The melting pot

America is the most diverse country on the planet. America has been known as a "melting pot" because it is a blend of many different cultures all in one place. America is good about this in that we have integrated every race into our public school system, we also represent all these minorities with large organizations and other things. So, overall america is a good melting pot because for the most part we are open to new cultures, we even have Cinco de Mayo, which is not even technically an american based holiday, as well as saint patricks day. Although, in some way america is not open to all these new cultures. We are very stingent about illegal immigration, expecially from mexico, but, they are coming into our country illegally and spending our tax money. Also, we have still not given the native americans true equal treatment, as well as that even though for the most part the civil rights movement is over, they are still racist acts happening in america. Some of the racist acts however are not just from whites, but blacks are doing racist things as well. So there are problems all around with people conflicting with different cultures, but, america is still the best country on the planet and i love america.

Identity, Society, and Culture

The Readings in the book is very interesting. Iv never thought that the images of people in drastic sitcuations may actually be a violiation of privacy. I believe that when someone does take those photos they are completely for good intentions, such as giving visual evidence to support a drive campaign or missionary team. Now my position in the world can shape my opinions on identity, society, and culture. My personal identity is affected because im an american. Being an american there is alot of personal pride, and love for your country, this helps shape my identity. My ideas on society are also very affected by being an american. We are in a first world country, our country is one of the most prominent countries on the planet with some of the most advanced military and technological advances. This really affects our society becuase compared to pther places we are in really good shape. Our America is the main contributer to the Western culture, we hav influenced things such as Rock, and roll, blue jeans and rap music. This leads into our culture as well because of this. Overall the largest contributer to my ideas on Society, Culture, and Identity is the fact that I am an american.

Outlines of Essays

An outline is a very useful tool when developing ideas. It can help you organize the ideas of your paper and put them in an order in which they form together and have a nice flow. I never really thought of most movie trailers as an outline. Some trailers do a very good job though, developing the main themes of the film, as well as an idea of the plot, setting, and story line. When we watched the trailers in class today that was also a good experince because we talked about each trailer afterwards as forms of outlines. This actually caused me to look at my paper as a movie in a way, and the outline was going to be me acting out the storyline of my paper. The subheadings is also a very good organization tool as well. This tool is used inside the tool of an outline, I will defineitely use it for my outline. The next very important tool discussed in the chapter is the use of transtions, they are how you transition from one point to another, and from paragraph to paragraph. Paraprasing was one of the last things discussed in the chapter. I personally have never gone a papraphrase but im sure that someday soon it will help me in developing useful points for an essay.

Bigger Faster Stronger

These two posters are very intersesting. First of all i think they are very clever whether this is a real move or not. The add shows a whole bunch of athletes that resemble real people that have been accused of steroids. American WWE wrestlers, many pro baseball players, boxers, track stars and other athletes are depicted in the poster on the right. In the poster on the right it also shows a whole bunch of pills and sirenges that really proove that the movies purpose is about the steriod use in america, and it is rediculous. There is a pretty clever slogan at the bottom of the right poster. It reads "get pumped for the summers biggest movie", this is clever because "getting pumped" is a common term referred to a person as he/she takes steroids. Something very interesting about both posters is that all the athletes faces are not visible. The poster in the right has the faces of the athletes covered by shadows, on the other the faces are covered by the name of the movie. This shows they dont want to give away any specific identity of a athlete accused of taking steroids. Another very important part of both of these posters is the man in a suit with a thumbs-up. This symbolizes a politician or even a manager of a team allowing whats going on to continue. Overall these posters are very clever and do depict a problem in the pro sports of america.

How i take notes

In college it is very important to take notes and to do it the right way. In class i usually follow along what is written on the board, and add bullets if the teacher goes into more detail about the subject but doesnt write it down. Ill also add my own notes if i figure something out that the teacher will explain later. When I am taking notes on sources however, i do it a different way. I usually go through the text or internet source and write major points in a bullet form. If the text goes into more detail about a subject, ill indent and number the points under the major bullet. I then, after i am done will group all the information into sections in my notes, so i can develop whole paragraphs with the info in each section and so on. I plain and simply try to not plagarize by changing the wording of each sentence i use information from, i may even combine or even shrink some sentences to make it usable and not plagarising. I also ofcoarse cite all my sources which i believe is the most solid form of plagarizm prevention. Chapter 7 was a great help to finding out about sources and helping me not plagarize as well.

Sports issues of today

It is very interesting how sports have changed in the last century. This article that we all read made some very interesting points. First that athletes are always in the national spotlight, whether professional, college, or sometimes even highschool. With that comes alot of media speculation. Along with this influence comes alot of race or gender related stereotypes. I liked the part in the article where now blacks are being able to make there cultural mark on america by being so impactful in music and sports. Also the stigmas about how the rich black man was a large middle finger to the prominent white population. I also believe that its not so much a middle finger to the whites its a middle finger to the people that kept them down or didnt believe in them to suceed. I also liked how it gives examples of how sports are changing such as the longer pants in basketball and so on. One thing that was also true is the impact on Hip-hop culture on these athlete celebrities. You do see this alot more now, some of it is good, some bad. The cornrows, the afros, the tatoos are all fine when it comes to being  a professional athlete, but derogatory speech, or ghetto talk, descriminating against woman, and always referring to drugs are where it is across the line. There is too much of this right now in sports, some sports are becoming so "thug" they are actually loosing popularity. Also, the statements that woman cannot have a true sport is wrong, many times iv heard jokes about womans basketball and how lame it is, well compared to 7 foot tall super athletic men thats not much room for fair play. Woman are allowed to compete if they want no matter the fact that genetically they are smaller than men, this doesnt mean woman dont lack in athletic ability.

Progression of Research

So far my sources are coming along well. So far i have found most of my info off of the search engine "google." First of all it is much easier to find things on these search engines such as google. Also the amount of info presented trumps any of the information presented by the library database sources. Now, the library database sources are better in some ways however. The library database sources are guaranteed that they are solid, and credible sources. While using google iv found several websites that have tons and tons of info, but i hope that the info is deemed credible so i can use it, cause it would really add to my paper. I have found 3 or 4 sources from the library database that are really short as well, some only 3-4 sentences. This is a help, but not a substancial help to writing a 2500 word essay. With these google sources there is pages apon pages of info, but, with this you also have to read alot and really narrow down the usable information you can use for the essay. Overall these two approaches to getting info are very powerful ones, next i know i will need to go get a book or two from the library.