Why questions are awesome

You are probably tired of hearing this already, but I'll say it anyway: writing is a conversation. Authors try to talk to us through what they write. However, as readers, we don't always get a chance to respond directly to them. But that doesn't mean we don't respond at all.

Most of the time, while we are reading an article, we get questions -- maybe about what a passage means, about the author's intent or purpose, maybe about the issue that's being tackled in the article. Those questions are essentially conversation starters; when we read, it's important that our mind engages with the text actively.

What I expect we'll do here is bring some (if not all) of those questions here. Whenever we read something new for our course, we should try to come up with some questions about the reading. This is a good way to both think about what we've read but to get other people thinking too.

The best part about questions is that they're never bad or stupid or wrong. They're just questions. But sometimes they can be more powerful than answers.

Alice Essay

Alice's essay makes an attempt to discuss unemployment insurance benefits. She explains how unemployment is unfortunate, and not always controlled by a person, but rather out of their control. So many factors play a role in reasons why one might become unemployed. After becoming unemployed, if that weren't enough, it leads to many other tragedies like depression or even addiction. Unemployment insurance should not be abolished, but should be relied on less. Only those who really need it should get it. This would promote many to get a job instead of being handed insurance. This would help the poverty problem and decrease the unemployment rate drastically

What To Do about Taxes

This essay "What To Do about Taxes" is about the benefits and struggles taxes may cause. I think this essay is written well and has good show and tell. This was a good essay example 3 to show to the class.

Alice Essay

This essay written by a student on Unemployment Insurance Benefits. It provides tension and is full of research as well as arguments that she backs up with opinions and current evidence. Overall I liked the essay and it helped show me structure in a way.

"Unemployment Insurance Benefits"

Alice's essay focuses on unemployment. In the first paragraph she describes how unemployment rates have risen and that there are way to too many people collecting unemployment insurance. She then goes on the describe how unemployment insurance is not good because people start to take advantage of it and it only discourages them from getting a job. Alice's position is that she wishes the government would be more strict with their regulations on the unemployment insurance. Alice goes on with her essay by stating the multiple issues that unemployment insureance brings to the economy and gives some ideas that can help to change unemployment insurance.

The first thing that struck me about alice's essay was that it was very well prepared. It had researched facts and measurements that made sense and supported her argument. She did make really logical points and was able to support her claims with sources and references. However, she repeated words a lot. For example, the word "even" was repeated about four times in the first paragraph and the word "overall" was used twice in the conclusion. I suppose that I would have been able to think of another word of phrase for overall, like "in conclusion" or "according to the research."

Response to Of Plagiarism, Paper Mills, and the Harried Hurried Student

Plagiarism has changed over the years with the introduction of the internet. The author argues more info more plagiarism. Universities are trying to stop this with harsher punishments. I believe that there is accidental plagiarism, I worry about it every time I write a paper. What if you coincidentally write something that an author has already wrote?

Response to Annotated Bibliography

This is an argumentative piece that is trying to keep art programs in schools. She states that the pros out weight the cons for keeping the arts in school. does a good job of stating her claim and executing the details.