...To Entertain or to Learn? That is the Question. In her essay, “Thinking Outside the Idiot Box,” published in Slate on March 25,2005, Dana Stevens argues against what Johnson has to say about how television makes us smarter. Stevens explains how television is just a way for Americans to become overly obsessed with shows that have no value to the way our brains work. She wants her readers to know that television is just a form of entertainment and that there are more things to life than just a couch and remote. She explains how Steven Johnson is wrong about how TV is making Americans smarter. Parents used to make their children go outside and get exercise, but now they just put their children in front of a TV with an “educational” show on. Ultimately what is at stake here is that children and adults are using TV to get smarter. Stevens is persuasive by using a sarcastic tone that some readers might not appreciate but she gets her point across, logic on how television really is, and refuting the opposing argument. By using these points the reader is able to see how television is not making the brain work more or less, it just entertains. From start to finish, Stevens applies sarcasm into her essay by picking at Johnson’s logic on how television is making the world smarter. She states, “If watching TV really makes you smarter, as Steven Johnson argued in an article…then I guess I need to watch a lot more of it because try as I might, I could make no sense of Johnson’s piece”...
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...Argumentative writing Planning Stage For an argument essay to be effective, it must contain certain elements. For this reason, you must take a few minutes to plan before you jump into writing an argument essay. Find a Good Topic To find good topic for an argument essay you should consider several issues that will have two conflicting points of view or very different conclusions. As you look over a list of topics you should find one that really sparks your interest. While a strong interest in a topic is important, it's not enough. You next have to consider what position you can back up with reasoning. It's one thing to have a strong belief, but when shaping an argument you'll have to explain why your belief is reasonable and logical. As you explore the topics, make a mental list of points you could use as evidence for or against an issue. Consider Both Sides of Your Topic and Take a Position Once you have selected a topic you feel strongly about, you should make a list of points for both sides of the argument. One of your first objectives in your essay will be to present both sides of your issue with an assessment of each. Of course, you will conclude that one side (your side) is the best conclusion. In the planning stage you will need to consider strong arguments for the "other" side. Then you'll shoot them down! Gather Evidence When we think of arguments we might picture two red-faced people speaking quite loudly and making dramatic gestures. But that's because...
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...The Impact Of Television On Children The Impact Of Television On Children The impacts of television on children are subjects that touch almost everyone in the world. This essay will prove that the television impact the children’s attention spans, because children spend too much time with programs that affect the focus of the children. There are three types of programs that affect children. The first one are programs that are for adults and are programs that children just don’t need to watch. The second one are the programs that are supposes to be made for children, but they could still affect the children for their content or for how they are made. The third one are the programs that con educate and teach good values to the children. Adults are the ones that have to choose what they can watch and also don’t expose the children with too much TV even it is good TV programs This essay will attempt to breakdown this research and find out how television has an influence on children’s attentions spans and other behavior problems. Looking at how different programs that affect children in different ways. There are several different theories with children’s attention spans and its relationship to television and in this essay I will attempt to bring them all together and draw one conclusive theory, which reflects all the evidence I have gathered. Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis, Director of the Center for Child Health, and other researchers, which make this study, say...
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...part of today’s society, and is a convenient way to get information out to users. It’s hard to say whether tv makes us smarter, but two essays that have very different views on this topic are “Watching TV Makes You Smarter” by Steven Johnson and “Thinking Outside The Idiot Box” by Dana Stevens’. Steve Johnson goes into detail about how modern television has the ability to allow viewers to grasp many abstract ideas at the same time. On the other hand, Dana Stevens believes the opposite. Even though watching too much TV can distract you from other tasks, tv can allow an individual to grasp multiple concepts at once, and watching certain television shows have the ability to increase intelligence. In Steven Johnson’s article “Watching TV Makes You Smarter” he goes into detail about how television is not necessarily responsible for “dumbing us down” like many would believe. Johnson goes into detail about the sleeper curve and how society is growing as the years pass. He suggests that TV forces an individual to think, stimulates the brain and forces our mind to focus on the plot. He suggests that TV shows we watch today help us analyze certain situations and increase our intellectual capabilities leading to an increase of intelligence. Some believe that Reality TV can help engage our mind and even teach us street smarts. Johnson believes that the true test is determining if the TV shows sedates our mind or engages it. To “determine what really is cognitive junk food and what is generally...
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...Article 1 Divorce rates in Dubai plummet to 24pc in the space of just two years The divorce rate in Dubai has become the lowest not only in the UAE but the whole of the Arab world, thanks to a new counselling service offered by the emirate's court service. Divorce rates have plummeted from 35 per cent to 24 per cent in the space of just two years. It has been attributed to the success of the Reformation and Family Direction Section created by Dubai Courts in 2000 to tackle marital problems. Wodad Lootah, a social worker at the section said Dubai Courts had set up the section following an increase in divorce rates during the 1990s. She said the main aim was to allow couples to settle disputes amicably without resorting to court action at an early stage. Since the Reformation and Family Direction Section was established, it has received 1,496 couples who claimed they wanted to divorce. Of these, 471 couples changed their minds and did not divorce - nearly one third. "The main causes of divorce are lack of understanding between the husband and wife because neither know how to communicate effectively with each other, as well as how to solve their problems in the right way," she said. Wodad added that the section has taken many steps to reduce divorce. It has distributed about 1,200 social packages to newly married couples at the court which has helped in dropping divorce rates by six per cent in the year 2002 alone. However, it's not all...
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...Essay on Essay Analysis on The Movie "The Terminator" For the purposes of this essay I have chosen The Terminator, a science fiction B-movie feature from 1984. Although I intend mainly to study this purely as a single film, I do intend to study Terminator 2 in addition, thus making the essay a study of the series. In addition, I will be contrasting the theory written surrounding these films in relation to other contemporary postmodern theory, and as a result will be mentioning several other films by way of a comparison or contrast. The Terminator seems quite remarkable to me, for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is one of many action films I watched in my early teens; a considerable number of which, like this film, starred the Austrian body-builder turned actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. What is so different about The Terminator though, is that unlike most of these films, this movie has enough depth and substance that, not only does it still bear watching now that I am older, but it also has an archive of academic theory written about it. The Terminator tells of a cyborg, a human shaped machine coated in flesh, that is sent back in time, from an apocalyptic future in which machines have 'got smart' and acted on their own to destroy the human race. The cyborg's mission is to assassinate the mother of the human's great leader, the man who taught the survivors to fight back against the machines. The woman, a young waitress named Sarah Connor, is protected only by a lone warrior...
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...History Leaving Cert American Essay Notes By James Esses Mocks.ie History Leaving Cert Revision Notes James Esses Page 1 Contents 1.0 Essay 1: Changes in the US Economy from 1945-1989 ..................................................................... 3 1.1 Boom (1945-1968) .................................................................................................................. 3 1.2 Bust (1968-1989)..................................................................................................................... 4 2.0 Essay 2 Consumer Society post 1945 ................................................................................................ 6 3.0 Essay 3 Foreign Policy 1945-1972 ..................................................................................................... 8 3.1 Berlin ....................................................................................................................................... 8 3.2 Korea ....................................................................................................................................... 9 3.3 Berlin Wall ............................................................................................................................. 10 3.4 Cuba ...................................................................................................................................... 10 4.0 Essay 4: How did the US become involved in Vietnam and why did it escalate in...
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...Colonialism: The One-Armed Bandit In every essay that we have read over the past few weeks, all of the authors talk about how colonialism has ultimately destroyed Africa and their hopes of ever being as great as the other leader nations. Authors like Maria Mies, Walter Rodney, and Jerry Kloby all contribute different explanations as to how the European colonizers have basically destroyed Africa. Mies explains how Africa has no chance of “catching-up” to the other developed countries because of European colonialism. Rodney disputes the claims that colonialism has modernized Africa and how the new advancements being brought in by the colonizers were being more used against Africans than to help them. Then Kloby helps us look at real examples of different times in which colonialism has hurt Africans more than helped them. All of these authors have come to one clear consensus: colonialism has ultimately destroyed Africa’s chances of becoming a great and powerful continent. In Mies’ essay, she tends to be very pessimistic about the Africa being able to “catch-up” to other already developed countries. Mies says that, “the poverty of the underdeveloped nations is not as a result of ‘natural’ lagging behind but the direct consequence of the overdevelopment of the rich industrial countries who exploit the so-called periphery in Africa” (151). She denies that possibility that Africa can catch up by following the same path of industrialization, technological progress, and capital accumulation...
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...Obesity is a fast-growing epidemic among young adults due several factors. People are choosing to eat poorly and exercise less. They watch too much TV, play too many video games, eat too much fast food and junk food and are not getting enough exercise or nutrition to balance it out! While many people are healthy and exercise regularly, there is a growing number of adults and children becoming obese. It is costing the NHS millions to deal with the problems that it causes. We are having serious concerns about the number of people becoming ill and being unable to work, because of our overweight people. It' no secret that obesity is a huge issue. The causes of this problem can be social, economic and cultural, all of which determine how much food we eat, and the kind of food we eat, against how much exercise we do. Affecting the entire world, Scotland is one of the worst countries by percentage. According to professionals, "40% of adults in Scotland will be obese by 2030". 40%?! These figures are ridiculous, almost half the country obese in a few short years? Fatty and unhealthy foods. Served in every shop, in every town, in every country. Foods that damage the body, you just can’t get away from them. Being obese puts unnecessary strain on the heart, making the heart pump faster because of the increased amount of body fat. As a result this can cause high blood pressure. Likewise it has been proven that being obese...
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...Music Essay The Beatles' changed our world by introducing a new musical style and sense of creativity in popular culture in the 1960s.This band formed by four youngh men, John Lennon (rhythm guitar, vocals), Paul McCartney (bass guitar, vocals), George Harrison (lead guitar, vocals) and Ringo Starr (drums, vocals) started their carrer playing in small places such us The Cavern , now known as a legendary place in the city. They started to become influences by other bands famous at that moment in the UK, but what they didn’t realized is that in so short time they will become the band that influence other groups not only in their own country , but all over the world. Their first step to their success begun with the song “Love me do”. Their music reflected the rebellion of the youth of the 1960's against the governments and leaders and the type of thinking that had divided the world into two world wars. The titles and lyrics of their songs reflected the desire for change and for peace in the world. They through that the reason why everybody liked their music and lyrics was because it articulated the needs and frustrations of the youth and became an integral part of a new cultural movement. They were so sucessful, that in order to get noticed, other bands felt that they needed to fashion their music after to the sound of the Beatles. The clothes they wore influenced everybody. Bell bottoms were in, and people started cutting their hair in the same style. It was fashionable to take...
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...Many share the same principles, such as kindness. Kindness is a key element of human existence; it is a universal concept that does not differentiate between people of different backgrounds. In Sarah Adams essay, “Be Cool to the Pizza Dude,” she expresses several steps and reasons to be kind to others. Sarah writes about equality and universal kindness; “After all, the dude is delivering pizza to young and old, families and singletons, gays and straights, blacks, whites, and browns, rich and poor, and vegetarians, and meat lovers alike” (Adams 8). In Sarah's first principle she highlights that the pizza delivery dude is a link between people of all branches of life. He does not discriminate between race, age, religion, and delivers pizza to everyone alike. She conveys to the reader that kindness is not exclusive to people of...
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...Surveillance– Essay Have we civilized countries grown to be dependent on the benefits modern technology provides us? As technology has progressed through the decades, we have greeted the simplicity and efficiency it has brought us with open arms. Little did we know that these revolutionizing creations of Mankind would one day be implements misused in a never-ending battle, between individual privacy and state power. Surveillance around the world has strongly increased after the terrorist acts of 9/11. This has led to a strong media focus on the impact the different kinds of surveillance technology will have on our societies. The first text “The Spy in Your Refrigerator” is an excerpt from an article in The UNESCO Courier, written March 2001 by Simon Davies. The article focuses on the civilian surveillance and its’ evolution. The fear of surveillance growing into an uncontainable situation is clearly illustrated in the quote “… surveillance that will one day cross all national boundaries – touching citizens everywhere” (p.4,ll.15-16). The writer makes use of the persuasion mode, Pathos, as he plays with our emotions regarding our fears against the states invasion of privacy. Furthermore we are introduced to the different kinds of surveillance methods and technology. The most common and obvious practice of surveillance is the “Closed circuit television cameras” (CCTV). They are neither hidden nor unnoticeable, but simply monitor private properties or numerous town streets...
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...ENGLISH ESSAY WRITING UU114 Evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of censorship in the society. Merewalesi Liwaiono S11096060 Tuesday & Thursday group 20 Alice Rore 30th August 2013 Plan Title: Evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of censorship in the society. C- Censorship L- Benefits, Drawbacks, society D- Evaluate Type: Discussion Essay Intro: Context- Policies Subject- Censorship Limitation subject- Benefits and Disadvantages of Censorship…/. Issue: What are the pros and cons of censorship for the society? Thesis: This essay will discuss the pros and cons of censorship for a society. Body: Disadvantages Disadvantage one: Resists questioning of conventional idea and it is costly. Detail: Convectional ideas are not questioned such as healthy oppositions based on sound valid premises and it is costly as it takes a lot of time and resources to implement the censorship activity in place. e.g.: when people compare the old times with the current era they find a lot of changes and have resources as to why it is happening thus do not question its existence. Disadvantage two: works against human rights Detail: teachers being banned to punish students. e.g.: empowering student, Lack of respect, As a result, exam result a bad….. Disadvantage three: Freedom of speech is compromised. Detail: Limitation on freedom of speech. When people put limits on what is not okay to express it. This sets up a slight slope where...
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...like a circle and sometimes it’s more like an ellipse, it changes every 100.000 years. The inclination of the axis of earth does also change. These days the northern hemisphere is turned away from the sun when its winter and the lack of sunshine makes it colder. This could be an explanation of the Ice Ages, and it also means that the southern hemisphere, or the parts of the world which are affected by global warming mostly, are turned to the sun right now. Researches also show that all climate changes are connected with the sun activity. That is just a slice of all arguments against the theory, that the global warming is caused by us, because I can’t write a full essay about all arguments of all sides right now, but it should be enough to show that the situation isn’t like it’s shown on TV and in the cinema. In my opinion, that is one of the biggest complots of human history. Arguments shown on tv are...
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...impossible to imagine how we would live if there were no TV. One can argue that for many people television is no longer the main source they get the latest news from but it is practically impossible, however, to find a family that doesn’t have a television. We certainly don’t gather around the television any more as our parents used to every evening in the 70-90s to watch a new fabulous film or discuss the latest news. There are a lot of advantages making television so popular. The main reason why so many people choose this means of getting information and entertainment is its simplicity and convenience. All you have to do is to press a button and sink comfortably into a chair. The main problem of television is that little by little we become dependent on TV. It’s lucky that more and more people are beginning to go in for sports these days. Sports usually take us a great deal of time, so we become less dependent on TV. Now let’s speak about different kinds of people working on television and qualities these people should have. It’s still quite difficult to appear on television without the following qualities: intelligence, talent, beauty, leadership qualities and energy. It’s far more interesting to listen to a football report full of energy than to “a peaceful story” a commentator hankers to tell you. Similarly, weather forecasts would not be so exciting if announcers were “plain”. There are plenty of arguments for and against television but it’s however unlikely to be a thing...
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