Second Assignment: Outline

Drinking is an enjoyable way to pass the time with friends, and a great way to unwind from the stresses of everyday life. Everyone has, at some point in time, thought about drinking, and in most first world countries it is something most people look forward to being able to do. But why is the legal drinking age different all around the world? Why is it that something everyone can agree on eventually being acceptable, can't have a standard age that applies EVERYWHERE?

Most of Europe has a purchasing age of 18, and in some places like Germany that age is 16. BUT minors are allowed to consume alcohol as long as it is provided free of charge, which basically means if it is given to them by friends or family.
Yet in this great country (USofA) the Legal Drinking Age is 21, but that's not all because it is illegal for anyone under the age of 21 to consume alcohol much less purchase it. And this is enforced so strictly that fines and even punishment can be given to minors who try.

Here's my position:
America as a country is new, when you compare the age of this country to the ages of European countries we are very young. So why is it that we think our laws are the best, particularly the laws about drinking. These other countries have been around for literally hundreds of years longer then America has, so why don't we think about changing our ways to more reflect those countries with greater experience?

Arguments:
Drinking by persons between the ages of 18 and 20 happens, this is a known fact. Why doesn't the government just go ahead and drop the purchase age to 18 because:

• It will allow the government to increase revenue from taxes because people from ages 18 to 20 will now be able to purchase alcohol.
• This age group will no longer feel the need to "hide" while drinking which is where the danger comes from, they will no longer need to find a place to get drunk then try to find a way home
• People will know how to handle being intoxicated by the time they are actually able to enter society and get a real job, so it will become less of a problem for public intoxication type incidences.

Counter Arguments:

• It will heavily affect seniors in high school and possible ruin GPA's in the last year of school.
• Students in college will focus more on partying and less on studying
• The human brain doesn't fully develop until 21

Answers to Counter Arguments:

• If seniors in high school have decreases in GPA's, they are still in a situation where their parents have some control over them. In these situations the parent/guardian needs to take action to prevent excessive consumption
• If a student makes it to the college level, and this is coming from personal experience, and they make the adult decision to go out to parties and not study. Then that is their choice, and they will have to deal with the consequences that come from those choices.
• If the human brain were seriously affected by the moderate alcohol consumption that comes from a few drinks a week, the world would have seen the affects of this from most countries in Europe.

So it couldn't possibly do that much harm to persons or society to lower the drinking age, however, personally I feel that there will be a significant increase in alcohol related problems for the first few years of the lowered limit. This can be expected as the rush of newly legalized drinkers go slightly crazy from the ability to buy and consume, however, this can also be compared to the amount of people who are publicly high due to the new marijuana laws that are slowly moving across the country.


Mason Knight

Drinking in the States

     Drinking in the US is a social attraction, you can buy a beer just about anywhere in this country. Drinking is considered a recreational activity that almost everyone looks forward to participating in, and it the last major mark of becoming an adult in our society. But why is it that the drinking age is so radically different around the globe? Why is it that something everyone can agree on being socially acceptable, can't have an agreed age restriction across the world?

Examples of Citations

For starters, all of these papers are properly cited using the correct process to cite the sources used whether it be: scholarly, newspapers, websites, or unpublished works. All papers give clear examples on how to properly cite sources in writing, both with in-text-citations as well as a work cited page. Commonly, all of these papers appear to be intended to be helpful in teaching the proper way to cite, and can be used and references for more tricky citing. All papers listed helpful tips regarding the citations that were used, and the tips were placed in a way that made it easy to follow along with what was being cited.
As with the first example of their similarities, a major difference in these papers is the style of citation each uses. There are also different requirements for the different styles of citations. Some information that is required to properly cite a source using MLA style, for example, may not be needed for correct citation using APA style. Also, the layout of the works cited page between these two styles is different, I mean the order that the information regarding the sources is listed is different. In-text layout is also different for the styles, and since the papers don't use the same style these differences apply to their respective citations. Lastly, the way the information on correct citing varied with the different papers and the video was completely different since it was a video.

Research Paper

   1.  Students being given personal computers for school in lower level education (high school and down)

• Is this really beneficial or is it even more of a distraction than cellphones

   2.  Raising minimum wage will benefit all lower class Americans.

• Prices will increase at the same pace as minimum wage to keep the gap.

   3.  Should the drinking age be dropped to 18 like most countries in Europe?

• More alcohol related deaths and higher teen death rates

   4.  Core classes shouldn't be included in the college curriculum.

• Core classes teach many useful skills that can be applied throughout the college career.

   5.  The death penalty should be implemented.

• Killing innocent people who have been wrongful found guilty is a crime itself.

Should the US follow the example of most European countries and lower the drinking age to eighteen? With the drinking age a full three years sooner than in America, Europe doesn't experience anymore crime than we do. So what is the real reason behind our American government keeping the drinking age at twenty-one?  The government would actually make more money if the drinking age got lowered, since there would be three year age group that will begin buying alcohol which is taxed. It really doesn't appear that there would be any real drawbacks in the grand scheme of things, so maybe the age should be lowered?

Questions from "Reviews of Scholarly Literature"

Johnson cites eight different sources in her piece, these sources appear credible in a few different ways. For starters, I recognize a few of these Publishers and I know that they usually only publish academic work. This, to me, says that these sources are works done by educated individuals who know what they are talking about, but there are also better examples. These sources have all been, for the most part, scholarly reviewed by other professionals in that field, this means that others with as much knowledge or more knowledge than that author read the piece and approved it to be published as credible. Johnson uses these sources to back up her own opinion in her piece, she states her opinion and reasons then uses these sources to help prove that her idea is correct.

Reflection of First Major Assignment

The first major assignment was Informational Writing about how professional writing in my field of study is and compared to writing in other fields of study.
I learned a few things I didn't know or want to believe about writing as an engineer, but I actually learned more about writing as an English student. I learned the correct way to cite 'unpublished' and 'personal communication' sources, and I believe this is incredibly important because I will probably need to do it in the future. My assumptions of professional writing as an engineer were only supported with the completion of this assignment, I had a strong knowledge of the types of things that are included get included in this type of writing, all the facts both good and bad along with graphs and charts. The only real challenge I had with this assignment was trying to find source that helped  exemplify the writing done by engineers, I couldn't really find any published sources that provided good enough examples for the purpose of this assignment. So I overcame this by using unpublished sources for engineers I know, the only drawback to this was that I was unable to keep or copy any of the documents I used and the information I used in my assignment had to be screened by the actual owners to make sure I didn't use any information that didn't need to be reproduced...that probably didn't make a lot of sense. Let's try this. The in-text-citations of my essay, had to be approved by the actual owners of the source, before I could include them. I learned that as a writer I am good with this kind of writing, I don't really enjoy trying to argue or make somebody believe me. I found group conferences to be very useful, mainly because I wasn't in a group and the conference is what helped me learn how to cite my sources.  I think group conferences should continue, but maybe only for those who feel like they need it. The returned draft with comments was basically the same thing that got said in the conference, so all i really took away from the conference was the correct way to cite my "odd" sources.

Analysis of Joanna Mackay

In this essay, the main topic appears to be the selling of organs. The argument being made here is whether or not organ sales should be legal, or regulated by the government. Her position is based on the fact that it could save lives because people are put onto waiting lists when they need an organ, but she argues that for these people who are dying being put on a list just isn't good enough. She also states that there are people in need of money who would gladly sell an organ for cash, and that these people would provide an increase in available organs and thereby save other's lives. Her final position seems to be that these types of organ sales happen anyway on the black-market where it is not only illegal but it isn't safe. She proposes that the government control this market so it is safe for the people who are selling their organs. Joanna organizes her argument in that basic order, people need organs while people need money and are willing to sell organs. Followed by how dangerous it is and how the safety and benefits would greatly increase if the government would regulate it.

Conference

Today I have scheduled a conference with my English professor to review the draft of my first major assignment of the course, it has been a bit since you heard from me here so lets refresh our memories.
My first assignment is an informative writing piece that will compare writing in my field of study, Mechanical Engineering, to other fields. This is to help me understand writing genres better and also hopefully gain a better understanding of writing as an engineer.
There is one goal that I must accomplish, and that is to learn how to correctly site a few sources that I am using in my assignment. I am not sure how to site them because they are not 'published' sources, but instead our sources written by other engineers during their course of study.
After getting out of my conference, I began applying all of the information on citing my source into my paper. The problem I was having with trying to cite my sources before had to do with the fact that those specific sources weren't published sources, this made citing them harder than if I were just using regular scholarly articles. But, I am glad that I chose to use these source instead of just giving up and changing my sources to make it easier on myself. These are both really good sources, and i was able to learn how to cite non published work because of my choice.
So all in all, I fell my conference went well. And I achieved the goal I gave myself earlier of learning how to cite my source.

Constructive Ideas and Editing for IR

Writing is a major part of the world today, whether it’s a book being read for fun or an email to a big promotion. But writing in a field is not just for fun, what I mean by that is: Scientist do not write about discoveries in an email, they take the time to create a report and list their findings so the world can understand. This is what is can be considered as professional writing in that field, but I am not a scientist so this does not concern me that much. I am studying to be a mechanical engineer, so what I will be focusing on is writing done by engineers specifically. To do this I have interviewed two engineers, whom I will refer to as Mr. A and Mr. B, and three written sources done by engineers. I hope to analyze these sources and present a better understanding of what it means for a piece of writing to be considered ‘professional’ in this field.

Being an engineer can mean many different things, but professional writing as an engineer will be the same no matter what type of engineer you are. Writing as an engineer means that you are presenting facts or data or both, the reason for presenting the information can vary greatly but generally this is what engineers are attempting to do with their writing. As an example here is a piece about solar energy, as a little background the author is trying to persuade a group of investors to fund a project that will replace several major roadways and most parking lots in California with solar panels.  The author writes, “…solar panels of this size will not exactly be cheap to make, at about $200 per piece and around $50 to install…but after only 3 years of these panels being the road and absorbing the sun’s energy the cost of creation and installation would have been repaid.” (source 2). The writer of this report lists the statistics of what it would cost to create and install these solar panels as the roadway, “…now these panels are actually going to be driven on, and it will also be outfitted with many mini multicolored lights to help with the road and parking lot configurations after installation, this all contributes to the cost of production and why these panels cost more than other panels of the same general size and shape.” (source 2).

            The source I used as examples above matches what one Mr. A said repeatedly during my interview with him, “When I write seriously as an engineer there is nothing casual about it, I am putting my name on something so above everything else it must be accurate and correct.” was what he said to me. This moment had a huge impact on the way I think about writing as an engineer, I had not understood exactly how important and serious presenting every little detail of information was. “If you want to keep or get more funds to continue your project than you have to give detailed information on everything…if you are behind schedule you better have a damn good reason why, and if you are over budget it is actually worse…everything comes back to me because I am in charge of these projects so at the end of the day it is my name on the document they read” is what I was told when I asked him why it was so critical for everything to be accounted for in a report.

            After this it came to my attention that writing as an engineer is incredibly different from writing as an English major, the first example that came to my mind was the use of facts. When writing in English it has been my experience that the facts are used to back up my opinion or position, I use the facts that are relevant to me and leave out the ones that may harm my point. As an engineer I am not allowed to leave anything out, Mr. A explained, “If something gets left out, even by accident, when the superiors find out you will almost certainly lose your job but you will definitely lose your reputation as an engineer…” So even if the facts are nothing but harmful for me to included, they must be included. I cannot overlook a failure or blunder for the sake of my position simply because my position is dependent on those facts. One of the last things Mr. A said to me that really sent the engineering writing style home was “Honesty is paramount in this profession, your reputation is your job application.” Mr. A’s interview went along almost perfectly with the writing style and layout of (source 2).

            Mr. B provided me with a report he wrote and turned into his company about the operations of the new cargo lift that needs to be installed on the back of the moving trucks the company uses, during my interview with him he was kind enough to actually talk about the report and how he implemented the information in a way that showed all of both the positive and negative aspects of the cargo lift. Mr. B started with, “This report definitely has information on it that I do not want there, that is even harmful to the convincing that we need this new lift, ‘…the GEN. X lift has a written max payload of 6 tons, 2 tons lighter than our current lift…its size is ¾ that of our current Champion model so we will be able to install it on our smaller trucks and not have to load them at the warehouse.’(source 1) like right here for example, it comes with a pro and a con but I must list them both.” I understood the importance of this immediately but then Mr. B used a great example of why it was important, “Imagine ordering 20 of these new lifts and me not mentioning the maximum load size, we would break all of them on day one. Then I would get blamed for all the lost expensies and broken equipment, and most likely get fired.” Mr. B reiterated many things that Mr. A had said in my earlier interview, reminding me that it was of the utmost importance to list everything that was relevant to the report and not what was relevant to making me look good. “The best way to look good in the world of engineering is to be honest, honesty gets you promotions as an engineer...” was the best quote I heard from Mr. B, he and Mr. A have had no contact that I am aware of and yet the both told me countless times that being honest was the most important thing about writing a report as being an engineer.