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Mini-survey

2009-07-30T06:58:00.000-07:00

Mini-survey

I. Introduction

Since smoking is a hot issue all over the world, people care about their health more seriously. Seal said, “smoking has been conclusively linked to many other diseases as well, including bronchitis, emphysema, larynx cancer, and pancreatic cancer” (1998, p. 31). This survey is about what percentage of males and females smoke, why they keep smoking and what is the best way to quit smoking.

II. Purpose

EAP1 Writer’s Workshop members did this survey together; we wanted to find out what percentages of males and females smoked, and why they smoked and for smokers and non-smokers, why smokers can’t quit smoking, and what they think is the best way to quit smoking.

III. Hypothesis/ Hypotheses

There are more and more female smokers nowadays; smoking is not just man’s thing anymore. Maybe there is much pressure for females in this society, and females reduce stress by smoking? Do they think smoking is cool? Non-smokers started smoking because of their friends smoking? Are smokers addicted? Is there any way to quit smoking? We wanted to know the percentage of smokers for each gender, why they smoke and what they think is the best way to quit smoking.

IV. Materials

The survey questionnaire is one page; all of the questions are multiple choice. It’s separated by male and female first, because I think that’s pretty important in the smoking problem. There are seven questions for both male and female and for smokers and non-smokers. And there are three questions for smokers; generally it’s about whether they smoke alone or with people, whether they smoke in private or in public, and are whether they are addicted. There are questions for both smokers and non-smokers about why they think smokers started smoking and what they think is the best way to quit smoking.

V. Methods

We asked forty-three people, all CESL students in SIU around the campus on a Thursday in July. And I was waiting for them while they finished the survey and gave it to me. I think it was pretty fair and convenient; of course they are not representative of all students and Americans. We just surveyed forty-three students at the same university.

VI. Data

See appendix A http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AtKsgrADwuYudE9Cc3J4U3c3Tzg4ZlBrQjZfYUhKR2c&hl=en

VII. Results

From the Excel chart, it showed that only 21.1 percent of smokers are females, and another 78.9 percent of smokers are males, from the 43 people who participated in this survey. Female smokers are a quarter of male smokers, in the survey data there are many more male smokers than female smokers.

VIII. Discussion and Conclusion

The result were different from my hypotheses. I think the reason is that we just surveyed the CESL students, the participating number is too limited, and maybe they lied to us, because we never met before and maybe they thought it was not that important and they felt embarrassed. there are no doubt many female smokers all over the world; I can see many female smokers in the campus. If I do this experiment again, I will survey more people and not just CESL students, also survey American students and people who are out of the campus and other states people as much as I can, so that I can get the average number of smokers and more correct data.

IX Reference

Seal, B. (1998). Smoking. In Academic Encounters: Human behavior. Pp. 31-33. New York: Cambridge University Press.

X Appendices A,B

Homework's Effect

2009-07-23T07:22:00.000-07:00

Do you think three hours homework is good for children? Every country has a different education system and each school has a different teaching method. There are many schools give too much homework. Some people say homework is good for children and some people disagree with it; they say we must decrese homework. It’s not fair to give them much homework to do after school. “Harris Cooper is a professor of education and psychology at Duke University who is an expert on homework. He said there is very little evidence that most homework in elementary school helps kids learn.” (Strauss, 2009, parag 12-13).

In some ways homework is good for students to review what they learned at school in daytime, but it shouldn't be too much. I think they learn fewer things from doing homework. I think it's waste of time. Students need free time do what they want to do, not die doing homework. They need to find what they really like and delelop passion.

First, students are children, not study machines. They need study hard of course, but they also need a break to relax their brain. Students spend seven classes in school in China, and after class there are three hours study by themselves in class. When I was Junior high school student, I often didn’t have that mood to study by myself. I remember clearly when I was sitting their wasting my time. I just needed keep quiet and wait for the time to be over and go home. Many families will send kids to private school to study more and more than other kids. I think the parents are crazy; are they going to kill their kids? Of course all parents hope their kids get good scores in class and get ready to go a top university. But score is not everything. A kid's personality and health are more important than a score.

Second, Schools already steal seven or more hours a day from kids’ life; if they can’t do what they to do in seven hours, it’s not kids’ responsibility. A teacher must teach students during class, not make lots of homework to finish that they didn’t finish at school. It may make students hate study. Students can do exercise, watch TV, ply video games and play piano after class, and go to school happy the next day. I think limited homework is ok. “Researcher Cooper says studies show that up until fifth grade, homework should be very limited. Kids in middle school shouldn’t be spending more than 90 minutes a night on homework. In high school, the limit is two hours” ( Strauss, 2009, parag 31-33).

Finally, some people said homework is good, and we must increase homework. One author says that without homework, student doesn’t study at home. (Laurensia Kids, 2008). However when students study at school for seven or more hours a day, their brain almost panic, and they can’t learn more. And the quality is not as good as usuall. Then why not let our poor kids have enough breaks and let them study hard in class? I have a friend when I was Senior High school. He never studied extra, but he paid all of his attention during class. And when we had an exam, his score was great. He said he just spent a maximum of thirty minutes to finish his homework and no more time wasted on homework. We should focus on quality, not quantity.

In conclusion, I haven't seen a study that proves that more homework helps them more. Let’s not give children too much pressure. They already have much pressure during the class. They can do well during class without homework, or just a little homework. I really don’t think homework is neccesary. We must give a child enough space to grow as a wonderful person, not just study machine.

Laurensia Kids. (2008, August 25). Homework? good or bad? Retrieved July 17, 2009, from http://laurensiakids.blogspot.com/2008/08/homework-good-or-bad.html

Strauss, Valerie. (2009, January 27). The Homework Debate. The Washington Post. Retrieved July 14, 2009, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-d yn/content/article/2009/01/26/AR2009012602012_pf.html

2009-07-16T07:33:00.001-07:00

In this article "Achieving fame, wealth and beauty are psychological dead ends, study says", the author said if someone pursues fame, becoming rich and a wonderful appearance, it will make people more stressful and less happy. People who care about these three things too much will have some symptoms of stress which will people get negative feelings. And people who care about personal growth, loving relationships and health find them easier to achieve and that makes people have positive feelings about themselves.

I have a different opinion with the author's about beauty's making people ill being. I think achieving beauty can make people happy, especially for women. And I agree with some of the author's opinion that pursuing wealth and fame too much will make people less happy.

People get self-confidence from achieving a beautiful appearance. If someone is good looking, that makes them feel good about themselves and others. For example, if two people get an interview at the same place,and their education and other stuff is similar, but if one of them has a common appearance and another one is very beautiful, them whom will you choose? I think most of people will choose the good looking one, because they are the same quality and you will see them, so why make things painful? It's no other choice living in this kind of society. There is an old saying in China; there aren't any ugly women, only lazy women. People must pursue beauty.

Pursuing wealth can make people unhappy or upset, and the most important thing is that not everyone can achieve he goal. Some people can achieve it easily but some people, no matter how they struggle, they don't. People never know an enjoyable life if they just pursue wealth all the time. And they just think about how to make more money until they die. I think that's very sad. I mean money is also important in human's life, but money is just one of the things that make people's life well, and it loses its original meaning if people think about that too much.

Fame is not everything in human's life; even sometimes it makes people feel good. Of course there are different goals to achieve for everyone's personality. People's lives are for their happiness, not for showing others; it will be very tiring to think about how other people think about you when you do everything. If you want do something, then do it, don't be aware of other stuff, even it's not good for everyone; as long as it doesn't have a bad effecting society, it's ok.

Different people want different things, and I think achieving beauty is good thing. It's much better to live with a beautiful face and it's not that hard to acheve. Just try not to be too crazy at it. And paying too much attention to money and fame causes tress, and is not good for your physical health.

University of Rochester. (2009, May 19). Achieving fame, wealth and beauty are psychological

dead ends, study says. Science Daily. Retrieved July 9, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090514000402.htm

Did Michael Jackson's stress contribute to cardiac arrest?

2009-07-13T21:11:00.000-07:00

According to D, Childs. in his article, "Did Michael Jackson's Stress Contribute to Cardiac Arrest?" there is a lot of gossip about Michael Jackson's death, but the author thinks the most important fact is caused by stress, not just heart disease. Dr. Cannon said it is possible keep a person alive even if his heart stops. But in Michael Jackson's case it didn't work, he just died suddenly. If an ambulance comes fast, maybe he has half a percent chance to keep him alive. There are many people in America who die from heart stopping suddenly. Also Michael Jackson's appearance to be sick recently. But still all of the facts are not known for sure.

Childs, D. (2009, June 25). Did Michael Jackson's stress Contribute to Cardiac Arrest? Star Weathered Emotional Duress in Recent Months; Was Planning Massive Concert Tour. ABC
News Medical Unit. Retrieved June 25, 2009, from http:/abcnews.go.com/print?
id=7932717

How to Deal with Stress

2009-07-13T06:53:00.000-07:00

In Bernard Seal's article "Cope With Stress", he states attitude is the most important part when someone deals with stress. It means a positive person can cover stress more easily than a negative person, psychologically and physically. Controlling what is happening has good effects on people, and animals. And even though people can't control everything; it will be less stressful if they are forewarned. Some positive people are stronger at coping with stress than others.

How to deal with stress is one of the most popular issues in all over the world. I agree with some of the author's points, in my opinion; exercise is the best way to cope stress, be a positive person, I have a different opinion on how to deal with stress; it's talk with best friends.

Exercise is the best way to reduce stress. People don't exercise as much as usual in modern society because of many reasons. Such as adults have to working hard to make more money and students have to work hard to keep a high grade. For that reason people have headaches and stomachaches and feel pain in daily life. I have a friend who really likes exercise, and she always spends time from her busy schedule to exercise. But I am so lazy, I have time to sleep but not exercise. The effect is she becomes very healthy and slim, but I become sick, I always feel bad and catch cold often. So exercise is really good for modern people to reduce stress.

Positive people can more easily cope stress than negative people. There is a proverb in China that stress is the root of billions of disease. I have seen many cases in which a positive person cope with disease. There is a woman who has cancer in Japan, and the doctor said she will die in a few months. She crazy loves a Korean movie star named Bue Young Joon; she waits for his new album and she gets power to fight the cancer with her idol in her heart. she prays and she always gets hope in her heart, which is that she really wants to see that star one day before she dies. A miracle happens several months later; the doctor says her cancer is much better than before, and she won''t die from cancer. This is the power of human mind; maybe this kind of miracle is not everywhere, but it shows us that a positive person is much better than a negative person; I think it's the same in stress.

What is good to reduce stress for people is to talk to their best friends when they got a lot of pressure, especially women. It is not a big issue that many women like to talk and talk when they get stress, and their best therapist is their best friend, not excepting me. I always talk to my friend when I have trouble; even she cannot fix my problem, it's much better after I talked with her.

In conclusion, people in society have a lot of stress, and we have many methods to cope with stress as the author mentioned, and I think exercise, being a positive person and talking to your best friends are good methods for reducing stress.

Seal, B. (1998). Coping with Stress. In Academic Encounters: Human Behavior. [pp. 15-16]. New York: Cambridge University Press.

SUMMARY

2009-07-06T07:33:00.000-07:00

According to Mary McNamara in "Michael Jackson, not a black or white story" people feel complicated about mystery pop star Michael Jackson's death. He is a big issue all over the world; news media and people talk about his death. His fans increased because of his appearance, scandal, divorce and some strange things he did. He was the most famous superstar in the world in the late 20th century, who earned 100 million dollars. It is a tough lesson "one of pop culture's greatest icons' death could be from drugs and anorexia. We already knew about the superstar's music and movies, but he is still a national mystery, even though he is dead.

McNamara, M. (2009, Jun. 25). Michael Jackson, not a black or white story [updated]. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved on July 1, 2009, from http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2009/06/a-complicated-man.html

summary

2009-07-06T07:04:00.000-07:00