Thursday, January 30, 2020

Fast-Food Gone Bad Essay Example for Free

Fast-Food Gone Bad Essay An argument is an implicit dialogue that has importance to appeals. This is done by using different elements of an argument, in which the different parts are the claim (or thesis), the support, the evidence, the warrant, the appeals to the audience, and the counter argument that is being used in the scenario. In this essay that Michele Simon has wrote she examines the unhealthy choices of the some restaurants and explains on how they’re misleading the healthy people in the World. In Michele Simon’s â€Å"Even the ‘Healthy’ Choices at Fast Food Restaurants Are Unhealthy†, uses all of the parts and the elements of an argument in her essay. The first statement that Simon makes is â€Å"In response to sharpening criticism from nutrition advocates, fast-food franchises have added supposedly ‘healthy’ options to their menus† (Simon 473). This would be Simon’s claim, which would be the thesis statement of her argument. This is what the author or the person who wrote the situation is trying to tell you what they’re trying to answer or trying to prove in their argument. Arguments typically have three types of claims; claim of fact, claim of value, and claim of policy. In Simon’s argument her thesis is a claim of policy because she is trying to make a solution to figure out there problem and make it better so there can be something done about this or try to make better. We know there are many problems with fast food and Simon proves her argument by going on and saying different reasons for why this is true in her essay. The warrant is a belief or principle that can be assumed based on the argument. The warrant is never stated in great detail, and it must be drawn from statements made by the arguer. While it is not said by Simon her warrant is still clear and well understood. In Simon’s argument as implies that fast-food restaurants are not committed to the well being of their patrons (Simon). Also it is said that Simon thinks that fast-food restaurants are misleading to consumers who are trying to eat healthy. This also warrants that menu items are misleading and sometimes confusing for the consumer that is buying the product. The consumer could think that they were getting something healthier then a cheeseburger, but in all truth it’s actually worse than that cheeseburger. She must appeal to her audience in order to win the argument, by saying that a majority of fast-food restaurants are not telling the truth about their menu items and that there not healthy. The evidence is used to give strength to the argument and to prove the support for the claim. Many forms of evidence are found in examples, statistics, and expert is brought in to give valuable feedback on the argument. Simon provides many forms of evidence to back up her claim that she has possessed. In her first form of evidence she implies â€Å"The new Happy Meal option, which includes a sugar-loaded caramel dipping sauce† (Simon 473). She is implying that this idea is not much better then French fries because the caramel dipping sauce is full of sugar. Simon’s next problem was that she mentions â€Å"instead of a coke, kids can now have apple juice or milk† (Simon 475). This evidence Simon is trying to say that the apple juice and milk is still full of sugars and it’s still not good for your children. The next support of evidence for her claim is that she implies that â€Å"calling the chicken ‘crispy’ instead of fried is misleading† (Simon 474). She mentions that because if a person hears this that would automatically think that this is healthy salad. She is implying that is should just be called fried because so many people could get this confused. The logos support and evidence has support from multiple studies with facts and stats, given as evidence. Ethos supports from appeals to individuals in dealing with menu items and the choices on it. Pathos is used throughout her essay by giving thought to how unhealthy fast-food is. She mentions that â€Å"For a toddler who needs 1,000 calories per day, a Happy Meal consisting of four Chicken McNuggets, small French fries, and a low-fat chocolate milk totals 580 calories, or more than half of a child’s daily recommended calorie intake† (Simon 475). Simon is saying that no matter what you’re getting at a fast-food restaurant it’s going to be unhealthy for you, and your children. The counter argument Simon takes into consideration the argument opposing her claim, Simon doesn’t spend much time about a counter argument, but it is addressed in her essay. Simon grants â€Å"Go Active! Adult Happy Meal† (Simon 476). Which fell through and done away with because it didn’t work. Simon points out â€Å"In 2004 Ruby Tuesday reduced some portion sizes and added healthier items† (Simon 476). Another thing that Simon points out that was that â€Å"Wendy’s garnered great press in February 2005 for its ‘bold’ decision to add fresh fruit to its menu† (Simon 476). Simon has all of these examples for the counter argument that the fast-food industry is getting somewhat better. In conclusion there are many parts of an argument, and Simon uses all of these parts to successfully get her argument across effectively. She makes her claim, and then backs it up with the right support and to make his claim even stronger. Then she successfully gets the warrant across which has great appeal to the audience and is needed to make the claim that much stronger. Then finally Simon uses her counter argument to address to her audience what has been happening in the years past to try and fix the problem. Works Cited Simon, Michele. Even the Healthy Choices at Fast-Food Restaurants Are Unhealthy. . 473-75. Print. Excerpt from The Purposeful Argument: A Practical Guide. Boston: Patricia Bostian, 2006. N. pag.

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

The Disadvantages Of Standardized Testing Essay -- High-Stakes Standard

Standardized tests must be improved. Instead of traditional standardized testing, random testing should be put in place and tests themselves should be reconstructed to promote fairness, reduce errors and and more accurately assess student’s knowledge. Testing should be done to random groups of students on random dates throughout the year. There will be a large enough group of students to give a good idea of how well material is being taught but a small enough group that not everyone needs to take the test. Cheating is a major problem with standardized tests. Cheating leads to inaccurate test scores (Dolezalek 71). In many cases of it is the teachers that are the ones cheating. â€Å"About 10 percent of the teachers admitted to providing hints about the answers during the test administration; about 10 percent pointed out mismarked items by students; about 15 percent of the teachers provided more time for the test than was allowed; and about 5 percent of the teachers engaged in instruction during the test† (Dolezalek 73). Teachers can also cheat by altering finished tests by filling in blank answers or fixing the answers at the end of the test which tend to be the hardest (Dolezalek 75). Teachers are often pushed by administrators who also cheat for their schools. â€Å"In July 2011 the Georgia Bureau of Investigation released a report on the Atlanta Public Schools charging a widespread cheating conspiracy over a ten year period by 178 teachers, principals and administrators to f ix answers on the statewide competency test† (â€Å"Pressure Caused Teachers to Cheat†). The fact that federal budgets can be determined by tests causes some schools and states to cheat (Dolezalek 76). Schools cheat because the system for determining budgets makes n... ...argets Has Caused Teachers to Cheat.† Standardized Testing. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2012. At Issue. Rpt. from â€Å"GBI Reveals Why Cheating Occurred in Atlanta Public Schools.† Teacher World. 10 July 2011. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web 4 March 2014. â€Å"Why Can Some Kids Handle the Pressure While Others Fall Apart?† The New York Times. The New York Times, 6 Feb. 2013. Web. 10 March 2014. â€Å"Why Standardized Tests Don’t Measure Educational Quality.† ASCD. Educational Leadership, March 1999. Web. 10 March 2014. Walberg, Herbert J. â€Å"Standardized Tests Effectively Measure Student Achievement.† Standardized Testing. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2012. At Issue. Rpt. of â€Å"Stop the War Against Standardized Tests.† Defining Ideas: A Hoover Institution Journal. (20 May 2011). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 7 March 2014.

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Mpare and Contrast the Way in Which Heaney

Blackberry Picking by Seamus Heaney and Stealing Peas by Gillian Clarke both approach passion and disappointment in life by describing childhood experience. They explore love and regret through the description of childhood and nature; Blackberry Picking through the explicit meaning of picking blackberries but them decomposing, and Stealing Peas through the explicit meaning of children stealing peas from pea rows in a field in the day, but later on with a girl asking a boy a question and her being given a disappointing and seemingly unexpected answer. Both Blackberry Picking by Seamus Heaney and Stealing Peas by Gillian Clarke are similar in subject; they both are poems about sad or unfortunate childhood events that have perhaps lingered in both of the poets’ memories. â€Å"Blackberry Picking† uses nature as a basis for the narrative. Heaney writes about his childhood experiences; picking berries in â€Å"late august†. Heaney and Clarke both create strong feelings in their poems. In â€Å"Blackberry Picking†, Heaney conveys a sense of lust and greed for the berries: â€Å"We hoarded the fresh berries†, but that afterwards the berries fermented and grew sour: â€Å"The fruit fermented†. Alternatively, Heaney could also be describing the excitement and joy people feel at the beginning of relationships and how it can deteriorate into something that is bitter and rotten. Heaney does this by describing how a fungus grows upon the berries that they had picked, making the â€Å"sweet flesh† of the berries turn sour. Similarly, in â€Å"Stealing Peas†, Gillian Clarke also uses nature as a basis for the narrative when she writes about two teenage lovers crawling in pea rows, stealing the peas and eating them. They crawl in the pea rows, slid the peas down their tongues. The girl asks, â€Å"Who d’you like best? and he replies with â€Å"You’re prettier. She’s funnier. † She writes, â€Å"I wish I hadn’t asked† indicating she regrets having asked. The implicit meaning of â€Å"Stealing Peas† is that a boy and a girl go to a field and have sex in the pea rows: â€Å"We crawled†, â€Å"slit the skins†, â€Å"with bitten nails†, â€Å"chutes of our tongues†-these each help to heighten the air of sexual tension in the second stanza, with the crawling as a way of remaining undetected; showing that what they are doing is perhaps forbidden and could get them in trouble, and this observation is reaffirmed by the mentioning of â€Å"stolen green light†. The use of the word â€Å"stolen† symbolises the loss of virginity or innocence, whilst the â€Å"green† showing the go ahead. The poet also describes how a â€Å"parky† shouted at a â€Å"child we could not see† which could either simply be another child in the field, or a child growing inside the girl- she has become pregnant, or lost her innocence. Heaney and Clarke both create strong feelings in their poems. In â€Å"Blackberry Picking†, Heaney conveys a sense of lust and greed for the berries using images of the children hurriedly filling cans with the berries, and by using words such as â€Å"ripen†, â€Å"flesh†, and â€Å"sticky†. These words have very sensual connotations and give the reader the impression that the poet was experiencing feelings of lust and greed at the time, and that the acts are forbidden. Heaney is also personifying the berries by referring to the â€Å"flesh† of the berries; perhaps showing that he felt feelings towards them that you would feel towards a person. Heaney and Clarkes’ poems are, to an extent, different in their form and layout. And though they both appear different, the poems are both similar in that they both focus more on the positive experiences, rather than the negative. â€Å"Blackberry Picking† is structured into two distinct stanzas with a sharp contrast between them. Heaney writes of the picking of the berries in the first stanza, introduces sexual themes, uses aural devices, and utilises similes and metaphors to create strong imagery. In the second stanza, he then moves on to talk about the how the berries are ruined- a â€Å"rat-grey† fungus, â€Å"glutting† on their â€Å"cache†. There is a notable difference between the two stanzas of â€Å"Blackberry Picking†. The first stanza is very long, describing the joy of the children as they go out collecting berries, but the second stanza, where Heaney talks about the fungus, is considerably shorter- it seems that Heaney is recalling the good part of the memory fondly, whilst quickly brushing over the bad. Unlike â€Å"Blackberry Picking†, Clarke has structured â€Å"Stealing Peas† into four stanzas. In the first stanza, Clarke sets the scene for the poem by describing the tide â€Å"far out†, the â€Å"warm evening† voices and the park â€Å"clipped privet†. In the second stanza the poet describes a boy, mentioning that he wore a â€Å"blue† shirt with an â€Å"Aertex† logo, and more sexual language is introduced: â€Å"filthy with syrups†, â€Å"grime of the town park†, â€Å"tendrils of my hair†. Filthy and grime suggesting the sensual, dirty, and perhaps forbidden acts that they are doing. There also is a notable difference between the four different stanzas of â€Å"Stealing Peas† in terms of length. The first stanza is very short, showing that Clarke is choosing not to remember her surroundings at the time so strongly, while the second stanza is much longer, indicating that the time spent with this boy, crawling in the pea rows together, meant more to her than any other part of the day, and that she herself has selected this part of the memory to stand out more vividly than any other. The third stanza is noticeably shorter, with her asking him â€Å"Who d’you like best? † The use of sound is important in both poems, and both poets use it to great effect. Techniques such as alliteration, onomatopoeia, and rhyme- the words â€Å"purple clot† and â€Å"hard as a knot†, â€Å"smelt of rot† and â€Å"knew they would not† in â€Å"Blackberry Picking†, are all strategically used to evoke images and create sounds by Heaney and Clarke. In â€Å"Blackberry Picking†, the use the letter p in â€Å"pricks, our palms† is short and sharp to emphasise the sharpness of the pricks from the blackberry thorns, b in â€Å"bleached our boots† and â€Å"berries in the byre† is very bubbly and bouncy, reflecting the children’s emotions as they set out on a journey of exploration, whilst the use of f in â€Å"filled we found fur† is also soft sounding- creeping in, similar to how the Heaney talks about how the â€Å"rat-grey fungus† seeps in and ruins the blackberries. Clarke also uses aural devices; alliteration with the use of the letter s in â€Å"slit the skins†, helping the reader to visualise the sounds created when the children, crawling through the rows, and stealing the pea pods, slit the skins open. The â€Å"s†, when said aloud, is a soft sound, but in the context of the stanza, creates a more sinister, hissing sound, as though the skins are being hastily ripped open in lust. Again, the use of the letter s in â€Å"slid the peas† helps the reader visualize– almost hear, the youths sliding the peas down the â€Å"chutes† of their tongues. Lastly, the use of onomatopoeia in â€Å"a lawn-mower murmured†, creates a very sexual feeling- perhaps from the boy, towards the girl. In conclusion, it can be seen that the two poems are alike in many ways such as they both recount childhood experiences that the poets regretted. What I found interesting was how Heaney and Clarke wrote the poems, spending more time describing the good experiences, rather than the unfortunate– in a way suggesting that the poets have selectively recorded these events in their minds.

Monday, January 6, 2020

Why Are There Problems Choosing Bible Translations

At some point in their studies, every student of biblical history runs into the same dilemma: With so many different translations of the Holy Bible available, which translation is best for historical study? Experts in biblical history will be quick to point out that no Bible translation should ever be regarded as definitive for historical study. Thats because by itself, the Bible is not a history book. Its a book of faith, written over four centuries by people with very different viewpoints and agendas. Thats not to say that the Bible contains no truths worthy of study. However, by itself, the Bible is not reliable as a single historical source. Its contributions must always be augmented by other documented sources. Is There One True Bible Translation? Many Christians today believe erroneously that the King James Version of the Bible is the true translation. The KJV, as its known, was created for King James I of England (James VI of Scotland) in 1604. For all the antique beauty of its Shakespearean English that many Christians equate with religious authority, the KJV is hardly the first nor the best translation of the Bible for historical purposes. As any translator will vouch, any time that thoughts, symbols, images, and cultural idioms (especially the last) are translated from one language to another, there is always some loss of meaning. Cultural metaphors do not translate easily; the mind map changes, no matter how hard one tries to maintain it. This is the conundrum of human social history; does culture shape language or does language shape culture? Or are the two so intertwined in human communication that its impossible to understand one without the other? When it comes to biblical history, consider the evolution of the Hebrew scriptures that Christians call the Old Testament. The books of the Hebrew Bible originally were written in ancient Hebrew and translated into Koine Greek, the commonly used language of the Mediterranean region from the time of Alexander the Great (4th century B.C.). The Hebrew scriptures are known as TANAKH, a Hebrew anagram that stands for Torah (the Law), Neviim (the Prophets) and Ketuvim (the Writings). Translating the Bible From Hebrew into Greek Around the 3rd century B.C., Alexandria, in Egypt, had become a scholarly center for Hellenistic Jews, that is, people who were Jewish by faith but had adopted many Greek cultural ways. During this period, the Egyptian ruler Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who reigned from 285-246 B.C., was reputed to have hired 72 Jewish scholars to create a Koine Greek (common Greek) translation of the TANAKH to be added to the Great Library of Alexandria. The translation that resulted is known as the Septuagint, a Greek word meaning 70. The Septuagint also is known by the Roman numerals LXX meaning 70 (L50, X10, therefore 50101070). This one example of translating Hebrew scripture points out the mountain that every serious student of biblical history must climb. To read scriptures in their original languages in order to trace biblical history, scholars must learn to read ancient Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and possibly Aramaic as well. Translation Problems Are More Than Just Language Problems Even with these language skills, theres no guarantee that todays scholars will accurately interpret the meaning of sacred texts, because they are still missing a key element: direct contact with and knowledge of the culture in which the language was used. In another example, the LXX began to lose favor beginning around the time of the Renaissance, as some scholars held that the translation had corrupted the original Hebrew texts. Whats more, remember that the Septuagint was only one of several regional translations that took place. Exiled Jews in Babylonian made their own translations, while Jews who remained in Jerusalem did the same. In each case, the translation was influenced by the commonly used language and culture of the translator. All of these variables can seem daunting to the point of despair. With so many uncertainties, how can one choose which Bible translation is best for historical study? Most amateur students of biblical history can start with any credible translation that they can comprehend, as long as they also understand that no translation of the Bible should be used as a sole historical authority. In fact, part of the fun of studying biblical history is reading many translations to see how different scholars interpret the texts. Such comparisons can be more easily accomplished by the use of a parallel Bible that includes several translations. Part II: Recommended Bible Translations for Historical Study. Resources Translating for King James, translated by Ward Allen; Vanderbilt University Press: 1994; ISBN-10: 0826512461, ISBN-13: 978-0826512468. In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture by Alister McGrath; Anchor: 2002; ISBN-10: 0385722168, ISBN-13: 978-0385722162 The Poetics of Ascent: Theories of Language in a Rabbinic Ascent Text by Naomi Janowitz; State University of New York Press: 1988; ISBN-10: 0887066372, ISBN-13: 978-0887066375 The Contemporary Parallel New Testament: 8 Translations: King James, New American Standard, New Century, Contemporary English, New International, New Living, New King James, The Message, edited by John R. Kohlenberger; Oxford University Press: 1998; ISBN-10: 0195281365, ISBN-13: 978-0195281361 Excavating Jesus: Behind the Stones, Beneath the Texts, by John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan L. Reed; HarperOne: 2001; ISBN: 978-0-06-0616