Are those research papers really nessasary?

By Kara P Let’s be honest, nobody really likes to write research papers. Research papers are time consuming, they take a lot of thought process, and they are very precise. Unfortunately at every college all around the world you are going to have to write research paper whether you want to or not. First year English classes are the main classes that you write the most research papers. What is the value of research in a first-year college writing course? I personally think that research papers in your first-year college writing course is very valuable. We as college students have to write research papers no matter what, whether we are English majors, Science majors or Business majors, there will always be research papers. Your first-year college writing course prepares you for those tough research papers you’re going to have to write in your major later on. If you don’t have the proper instruction on how to write a research paper, it could ruin your chance of even getting into the job of your dreams. The research papers you write in your first-year English class has nothing on the research papers you’re going to write later in your major. That first research paper is usually between 5-8 pages long. When you get to that large research paper that you have to do for your major those 5-8 pages are going to seem like nothing compared to a 10 page or even a 20 page paper. When you take these writing courses it gives you a great preparation for these large papers. First-year writing courses teach about writing structure and proper grammar. They also teach how to properly conduct your research, like where to look and whether or not a certain source is a creditable source. So even though nobody really likes to write research papers, we have to anyways whether we would take that first-year writing course or not. The writing course is going to prepare you properly for your future research papers, so you should take them very seriously and work hard to learn and understand. These papers could make or break the future you are working so hard for.

SAT and ACT Test Should be Optional

By KaraP When I was in high school during my junior year, I took the SAT and the ACT. I scored pretty well on both luckily. I was really nervous when I went in to take the test, and while I was taking the test I got really stressed out. There was some material on both of the test that I hadn’t learned and ended up not learning at all throughout the rest of my high school years. After the exams I felt confident enough that I would at least pass them, or at least I prayed I would pass them, but I knew there was no way I was going to get a score that I felt I deserved for how hard I studied to get a good score on those exams. I didn’t feel like the score I got were valid measures of my ability to succeed in college or in life. I have always worked hard at work and I work very hard in college. My scores showed that I knew enough to pass but not to excel. I thrive every day to do good in my class I want to have all A’s but I understand that some class I’m going to receive a B because of maybe lack of understanding or small mistakes on each homework assignment or test adds up. But a C is unacceptable to me and the scores showed that a C was all I was good for. I don’t think that the test should be abolished because a lot of different test are very important, like the test we would have to take to become a doctor, a lawyer, or a teacher. I do feel like taking tests like the ACT and the SAT should be optional when we are going into college. I understand these test can be used for placement and that’s why I feel like they should be optional. If someone wants to test out of a class and be placed in a higher class then they have the option of doing that. If someone wants to start off in college at the lower level classes instead of testing out of it then they should also have that option. I didn’t mind taking the SAT and ACT but I do feel like it didn’t validly show my rate of success. So I do agree on changing thing about the test, but I also feel like they should take it a step further and make it optional. I think more people would succeed in college without an exam discouraging them.

Selfless Acts

By: Kara P It’s hard for people to be selfless. People, I feel are naturally selfish, sometimes I don’t think they mean to be but just are. Even when we go out of our way to help others a lot of times we want praise for our actions, which turns a selfless act into a selfish one. Ethically we should be less selfish, but it’s hard. As a woman of God I try really hard to be selfless but it’s difficult to not want people to recognize my selfless act. Some selfless act can sometimes in return hurt you, not physically, but emotionally. When I was 18 and I was just starting college, my cousin called me to tell me she was going into labor with her son and wanted me to be there. My cousin hasn’t always been a family favorite because of her not so great decisions she makes, but we grew up together and were really close so I grew to be very protective of her. I always got her out of trouble and held high hopes that one day she would mature and make better decisions. When her son was born she seemed to be doing better and I was so grateful. She called me one day to tell me that her mother had kicked her out of the house and she and the baby had nowhere to go, the baby was only 8 weeks old. I immediately went to my mother to beg her to let me help my cousin, and to my surprise my mother said yes but it was going to be my responsibility. Within a few days my cousin and her baby boy moved in with me and I did everything I could to help her out. For the first few weeks everything seemed great, but then my cousin started leaving her baby with me while she went away for the weekend to hang out with friends. I was fine with her going out every so often, but weekends turned in to weeks and then weeks turned into months. I never saw her much and ended up raising her son on my own until he was 8 months old, while I also attempted to go to college. It was hard; it wasn’t a life I was ready for. I ended up dropping out of college to just focus on the baby; I loved him like he was my own. A little after the baby turned 8 months old, my cousin started showing up again. Apparently her and the baby’s dad patched things up but she kept saying she still wanted to stay with us just in case it didn’t work out. Sadly to say one weekend she took they baby to go see the baby’s dad, and she never came back. She wouldn’t answer calls or texts and I never even got a thank you. I didn’t hear from her again until the baby was 2 years old. I had forgiven her for what she did but it sometimes still upsets me. Doing selfless acts is a wonderful thing. God wants us to be selfless. Sometimes we have to take chances on what the end result will be of our selfless act. This selfless act was heartbreaking for me, but I have performed other selfless acts that brought me joy even without praise. So I encourage others to be less selfish and more selfless.

What Makes A Good President?

by KaraP It’s important to the United States to have a good president. The president has a lot of power and control of our country. He can make or break us. Luckily we get to vote on who our president is, some countries aren’t that lucky and there government goes by family and who is next in line to run the country. We as Americans have a choice and we have to really pay attention and go by our best judgments on who we vote on to be our next president. We have to think about what truly makes a good president. Five important traits that I think a president should have are intelligence, honesty, persistence, connect with the people and is a good leader. Intelligence of course is important because lets be serious, an unintelligent president isn’t going to do us much good. He has to understand the way the country is supposed to work, he should have understanding of war and how to go about protecting our country in an intelligent way and not just running out guns a blazing. Intelligence is very important. Honesty is also important, nobody wants a president who lies to them, but we don’t normally get so lucky. We have had presidents who promise us one thing but never actually do it when they get elected. Which ties in with having persistence. Persistency is important because when a president tells us that he is going to change something in our country to make it better and we vote for him to give him the chance to make those changes then he needs to be persistent in making those changes when we vote for him. When there is a strong connection between the president and the people, that’s always good, because it means he understands our wants and needs and wants to make things better for his country. And all these things sum up being a good leader, and that’s what’s really important. We need a strong leader who understands his role, takes pride in it and will do everything he can for his country. This country is in strong need of a president with all these traits. No president is perfect by any means, just like no single person in the world is perfect. If only someone who truly had all these wonderful traits would run for president, maybe we could turn this country around and make it as strong as it used to be. Hopefully the people of the United States will start opening their eyes and look for these traits in our next election. Then finally we will all know what its like to have a truly good president again.

What Freedom Means To Me

By KaraP Freedom is a powerful word. Some people view freedom differently than others. My view of freedom ties in with the First Amendment of the United States Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” This amendment means a lot to me, especially in terms of my religion. To me freedom means to be able to be a strong Christian woman and worship God openly without persecution. I should also be able to speak my mind respectably without being accused of wronging someone or something. I also think that the people of the United States should have a stronger control on who runs our country, like when we elect a president for ethical and social reasons instead of the right reasons and then realize that mistake and have that particular president taken out of office immediately especially when that person try’s to take these rights away from us and goes against our constitution and try’s to destroy our country. I’m sure I’ll offend someone with that comment but if people actually did research and paid attention to the world around them and cared more about their freedom they would know exactly what I’m talking about. Our founding fathers worked hard for our freedom and a lot of people don’t respect that and then lose their freedom. Amanda Knox and Rubin “Hurricane” Carter lost their freedom because they decided they wanted to take others freedom by murdering them. Amanda and Rubin are no longer free as far as being free here on earth there only hope in freedom is forgiveness which everyone deserves but they still have to pay the consequences for their actions. People like Nelson Mandela had their freedom taken away because of political view. I don’t believe he deserved to lose that freedom but it happened. I don’t believe that we enjoy the same freedoms as we used to. Before when it came to freedom of speech we weren’t required to be politically correct we could just speak whatever we wished and nobody took so much offense to it, now we have to be careful about everything we say or we can be labeled as racist or hate groups. Freedom has changed a lot. Christian, white groups have lost a lot of their freedom and we are very much looked down upon now, the country has turned against Christians all together by taking one or two extremist and labeling us all as hate groups or racist. It’s pathetic and sad. Also married couples with children are also starting to be looked down on. We aren’t being put in jail for these things but we are being treated like African Americans were treated when they were fighting for their freedom. In case you haven’t grasped in my ranting, my religion is the most important freedom to me. Its means everything to me. I strongly believe that when I was at my down point and turned to God he made everything better, he gave me my husband and my beautiful daughter, there is nothing more important in life than that. I pray to always have the freedom of religion and I will fight till my death to keep it. I hope I didn’t offend anyone in my blog, wasn’t my intention but I’m just using my Freedom of Speech and of the Press.

A Logical Argument

by Kara P Argument and logic are two different words but tend to work together. Argument to me is when two people have different views on the same topic try to persuade each other to change their views. Logic I think is when you actually have some thought to your reasoning and have evidence to prove a thought or topic. So of course when you are having an argument with someone you should always have logic behind it as well and not just making up everything. When I began my essay about Global Warming and talk about whether I'm for or against it, I'm going to be sure to back up my argument with logical reasoning. I currently believe the Global Warming is really and not something that someone just randomly made up. There is a lot of research and logical thought that has been put to back up Global Warming. I used to not believe in it until I did the research for my topic and had been proven otherwise. You can't win an argument with out some logical reasoning behind it.

Contaminating Results

By: Kara P. I’m very concerned with what happened in the nine counties in West Virginia that were affected by the chemical spill. Something like that should have never happened in the first place and I don’t understand how the people who had caused the chemical spill could have been so careless. I read in an article called “West Virginia Water Contains Formaldehyde, Officials Say” by Kiley Kroh, that Scott Simonton had tested the local water supply and had found formaldehyde in it and was shock by the lack of information given about the spill. I think that this incident could have been avoided but they were so careless and put so many people in danger. I’m very disappointed with how they handled the situation, many people were already effected by the chemical spill after it happened because the people weren't informed about the spill until a day after it had happened. My family and I were luckily not effected by the chemical spill, but I did keep all the people that were effected in my prayers. I cannot imagine what it would be like to not have water for weeks and to have the knowledge that I had showered and drank contaminated water and the effects it would have on my body. It’s a devastating event that I would never want to experience. The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection should create more laws to prevent accidents like this from happening and should keep a better eye on the water supply to keep people from being affected if there is a chemical spill. I hope they are taking the time now to fix all of that so we do not have any more contaminating results.