Julia, I followed your advice with the two sentences thing. Thank you, I think it does sound better that way. Everyone else - here's more!
You won’t find a more judgmental or more discriminating group than that of teenagers. We hate certain foods and like all manner of strange clothing. We can’t rip ourselves away from inane videos on YouTube, and yet can’t watch a ten-minute video in class for more than five seconds. And, it’s hard to find a more widely scorned activity among this unpredictable group than writing for fun. We’re forced to write all day in school, so who in their right mind would do it willingly?
Of course, writing itself is not actually a bad thing, even if having to do it for school makes it seem so. And, as it turns out, one form of free-writing can be healthy – keeping a journal.
The word “journal” comes from the French word “le jour,” meaning day. The basic idea of one is to write down the daily events of life and reflect on them. The oldest known journals are from the Middle East and Asia, and there are some that have even become famous, such as The Diary of Anne Frank, written during the Holocaust by Anne Frank while in hiding from the Nazis.
Although keeping a journal may seem like a daily hassle instead of daily relief, the latter is much more true than the former. According to James Pennebaker, professor of psychology at the University of Texas, a study has shown that writing down your experiences, especially about emotional upheavals in your life, can be beneficial. For example, documenting these experiences can “enhance immune function, reduce anxiety and depression, improve sleep, and lift performance at school or work” (Words). The study, conducted by the professor himself, had students writing for just 15-20 minutes a day about a traumatic event from their pasts. The students who wrote in their journals about both the facts of the event and the emotions surrounding it experienced the health benefits listed before.
Deb Western, a social worker and lecturer at La Trobe University, has described the effects of writing down your life as relieving, and clarifying. She speaks from personal experience, as she conducted a study among women with depression who kept journals for a set amount of time.
Pennebaker and Western have not been the only ones to investigate this phenomenon. Joshua M. Smyth, who conducted his research at the State University of New York, discovered that keeping a proper journal can reduce the symptoms of chronic illnesses in their writers. Smyth’s subjects were 112 people with asthma or arthritis. After four months of keeping journals, half of the group that expressed their worry over certain events in their lives showed improvement in their conditions. Only a fourth of the people who wrote about “neutral events,” such as their daily routine or plans for the day, experienced any improvement.
Besides being good for your physical health, journal writing is also psychologically healing. For example, Keith Bellinger was in a car crash in 1991 that crushed three vertebrae in his back. He had been keeping a journal before, but totally enveloped himself in the writing as he hadn’t before the accident. He reported that reading his previous entries and adding new ones helped him get a new perspective on his accident and stopped him from wallowing in self-pity. If it weren’t for his journal, he wouldn’t have had the “strength to carry on,” he said. In fact, therapists now recommend what Bellinger did for himself – keeping a journal to explore traumatic events. “Writing acts as
a conduit through which obsessive or negative thoughts find a safe place to rest outside of one’s mind” (Transformative). So, through journaling, patients can find peace in letting out their emotions on paper.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Some more of my expository essay
Is it sounding "expository" enough?
You won’t find a more judgmental or more discriminating group than that of teenagers. We hate certain foods, like all manner of strange clothing, can’t rip ourselves away from inane videos on YouTube, and yet can’t watch a ten-minute video in class for more than five seconds. And, it’s hard to find a more widely scorned activity among this unpredictable group than writing for fun. We’re forced to write all day in school, so who in their right mind would do it willingly?
Of course, writing itself is not actually a bad thing, even if having to do it for school makes it seem so. And, as it turns out, one form of free-writing can be healthy – keeping a journal.
The word “journal” comes from the French word “le jour,” meaning day. The basic idea of one is to write down the daily events of life and reflect on them. The oldest known journals are from the Middle East and Asia, and there are some that have even become famous, such as The Diary of Anne Frank, written during the Holocaust by Anne Frank while in hiding from the Nazis.
Although keeping a journal may seem like a daily hassle instead of daily relief, the latter is much more true than the former. According to James Pennebaker, professor of psychology at the University of Texas, a study has shown that writing down your experiences, especially about emotional upheavals in your life, can be beneficial. For example, documenting these experiences can “enhance immune function, reduce anxiety and depression, improve sleep, and lift performance at school or work” (Words). The study, conducted by the professor himself, had students writing for just 15-20 minutes a day about a traumatic event from their pasts. The students who wrote in their journals about both the facts of the event and the emotions surrounding it experienced the health benefits listed before.
Deb Western, a social worker and lecturer at La Trobe University, has described the effects of writing down your life as relieving, and clarifying. She speaks from personal experience, as she conducted a study among women with depression who kept journals for a set amount of time. So, not only is keeping a journal physically healthy, but it’s psychologically beneficial as well.
You won’t find a more judgmental or more discriminating group than that of teenagers. We hate certain foods, like all manner of strange clothing, can’t rip ourselves away from inane videos on YouTube, and yet can’t watch a ten-minute video in class for more than five seconds. And, it’s hard to find a more widely scorned activity among this unpredictable group than writing for fun. We’re forced to write all day in school, so who in their right mind would do it willingly?
Of course, writing itself is not actually a bad thing, even if having to do it for school makes it seem so. And, as it turns out, one form of free-writing can be healthy – keeping a journal.
The word “journal” comes from the French word “le jour,” meaning day. The basic idea of one is to write down the daily events of life and reflect on them. The oldest known journals are from the Middle East and Asia, and there are some that have even become famous, such as The Diary of Anne Frank, written during the Holocaust by Anne Frank while in hiding from the Nazis.
Although keeping a journal may seem like a daily hassle instead of daily relief, the latter is much more true than the former. According to James Pennebaker, professor of psychology at the University of Texas, a study has shown that writing down your experiences, especially about emotional upheavals in your life, can be beneficial. For example, documenting these experiences can “enhance immune function, reduce anxiety and depression, improve sleep, and lift performance at school or work” (Words). The study, conducted by the professor himself, had students writing for just 15-20 minutes a day about a traumatic event from their pasts. The students who wrote in their journals about both the facts of the event and the emotions surrounding it experienced the health benefits listed before.
Deb Western, a social worker and lecturer at La Trobe University, has described the effects of writing down your life as relieving, and clarifying. She speaks from personal experience, as she conducted a study among women with depression who kept journals for a set amount of time. So, not only is keeping a journal physically healthy, but it’s psychologically beneficial as well.
Monday, December 27, 2010
A Bit of My Expository Essay
Here's the first bit of my expository essay, though it's mostly the beginning. I have some more, but it's mostly in the form of notes. I'm having trouble with the whole idea of expository, because I think mine will sound too opinionated. Could I have some help with the definition of expository again?
You won’t find a more judgmental or more discriminating group than that of teenagers. We inexplicably hate certain , like all manner of strange clothing, can’t rip ourselves away from inane videos on YouTube, and yet can’t watch a ten-minute video in class for more than five seconds. And, it’s hard to find a more widely scorned activity among this unpredictable group than writing for fun. We’re forced to write all day in school, so who in their right mind would do it willingly?
Of course, writing itself is not actually a bad thing, even if having to do it for school makes it seem so. And, as it turns out, one form of free-writing can be healthy – keeping a journal.
The word “journal” comes from the French word “le jour,” meaning day. The basic idea of one is to write down the daily events of life and reflect on them. The oldest known journals are from the Middle East and Asia, and there are some that have even become famous, such as The Diary of Anne Frank.
You won’t find a more judgmental or more discriminating group than that of teenagers. We inexplicably hate certain , like all manner of strange clothing, can’t rip ourselves away from inane videos on YouTube, and yet can’t watch a ten-minute video in class for more than five seconds. And, it’s hard to find a more widely scorned activity among this unpredictable group than writing for fun. We’re forced to write all day in school, so who in their right mind would do it willingly?
Of course, writing itself is not actually a bad thing, even if having to do it for school makes it seem so. And, as it turns out, one form of free-writing can be healthy – keeping a journal.
The word “journal” comes from the French word “le jour,” meaning day. The basic idea of one is to write down the daily events of life and reflect on them. The oldest known journals are from the Middle East and Asia, and there are some that have even become famous, such as The Diary of Anne Frank.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
I know what my topic is!
Okay, I'm going to do the Legend of Zelda games for my project. They've been released in many different incarnations, and there's an entire culture grown beyond the games since that first one (like fanfiction and timeline debates).
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Project Ideas
Hello, everybody! This is just an update for the topics for all the mythology projects we're doing. For the multi-media project, I'm probably going to discuss some type of fairy-tale character. I'm debating between Snow White, Rapunzel, or Cinderella. For the expository essay, I'm going to write about keeping a journal.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Sort of Complete Draft for the Essay
I still need a beginning paragraph, and I plan on having more supporting information. And a title. But this is basically it.
Using embryonic stem-cells to treat diseases is wrong and unneeded. An embryo, the beginning of human life, is created and then destroyed for the sake of treating another’s disease, but it’s unnecessary to do so. Adult stem-cells work just as well, don’t require this destruction, and can come from the sick person themselves, so there is less of a chance of them rejecting the treatment (Underwood). It is wrong to destroy what is indisputably the beginning of human life for the sake of embryonic stem-cell research when adult stem-cells are proven to be more effective.
Embryonic stem-cells are cells that are extracted from a certain part of an embryo, as the name describes, but this cannot be done without the resultant destruction of the embryo itself (Stem). It is theorized that they can be used cure genetic diseases and even regenerate organs, but “despite millions of dollars of research, not one--not one--embryonic stem-cell trial has resulted in the successful treatment of a human patient” (Forbes).
Adult stem-cells, on the other hand, are cells taken from the tissues of us grown humans. Again, a pretty self-explanatory name. They’ve actually been successful in saving people’s lives in surgeries. Not only that, but scientists have discovered a way to alter adult stem-cells so that they function exactly the way embryonic stem-cells do. “These cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS), can do everything an embryonic stem cell is capable of, only without having to destroy a human embryo” (Forbes). Also, with adult stem-cells coming from the patient themselves, it’s more likely that their body will not reject the treatment and they can be well again.
“Over the years, adult stem cells have resulted in 73 successful treatments for various diseases like Alzheimer's, Type 1 Diabetes, Parkinson's, and various forms of cancer” (Forbes). So, I ask you, if adult stem-cells are obviously working so well and embryonic stem-cells have yet to show any successes, why do we bother with them?
For some reason, scientists still have reservations about using adult-stem cells over embryonic. Last year, a clinical trial was conducted in which ten people, paralyzed from the waist down, received a low-dose treatment of embryonic stem-cells injected into their spinal cords. “Although it's not clear yet whether the treatment is effective or safe, the restoration of even partial [motor function] would be a huge advance” (Underwood).
However, the article reporting this also said scientists were reluctant to use the newly discovered iPS cells: “[They]… will not be used as replacement tissue for spinal cords and other organs. Because iPS cells have subtle (and potentially dangerous) differences from true embryonic stem cells, many doctors are leery of putting them directly into patients …” (Underwood). But wait, didn’t we just see above that we weren’t sure if embryonic stem-cells were safe, either? So we have established that both iPS adult stem-cells and embryonic stem-cells are not determined to be completely safe, and we’ve also established that iPS cells have garnered much more success thus far. Which one would you bet your money on to be more helpful?
So here we are, wasting money on embryonic stem-cell research when adult stem-cells are ethical and work more effectively to treat diseases conditions such as paralysis.
In addition, using an embryo as treatment for diseases is killing a baby. Could you do that morally? If you think that it’s not murder, just answer these questions.
Would you kill a perfectly healthy eight-year-old? Probably not, assuming you’re not a psycho serial killer. How about an equally healthy five-year-old? I’m guessing that you would not extinguish the life of a two-year-old or baby just born an hour ago. But would you kill the baby the day before it was born, or a month?
At which point, in your opinion, does the embryo start being human?
Whatever your view is in this aspect, embryos are undeniably the start of a human life. To cut off that life at the very beginning is to stop that adorable, smiling baby from coming into the world and making something great. The unrealized potential for the embryo is astounding.
Luckily, this doesn’t have to happen anymore. Adult stem-cells have already surpassed embryonic stem-cells in their ability to treat diseases and conditions like paralysis, and they already show promise in curing genetic diseases such as Huntington’s (insert citation here). Whether using embryos in stem-cell research is murder in your eyes or not, it’s true that adult-stem cells are more effective in making people healthy. If only scientists would see that too…
Using embryonic stem-cells to treat diseases is wrong and unneeded. An embryo, the beginning of human life, is created and then destroyed for the sake of treating another’s disease, but it’s unnecessary to do so. Adult stem-cells work just as well, don’t require this destruction, and can come from the sick person themselves, so there is less of a chance of them rejecting the treatment (Underwood). It is wrong to destroy what is indisputably the beginning of human life for the sake of embryonic stem-cell research when adult stem-cells are proven to be more effective.
Embryonic stem-cells are cells that are extracted from a certain part of an embryo, as the name describes, but this cannot be done without the resultant destruction of the embryo itself (Stem). It is theorized that they can be used cure genetic diseases and even regenerate organs, but “despite millions of dollars of research, not one--not one--embryonic stem-cell trial has resulted in the successful treatment of a human patient” (Forbes).
Adult stem-cells, on the other hand, are cells taken from the tissues of us grown humans. Again, a pretty self-explanatory name. They’ve actually been successful in saving people’s lives in surgeries. Not only that, but scientists have discovered a way to alter adult stem-cells so that they function exactly the way embryonic stem-cells do. “These cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS), can do everything an embryonic stem cell is capable of, only without having to destroy a human embryo” (Forbes). Also, with adult stem-cells coming from the patient themselves, it’s more likely that their body will not reject the treatment and they can be well again.
“Over the years, adult stem cells have resulted in 73 successful treatments for various diseases like Alzheimer's, Type 1 Diabetes, Parkinson's, and various forms of cancer” (Forbes). So, I ask you, if adult stem-cells are obviously working so well and embryonic stem-cells have yet to show any successes, why do we bother with them?
For some reason, scientists still have reservations about using adult-stem cells over embryonic. Last year, a clinical trial was conducted in which ten people, paralyzed from the waist down, received a low-dose treatment of embryonic stem-cells injected into their spinal cords. “Although it's not clear yet whether the treatment is effective or safe, the restoration of even partial [motor function] would be a huge advance” (Underwood).
However, the article reporting this also said scientists were reluctant to use the newly discovered iPS cells: “[They]… will not be used as replacement tissue for spinal cords and other organs. Because iPS cells have subtle (and potentially dangerous) differences from true embryonic stem cells, many doctors are leery of putting them directly into patients …” (Underwood). But wait, didn’t we just see above that we weren’t sure if embryonic stem-cells were safe, either? So we have established that both iPS adult stem-cells and embryonic stem-cells are not determined to be completely safe, and we’ve also established that iPS cells have garnered much more success thus far. Which one would you bet your money on to be more helpful?
So here we are, wasting money on embryonic stem-cell research when adult stem-cells are ethical and work more effectively to treat diseases conditions such as paralysis.
In addition, using an embryo as treatment for diseases is killing a baby. Could you do that morally? If you think that it’s not murder, just answer these questions.
Would you kill a perfectly healthy eight-year-old? Probably not, assuming you’re not a psycho serial killer. How about an equally healthy five-year-old? I’m guessing that you would not extinguish the life of a two-year-old or baby just born an hour ago. But would you kill the baby the day before it was born, or a month?
At which point, in your opinion, does the embryo start being human?
Whatever your view is in this aspect, embryos are undeniably the start of a human life. To cut off that life at the very beginning is to stop that adorable, smiling baby from coming into the world and making something great. The unrealized potential for the embryo is astounding.
Luckily, this doesn’t have to happen anymore. Adult stem-cells have already surpassed embryonic stem-cells in their ability to treat diseases and conditions like paralysis, and they already show promise in curing genetic diseases such as Huntington’s (insert citation here). Whether using embryos in stem-cell research is murder in your eyes or not, it’s true that adult-stem cells are more effective in making people healthy. If only scientists would see that too…
Thursday, November 4, 2010
First bit of free-choice essay. No bookends yet, or title.
I flip-flopped on topics a bit, but finally settled on embryonic stem-cell research.
Using embryonic stem-cells to treat diseases is wrong and unneeded. An embryo, the beginning of human life, is created and then destroyed for the sake of treating another’s disease, but it’s unnecessary to do so. Adult stem-cells work just as well, don’t require killing a child, and can come from the sick person themselves, so there is less of a chance of them rejecting the treatment (Underwood). It is wrong to destroy what is indisputably the beginning of human life for the sake of embryonic stem-cell research when adult stem-cells are proven to be more effective.
Embryonic stem-cells are cells that are extracted from an embryo, as the name describes, but this cannot be done without the resultant destruction of the embryo itself (Stem). They theoretically can be used cure genetic diseases and even regenerate organs, but “despite millions of dollars of research, not one--not one--embryonic stem-cell trial has resulted in the successful treatment of a human patient” (Forbes).
Adult stem-cells, on the other hand, are cells taken from the tissues of us grown humans. Again, a pretty self-explanatory name. They’ve actually been successful in saving people’s lives in surgeries. Not only that, but scientists have discovered a way to alter adult stem-cells so that they function exactly the way embryonic stem-cells do. “These cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS), can do everything an embryonic stem cell is capable of, only without having to destroy a human embryo. Because of this development, there is likely no medical benefit that can come from embryonic stem-cell research that cannot be obtained from adult stem cells” (Forbes). Also, with adult stem-cells coming from the patient themselves, it’s more likely that their body will not reject the treatment and they can be well again.
“Over the years, adult stem cells have resulted in 73 successful treatments for various diseases like Alzheimer's, Type 1 Diabetes, Parkinson's, and various forms of cancer” (Forbes). So, I ask you, if adult stem-cells are obviously working so well and embryonic stem-cells have yet to show any successes, why do we bother with them?
Using embryonic stem-cells to treat diseases is wrong and unneeded. An embryo, the beginning of human life, is created and then destroyed for the sake of treating another’s disease, but it’s unnecessary to do so. Adult stem-cells work just as well, don’t require killing a child, and can come from the sick person themselves, so there is less of a chance of them rejecting the treatment (Underwood). It is wrong to destroy what is indisputably the beginning of human life for the sake of embryonic stem-cell research when adult stem-cells are proven to be more effective.
Embryonic stem-cells are cells that are extracted from an embryo, as the name describes, but this cannot be done without the resultant destruction of the embryo itself (Stem). They theoretically can be used cure genetic diseases and even regenerate organs, but “despite millions of dollars of research, not one--not one--embryonic stem-cell trial has resulted in the successful treatment of a human patient” (Forbes).
Adult stem-cells, on the other hand, are cells taken from the tissues of us grown humans. Again, a pretty self-explanatory name. They’ve actually been successful in saving people’s lives in surgeries. Not only that, but scientists have discovered a way to alter adult stem-cells so that they function exactly the way embryonic stem-cells do. “These cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS), can do everything an embryonic stem cell is capable of, only without having to destroy a human embryo. Because of this development, there is likely no medical benefit that can come from embryonic stem-cell research that cannot be obtained from adult stem cells” (Forbes). Also, with adult stem-cells coming from the patient themselves, it’s more likely that their body will not reject the treatment and they can be well again.
“Over the years, adult stem cells have resulted in 73 successful treatments for various diseases like Alzheimer's, Type 1 Diabetes, Parkinson's, and various forms of cancer” (Forbes). So, I ask you, if adult stem-cells are obviously working so well and embryonic stem-cells have yet to show any successes, why do we bother with them?
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