The $78 Million Dollar Bag
Summary: Mick Dumke and Ben Joravsky trace the origins of weed enforcement costs from the police station to the courthouse to prison. They outline how Cook County taxpayers spend $78 million “to bust and jail a bunch of black guys for reefer”. Their thought on the idea of legalization seem very well thought out. It would certainly save Cook County millions and would allow the police agencies, prosecutors, judges, and all of those others involved in the legal aspect of the issue to focus on more important crimes. The authors speak about how change is being sought but never accomplished to the full extent. In 2009 the Cook County board passed a law that decriminalizes marijuana in unincorporated parts of Cook County; however marijuana is not too big of an issue in unincorporated parts. Every arrest in Cook County begins at a cost of “$2500 just to open a case” and police officers have to be paid overtime to show up as a witness to court. That cost is directly passed on to the taxpayers who should easily have a big hand in the legalization process because when it comes down to it, it does not cost the government anything it costs the taxpayers everything.
Reflection: The reason I chose to write about this article is because it is an interesting topic to me. Marijuana is a huge problem facing the United States because the cost of enforcing laws against it are just quite ridiculous considering its a problem that will never go away no matter the consequence.
I do agree with their thoughts on the situation and how it is costing taxpayers too much money on a problem that seems to be neverending. At first thought I felt like I would be able to write a great paper on this and so far have been able to easily breeze through this paper. By far one of my best written papers and I know my final draft will be an A paper, i hope :).
Monday, October 24, 2011
Assignment #7
Looking back at my first blog post I feel I havnt really changed much as a writer, however the peer review sheets that we are doing are really helping me address problems that I have in my writing. They are allowing me to see the mistakes that I dont see when I review my papers, such as descriptive detail. I always have issues describing things and the peer review sheet really helped me see the areas that I could add more description to.
The only thing I dont like about this class are these blog posts, its just an awkward layout to use that seems to have some issues with following people and commenting on things. I think it would have been much easier and better for everyone to like a facebook page(im sure most of the class already has a facebook account) and we could have all done our blog posts on that one facebook page that we liked.
I also dont think Ms. Spencer should assign anymore homework not that she gives us a lot anyways but some professors like to give so much homework that sometimes its quite demotivating to the student.
The only thing I dont like about this class are these blog posts, its just an awkward layout to use that seems to have some issues with following people and commenting on things. I think it would have been much easier and better for everyone to like a facebook page(im sure most of the class already has a facebook account) and we could have all done our blog posts on that one facebook page that we liked.
I also dont think Ms. Spencer should assign anymore homework not that she gives us a lot anyways but some professors like to give so much homework that sometimes its quite demotivating to the student.
Assignment #6
To start, both papers had different purposes. The literacy narrative was basically a story I was telling someone whereas the ad analysis was an analysis of the advertisement I chose. Both had the same audience my classmates and my professor but the tone of the paper itself was very different. In the narrative I was explaining my story of becoming motivated to write better, however in the ad analysis I was basically explaining the ad in a very wordy way along with a vivid description and detail in such a way that the reader can produce the image of the ad in their mind without actually looking at it.
Assignment #5
Audience: By using Shakira as the spokesperson for Pepsi, this ad would be suitable for a variety of people. Fans of Shakira that are fans of Pepsi, along with fans of Shakira that are not fans of drinking pop or Pepsi for that matter.
Genre: This ad is similar to ads of its genre. I always see Coca Cola ads that are short in text with celebrities as their spokespersons.
Tone: The bright blue background with the glowing Pepsi symbol and the use of a Celebrity make the tone of this ad very lively.
Assignment #4
My final paper looks much better than my rough draft. I went into a lot more detail about my tutor and teacher that I wrote about. I made a lot of revisions in content and sentence structure.
After revising my rough draft I was able to see what my peer reviewer was suggesting I did to make my paper much better, by adding details of my surroundings and using better descriptive words.
The peer review guided me to write better because after reading the paper that I was peer reviewing I was kind of embarrassed in how poorly I had written mine, it kind of motivated me to take some time and regroup my thoughts.
I think my introduction and thesis were probably the best aspect of my paper because that is the part I spent the most time on but it always takes me a while to start a paper.
After revising my rough draft I was able to see what my peer reviewer was suggesting I did to make my paper much better, by adding details of my surroundings and using better descriptive words.
The peer review guided me to write better because after reading the paper that I was peer reviewing I was kind of embarrassed in how poorly I had written mine, it kind of motivated me to take some time and regroup my thoughts.
I think my introduction and thesis were probably the best aspect of my paper because that is the part I spent the most time on but it always takes me a while to start a paper.
Assignment #3
Thesis - One difference between an A paper and a C paper is the thesis. A good thesis will make a claim or an argument be very specific and allow the rest of the paper to have enough detail to support the thesis. An average paper will have a general thesis thats not so well supported and the claim isnt very specific. An example of a great thesis would be "Harry Potter is not victorious in its choice of narrative procedure", an example of an average thesis would be "The Harry Potter series lacks value"
Spelling/Grammar - Spelling and grammar are both qualities of an A paper. An average paper will have many mistakes whereas an A paper will be completely free of any spelling and grammar mistakes.
Conclusion - The third quality of an A paper would a well thought out conclusion that concludes the paper in a way different than the introduction. An average paper would have a conclusion that has somewhat of a reiteration of the introduction.
To me the easiest is spelling and grammar. It doesnt take a genius to visit dictionary.com and see if your spelling something correctly. The hardest for me is the thesis. I usually almost always have a hard time with this and I always beat myself up over it but once I have a thesis I like the rest of the paper usually just comes to mind. To me the thesis is what makes a paper and if it sucks the rest of the paper will suck.
Spelling/Grammar - Spelling and grammar are both qualities of an A paper. An average paper will have many mistakes whereas an A paper will be completely free of any spelling and grammar mistakes.
Conclusion - The third quality of an A paper would a well thought out conclusion that concludes the paper in a way different than the introduction. An average paper would have a conclusion that has somewhat of a reiteration of the introduction.
To me the easiest is spelling and grammar. It doesnt take a genius to visit dictionary.com and see if your spelling something correctly. The hardest for me is the thesis. I usually almost always have a hard time with this and I always beat myself up over it but once I have a thesis I like the rest of the paper usually just comes to mind. To me the thesis is what makes a paper and if it sucks the rest of the paper will suck.
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