. 

            My work so far is actually pretty good.  I’ve covered almost all the sources I can get information from.  I’ve considered the good and the bad effects the show has on its viewers over the years, and I can come to a reasonable argument from both sides.  Gaining knowledge from a working psychologist could also be of great help as well.  With all of the information I have to offer, none of it would be worth anything without someone who is trained to analyze social situations such as this.  They can give the most clear and thought out interpretation of what it all means, thus giving me another source.

Annotated Bibliography 3

Steven Schwarz

English 102

2/23/2012

Annotated Bibliography

Blum, Virginia. "Love Studies: Or, Liberating Love." Oxford Journals 17.2 (2005): 335-348. Oxford Journals. Web. 23 Feb. 2012.

The Oxford Journal has this article in it that describes how there have been spin-off shows of the bachelor and in what ways they have been more or less successful. This will help me develop my basis on what each show brings out in its own unique viewer demographic. Knowing what shows attract certain viewers will help me in understanding what their reactions to these shows would more accurately be.

Cloud, Dana. "The Irony Bribe and Reality Television: Investment and Detachment in The Bachelor ." Critical Studies in Media Communication. New York, NY: Taylor and Francis Group, 2010. 413-437. Print.

This chapter by Dana Cloud introduces the acts of some bachelors to not choose anyone in the final elimination to be their wife. This introduces the concept of true love not always being found on these types of shows. It will help me reinforce the idea that the contestants honestly want to find true love and won't choose unless they are sure of what they feel. It may also prove that some of the failed marriages of previous couples was a result of society's pressure on them to fall in love.

Frank, Katherine. "Primetime Harem Fantasies." Third wave feminism and television. New York, NY: I.B. Tauris and Co., 2007. 91-110. Print.

This chapter by Katherine Frank goes in depth on the viewer experience in great detail.  She explains what types of environments to watch the show in, a step-by-step description of what the climax of the show brings out in each situation, and a detailed explanation of what most people feel during different parts of the show.  This is perfect for my research, because it’s all about the viewer.  The more I know about the viewer’s experience, the more accurately I will be able to describe their deep emotional shifts from before and after the show has concluded.

Brophy-Baermann, Michelle. "True Love on TV." Poroi 4.2 (2005): 17-51.Iowa Research Online. Web. 23 Feb. 2012.

This passage shows the contrast in men and womens’ views of what their role is and how they feel about each element of the show they’re in.  They spell out their confidence in the show’s ability to pick a good demographic for them to choose from, and find them a suitable wife or husband that they will fall in love with in the end.  Getting to hear the main character of the show’s opinion on these matters can make for a more realistic and accurate description of our ignorance or accuracy as viewers.  This will prove what we as viewers understand completely, and don’t know at all.

Steven Schwarz

English 102

2/21/2012

Annotated Bibliography

Galician, Mary-Lou. "Must Marry TV."Critical thinking about Sex, love, and romance in the mass media : media literacy applications . Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2007. 261-364. Print.

This book approaches the representation of romantic relationships in mass media. It will help me develop a greater idea of what the viewers find appealing about these reality romance shows, and why anyone would wish to be on the shows themselves.

Dubrofsky, Rachel. Fallen Women in Reality TV. New York, NY: Taylor and Francis, 2009. Print.

This book more closely describes the women in the reality TV shows and how their wild emotions are what make the climactic scenes each week. This will help me gather a more close analysis of what makes these shows believable and how they affect the female viewer.

Hernandez, Virginia Rose. ""I'm sorry this hasn't been a fairy tale" : examining romance reality TV through The bachelor." Institutional Repositories | Texas Digital Library. Version 1. University of Texas at Austin, n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2012. <http://repositories.tdl.org/tdl-ir/handle/2152/ETD-UT-2011-05-3277>.

The site goes into detail about what type of social structure these shows hold. It will help me describe the type of lifestyle that the show promotes for its viewers.

Steven Schwarz

English 102 AB

2/16/2012

Annotated Bibliography

Dr. Caudle, Melissa. The Reality of Reality TV: Reality Show Business Plan. On the Lot Productions 2011.  This book features information and details on every aspect of a reality show business plan including the executive summary, logline and synopsis, episode breakdowns, marketing, distribution and budgeting.

Waters, Harry. "Shows That Love Too Much." Newsweek 10 June 1991: 54-54. Print. This article goes into detail about TV's latest obsession in real-life romance when the shows were just starting.

Papacharissi, Zizi, and Andrew Mendelson. "An Exploratory Study of Reality Appeal: Uses and Gratifications of Reality TV Shows."Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 1 June 2007: 355-370. Print. This is a survey administered to reality TV viewers revealed that the most salient motives for watching reality TV were habitual pass time and reality entertainment.

Assignment 5 part 3

Steven Schwarz          

English 102 5c

2/14/2012

Assignment 5 part 3

            From what we went over in class it appeared to me that my subject questions weren’t compelling enough, or open enough for debate.  I came to the solution to my problem by coming up with an entirely new topic using the topic page in our pamphlet.  I came up with this, “How do shows like The Bachelor affect their viewers’ outlook on love?” This seemed like a good topic to me because it brings about 2 highly interesting subjects.  True love has fascinated people for centuries. Why else would there be so many movies about it if this weren’t true.  Reality shows are interesting as well to society, and are also much debated.  With that, there are many ways to approach the question.

            I used a few good words to help me in search of good articles online so far.  I used “reality shows” “love” and “viewers” as my key words in the search. They brought me to a few alright articles and one good one.  The one that most helped me is titled “Reality Romance”.  The author reports on the lives of various women who have appeared on television reality programs in hopes of finding true love.  The article has interviews with people who were actually on the bachelor itself, which increases its credibility significantly enough for me to make it one of my main sources.

Steven Schwarz

English 102

2/8/2012

Assignment 4b

So what I’m hoping to go about in my research paper is to explore the very beginning of music and how it came about.  The development from sound into music fascinates me because the human race had discovered that a certain series of tones makes a chord, and a certain progression of chords could make a pleasing little tune.  This phenomenon has clearly manifested into the monster that we know the music business to be today. 

            The majority of what I researched was music history, and sound in society.  I emailed the music librarian who promptly responded with this to say, “There are a lot of books in the Music Library about the history of music that go back as far as we can know. There's no way to really know the answer to your question about the origins of music because there is 
no systematic written record until about 1,000 years ago, 2,000 at the 
most, but music existed long before that. So anything you find would be 
largely speculation, not definitive description. I'd recommend starting with the New Grove Dictionary of Music.” Therefore I did start there. I do understand there are no definitive answers to my question, but that makes me all the more ambitious about find out what people have to say about the matter.

Bryson

Steven Schwarz

English 102

Assignment 3

The House

I found the introduction to Bryson's piece very interesting because the origin of the paper is contemporary Europe writing about a 1600's house in Europe.  Europe is of course always a good topic because that's where politics for a lot of us began in history.  With that simple context, comes so many expectations of what society was like for the people who lived in the house prior.  He talks a lot about his discussion with the seller.  They bring up how the ground has risen in relation to the house foundation, and the settlements that took place during the house's existence.  The writer wishes to make his own history in this place, much like famous figures of the past.  He states, "Even Einstein will have spent large parts of his life thinking about his holiday or new hammock or how dainty was the ankle on the young lady alighting from the tram across the street." This leads me to assume that he knows his life in this house isn't a spectacle that will reflect his greater purpose, but will act as a catalyst for his future endeavors. 

I don't feel as though there is much to say about inquiry in this chapter.  He really just explains the house and doesn't bring up conflict within himself or anything for that matter.  He lays out plenty of facts and interesting things about the house itself, and for that he would fit a portion of our class model, but without capturing the true purpose of the essay (bringing a question to the table without picking a side).  I don't find any instances of inquiry at all to the end of the piece.  He goes on plenty about the history of the world since 1600 but doesn't really bring forward one big question that you can keep on your mind throughout the chapter.

Assignment 2

Steven Schwarz

English 102

Assignment 2

Building a Mystery

I believe the thesis statement of this piece is that traditional textbooks tend to reinforce unoriginal writing by providing a standardized concept of how academic research writing should look. Posusta created a way for students to write effectively when they procrastinate on the writing portion of a research paper. It ultimately provides them with the bare essentials that every research paper should have.

The argument of the paper is really asking the question, "will this format prepare students for other academic strategies pertaining to their research paper aside from the paper itself?" Procrastination leads to ineffective learning. there's really no way around it.

A lot was said about research writing in general. Posusta says it can be done in one night, but two would be better. If you speak your mind and answer the questions brought up in the research, many times that's just not enough.  The public is uninterested in the detached perspective of the modernist research paper.

They believe their model is helpful to students who would procrastinate on the writing portion regardless of having their model.  Their model for writing gets the job done, and helps the student accomplish what the paper is asking. Unfortunately, for the ambitious student who wishes to do more than just a research paper with their work won't benefit much from this model.  It's not sufficient enough to help with other forms of presenting their research.

The Media Affecting Teenage Rebellion

Steven Schwarz

Eng. 102 Assign. 1a

1/26/2012

The Media Affecting Teenage Rebellion

The topic of this paper isn’t much unexpected in any way.  We’re all college students, and bringing teenage rebellion to the table isn’t really groundbreaking.  They raise the debate that young adulthood is a rather new phenomenon.  The researcher goes on to explain that the media manipulates how people see the world, and the most affected group of people is those in their adolescence.  They ask the question, “Is this affecting teenager’ thinking process and decision making?”  This is a fair question to ask, sure, but to say it’s a new phenomenon is a bit overstated.  

            They cited a couple of studies throughout the piece from what I assume are from universities.  The researcher uses these sources to explain how adolescence has been shaped by both education and urbanization.  The study they used explained how different cultures have changed over the years due to how our young adults communicate and learn in their quickly growing urbanized environments. 

            The author’s style of writing is very straight forward and hard to argue with throughout most of it.  It’s very “matter of fact” in what they write.  It’s very fitting for a research paper.  There was an appropriate amount of quotation.  They used what other people have stated, but didn’t make those quotes the bulk of their paper.  All in all, it’s the model of an exceptional research paper.