Hmmm Dave, you have some good questions!

For this exercise we had to rewrite Dave's questions and answer his questions spending about 3 min on each response. I enjoyed this exercise because I was able to focus and reflect on the essay as a whole not just certain parts.

Dave Asked: 

                                                            

1.)“Hey you, I think you can’t really say that one opinion is better than another one. Don’t you agree?”

  2.) There’s all this stuff in the book about research as a process of discovery. What did you discover?”

3.)“What do you figure was the most challenging problem you had to solve while working on this research project? How do you solve it?”

4.)“After all this work, what do you take away from this experience? What have you learned that you can use?”

My Response:

1.)    I do not think that one person’s opinion is better than another one. I think everyone has their own opinion and I believe that everyone’s opinion is to be valued. People are different and think different ways. We have all had different experiences that make us who we are today. So to say that one person’s opinion is better than another’s; we would have to have lived the same life as them, which is impossible.

2.)    During my research I discovered that writing a research paper is way more than looking random sources off of google and writing the paper the night before it’s due. In high school that’s exactly what I did, I wrote them a night before they were due and used random sources. Now that I have used actual journals and creditable sources I see how strong it makes the paper and also the process of 5 weeks is long but it’s perfect for writing a paper.

3.)    The most challenging part of writing the paper had to be when we cut it up. I felt as though I was destroying something I spent so much time doing and knowing that I had to get rid of something and rearrange my paper scared me and I really did not want to do it. But I did it anyway, and learned that I needed to be open to revision and it’s not all about how I want my paper its about how my audience is going to want my paper and how they would get the most out of it.

4.)    After these past few weeks I have learned that writing takes time. Writing is something that needs to be read and corrected many times to be considered great. I also think that from now on I will use this process for many of my papers, a slow but moving and revising process. I learned that revision takes sometimes longer than actually writing my paper and that It is okay to delete and rewrite.

Get out the Scissors and Tape!!!

Welcome Back! For this exercise we had to cut up all of our paragraphs and write our thesis on a sticky note. We went through all of our paragraphs and saw what fit and what was a bit off topic. Then when we had the paragraphs we wanted, we had to reorganize them and tape them back together.  

Before completing this exercise I was a skeptical about disassembling my essay. I thought I had a “good enough” paper written out and I didn't think anything was off topic. I was thinking that everything in my essay is on point and focused. I didn't want to cut anything out because of the time out into my essay, I felt as though I wasted time on what it was I would have to take out.

I felt very nervous cutting up my essay because I felt as though I had my essay in the correct order and cutting it up would mean that I had to put it back together in a different way. I felt very overwhelmed and confused. I just wanted to put it back the way that it was.

The outcome of this exercise was scary but rewarding. I wrote my paper on how divorce affects children and one of the last paragraphs was on how to help a child though divorce. While it was still under the topic, my paper is not on how to tell children about divorce but n the effects. I still think it fits in my paper but with a little editing to explaining how the parents talk with their child and live out the divorce effects their children.

I learned that even if I don’t go completely off topic, I can still stray around the corner a little. Many times I get very passionate about my writing that I go on rants and bring in personal believes, while this would be okay in a different essay, it is not a good  fit for a research paper. 

Introduction!!! Research paper here we come!!

Welcome back!!! For this exercise I had to write 3 introduction paragraphs for my research paper, picking which one is the strongest. I never wrote 3 introductions for one paper because I always just went with the one that came out first. I think this is an excellent exercise because I tried to place my thesis statement in different parts of the paragraph so i could see where it fits best. I think the second paragraph fits best because I focus on everything I want to in the paper and it gives the audience a good strong into into what my research is on.

We also had to ask one of our friends or peers to see what they thought about the paragraph and a few question pertaining to the paper. :
1.) What do you think this paper is going to be about? Friends answer: Families with children depression due to lack of a healthy parental relationship.
2.) What might be its focus: friends answer: How children interact with their parents and how issues can be fixed.
 3.)Can you guess what the central question is that I am trying to answer? Friends Answer: Why do children develop mental and physical issues in a single family home.
4.)How would you characterize the tone of the paper? Friends Answer: Very informative, direct and focused.

1.) My children don't seem upset, so why should I worry? Many times in divorce the parents do not know that their kids might be fighting with many mental and/or physical issues. You have probably ofter heard that many times children think that the divorce is their fault, which can be a possibility, but not always. The child might not even know they are feeling depressed or maybe not even eating correctly, they are too young to notice signs of their own heath concerns. Parents also might not even know that their children are feeling a certain way because they know their parents are going through a rough time so they dont want to make matters worse. When children with non divorce parents, the kids might develop mental and physical issues due to the way their parents act around them, but scientifically the life of a child and their habits comes from the way their parents raise them; or whether or not they are still together. Based on the study of children with divorced parents, the evidence strongly suggests that children are developing mental and physical problems opposed to children of non-divorced parents.  

2.) Many adults can relate their life issues and the way they think back to their childhood.Based on the study of children with divorced parents, the evidence strongly suggests that children are developing mental and physical problems opposed to children of non-divorced parents.   If the child is from divorce parents they can develop many mental and physical issues. The mental issues can differ from depression or physical issues such as the body weight of a child. The child also might keep his/her feelings or thought from their parents due to they suffer from communication because they never saw their parent communicate properly, which caused a divorce. Divorce is mainly caused by the couple not putting positive energy into their relationship. If no positive energy goes into the relationship, it slowly goes down hill. When the child does not understand or have an example of how to cope with stress or how to properly deal with a conflict, the child may suffer in school and with other relationships.


3.) Based on the study of children with divorced parents, the evidence strongly suggests that children are developing mental and physical problems opposed to children of non-divorced parents. Children with non divorced parents mainly understand how to cope with difficult situations and understand how make decisions in tough trials. Non divorced parents show their kids that even when there is a conflict and they might argue they talk things though; this teaches the child how to communicate with others and have healthy relationships. Many children are unaware that they might be feeling depressed or not eating as much, resulting in an unhealthy habit. Children need other adults to talk to when their parents get divorced, even if it was a healthy divorce. Children will not communicate how they are truly feeling to their parents due to the fact that they are scared to make matters worse. Children do best when talking to another adults like counseling or someone at a local church. Parents many times think that their kids are emotionally stable without realizing it, which is normally the case. 

and......WRITE!

Welcome Back!! My blog is up and running again! I did go ahead and re post the last entry to this blog so they would all be in the same place in order. So now it I time to write my paper!! Starting with a thesis statement! I was always terrible at thesis statements but as I learn more about them, they being to make more sense. Our entry for today had to be our thesis statement. The book we are working with gave us a few templates and while I couldn’t find one that specifically could work, I worked with it. The Thesis, if you are unaware, is like what they call a topic sentence in middle school. It tells your audience what your writing is going to focus on in about 1-2 sentences.

In the past I never really picked a thesis statement, I just wrote an introductory paragraph and that was it. I couldn’t even tell you what my thesis was, or pick it out. Which could of made my writing very broad and off topic. I feel as though since I actually picked a thesis and focused on my topic my writing will be stronger, more specific, and on topic. 

Thesis Statement:

Based on the study of children with divorced parents, the evidence strongly suggests that children are developing mental and physical problems opposed to children of non-divorced parents.  

Why should you care??

HELLO!!! This exercise gave us a list of questions that were being asked and we had to pick a few and respond to them. The last question is a wrap up about the response in general and brings all ideas to a conclusion. I really enjoyed this exercise because I got to defend my topic and show how passionate I can become with it. I think that I will be able to show this passion a lot better through my research paper better than I would have. Also I believe I would not have chosen to answer the “what should we do about it?” Question in my paper; which I believe is very important. If you propose an idea on a topic you have to tell you audience what a good way to deal with it or overcome it would be, but I have always just assumed they would figure that part out. If I give them an idea about what we could do about the situation, it could spark their brains and we could actually get something accomplished. 

How do most people see this? How do you see it differently?

Most people would see divorce as just two married people who no longer want to be together and it’s just a “big break-up” with legal issues involved. Divorce now is normally always out of anger and there is hate involved and when all the papers are signed, there’s a reason to party. It is something that is very common in today’s society. I see divorce as a very sad and hard thing to do in one’s life. It does not only affect the married couple, it affects the world around them and especially their children. I do not think married couples should get into divorce because it is a covenant between the two people. The only way divorce is acceptable is when one of the two people break the covenant for example, adultery. The children involved develop mental and physical problems if the parents do not express concern and get the help the child needs watching his parents split apart.

Can you give me an example?

To give you an example, let’s use the Smith family. Mr. Smith decides to propose to Mrs. Smith and they get married, have a kid, etc. Mrs. Smith is unhappy with the way Mr. Smith does the laundry and he lost his job, he is no longer bringing in any money. Mrs. Smith just can’t understand why he can’t do the laundry her way and now that he is not bringing in any money, she no longer wants to be with Mr. Smith. They already had a legal document written up in case they would get into a divorce. Around the house they don’t fight because they don’t think it would be healthy for their kid to see and they decide that the child will spend every other week with each parent.  Their child is 12 years old and very vulnerable to his parent’s actions. His parents do not think he needs counseling and so they decided to talk to him but since he is scared to tell his parents how he really feels; the child suffers from depression and separation anxiety. The child thinks that the divorce is his fault because he never saw his parents fight and no one would give him an explanation. He does not know how to deal with tough situations and he does not know how to cope with difficult situations. The doctor noticed his blood pressure was high for such a young age. He asked the mother if there were any changes to his daily life. Mrs. Smith explains everything to the doctor and he suggests counseling and someone other than the parent to talk to, someone who is not involved in the divorce.

It is also a proven fact that if the parents are fighting in a home and not showing the love of a married couple, the children can show the same effects as children with divorced parents.

What do you think we would do about it? 

I believe that we should make divorce a bigger issue within society than it really is. Sometimes parents do not mean to neglect their children but do not know any better because they do not understand how divorce can really affect their child. Also I believe we should provide free classes married couples to help their marriage survive, for their benefit but mainly the children’s benefit.  We should offer free counseling to kids, as well. So many times people need professional help but are unable to obtain it because it cost too much money.

Based on everything you’ve learned so far, what’s your point?

 My point is that children are becoming mentality and physically ill to divorce, which is something out of their control. Adults and married couples need to be more aware of the effects of divorce and how it can become a large problem, for a child, if not dealt with properly. Children have no control over divorce but yet they must deal with the consequences of divorce, so getting them the help they need is essential.

CRAP! oh no, sorry, I mean CRAAP analyses and Bibliography ;)

Wow, April already! I feel as though I just started this class like last week! Anyway, so for this post I am going to be doing a CRAAP analysis for each of my sources. We had to have at least 5 creditable sources and 3 of which had to be Biblical. (not including the Bible) The CRAAP anaysis is how you can show that your sources are creditable. Its about a paragraph long for each source and it helps to give you an idea of the direction my paper will be going. Another thing that might be helpful for you all to know, I actually changed my topic, not a drastic change but my direction as a whole. At first I was going to do how love effected the chemicals in the brain. While that seemed really interesting to me, I kept finding sources on divorce. I thought that since I did not have any personal connection to divorce (my parents aren't divorced) it wouldn't be a good topic for me. Well as I kept researching I found that it is actually really interesting how children react to divorce! Children often suffer physically and emotionally due to divorce or even parents that are  not divorced but fight and act as though they are. Therefore my topic for this paper will be, How divorce effects children mentally and physically. Hope you enjoy!!!

**Just an FYI, all the CRAAP analyses go in order with the works cited. for example the first source listed is the first CRAAP listed, and so on.**

Works Cited:

Brockmann, Hilke, Dr. "Unhealthy Conditions? A Longitudinal Analysis of the Health of Children in One- and Two-parent Households | Brockmann | Comparative Population Studies." Unhealthy Conditions? A Longitudinal Analysis of the Health of Children in One- and Two-parent Households | Brockmann | Comparative Population Studies. Federal Institute for Population Research, 30 Sept. 2013. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.

Caverno, Charles. "The Divorce Problem: A Rational Religious View." Bibliotheca Sacra 274th ser. BSAC.069 (1912): n. pag. Galaxie Software. Web. 3 Apr. 2014.

Instone-Brewer, David. "What God Has Joined : What Does the Bible Really Teach about Divorce?" Christianity Today 51 (2007): n. pag. Christian Periodical Index. Web. 3 Apr. 2014.

Kalmijn, Matthijs, and Paul M. De Graaf. "Life Course Changes of Children and Well-being of Parents." Journal of Marriage and Family 74.2 (2012): 269-80. Print.

Keener, Craig S. "Divorce as a Justice Issue." Priscilla Papers 4th ser. PP.13 (1999): n. pag. Galaxie Software. Web. 3 Apr. 2014.

 

CRAAP Analysis

This article is a creditable source for my research because this source was found on an online journal and is also copy written from the federal institute of population research. Date-wise this publication is important to include because it is very recent. It was just written last year and divorce has always been a hot topic, but the divorce rate is climbing every year. The author’s main goal in this article is to inform about how children react to single parent household and two parent households. This publishing source for this audience generally targets an audience that fits the follow description: educated, single, divorced, single parent, parents of young children. This audience would be interested in this subject because it relates to their situation any helps them focus on how divorce could affect their children and would generally agree and disagree with this authors perspective topic.  The author incorporates the following types of evidence: The relationship between a mother and her child, graphs and charts of the percentages on marital status and the mental health of the child. He also looks into hospital/ doctor visits, weight of the children during/ after their parents’ divorce, and types of mental disorders that are relation to divorce in children and adults. This evidence builds creditability because it shows the author went over all avenues. He made sure he coved a large aspect of topics related to the effects of divorce and proved them scientifically but it is also limited because there is no biblical structure to his research. Based on my opinion, experiences, and research, I agree with this author because he is very academic and proves many different avenues to the effects of divorce, not just a single one. I think this article is important to include in my essay because I need a lot of different effects on divorce and the scientific data to prove it.

This article is a creditable source for my research because it was found on a theological journal database. This authors credentials include the fact that he was published in a journal which has many volumes. Date-wise this publication is important to include because it was written back in 1912 which shows that divorce has always been a topic that many wrote and researched about. Also it shows that the Bible has not changed and stays credible for hundreds of years. The author’s main goal in this article is to teach about what the bible says about divorce. The publishing source for this article generally targets an audience that fits the following description: Christian, divorced, educated, process of divorced, thinking about divorce, and theologians. This audience would be interested in this subject because it is a subject that is a gray area in the Bible and some people agree with divorce while others do not and would agree and disagree with this author’s perspective on the topic. The author incorporates the following types of evidence: the scripture verses about divorce and also the stipulations of getting into divorce but is also limited because it is written for mainly theologian audience. Based on my opinion, experiences, and research I agree with this author because he uses scripture to back up his ideas and I agree with his ideas as well. I think this article is important to include in my essay because I need to have a biblical basis and scripture to back my ideas up.

This article is a credible source for my research because I found this journal on LBC’s one source and meets all the qualification for citing a source. The author’s credentials include that he is a senior research fellow in rabbinics and the New Testament at Tyndale House, Cambridge. He is also married and has 2 daughters. The author’s main goal in this article is to inform about what the bible says about divorce and the stipulation of getting divorced and remarried.  The publishing source for this article generally targets an audience that fits in the following description: educated, Christian, divorced, thinking about divorce, widowed, wanting to get remarried, biblical scholars. This audience would generally agree with this author’s perspective about the topic. The author incorporated the following types of evidence: he starts the journal out as talking to a pastor about divorce then it sparks his interest so he researches it. He informs about new testament teaching and the scripture. He speaks about what other pastors might think, as well as, the stipulations to getting divorced or remarried. But this is also limited because it does not use any non-biblical context. Based on my opinion, experiences, and research I agree with this author because he speaks about other pastors and that not all will agree on topics, which I have had firsthand experience with. I think this article is important to include in my essay because it shows a married man talking about divorce and the importance of staying committed to the vows of marriage.

This article is a creditable source for my research because I had found it on LBC’s once source witch is very creditable due to it is from the library and it is also a journal from a doctor. The author’s credentials include that both of them worked for or work with Tilburg University. Date-wise this publication is important to include because it was in 2012, which still makes it a good current source. The author’s main goal in this article is to inform about the effects of divorce parents on their kids. This publishing source for this article generally targets an audience that fits the following description: educated, divorced, parents, single parent, a child of divorced parents, therapist, and councilor. This audience would be interested I this subject because the authors provide evidence of how divorce affects children and the comparison between non divorce parents to divorced parents and would generally agree and disagree with this author’s perspective on the topic. The author incorporates the following types of evidence: Social norms vs. Altruistic perspective vs. selfish perspectives, results of divorce in parents, and the mental and physical effects on the children. This evidence builds credibility because it shows they took the ways people see divorce and how divorce occurs and compared them all but this is limited because it does not focus on biblical principles. Based on my own opinion, experiences, and research, I agree with this author because they have showed both mental and physical effects as well as the perspectives of divorce. I think this article is important in my essay because it brings all different perspective into consideration. Also it broadens my audience.

This article is a credible source for my research because it is a biblical source found on a theological journal database. The author’s credentials include that he is a professor of New Testament at Eastern Seminary and an author if nine books. Date-wise this publication is important to include because it was written in 1999, so it is not too far back and it is not too present. It evens out the dates in my other sources. It also gives my paper more depth into the time line of divorce issues. The author’s main point is to inform about divorce as a justice issue and what the church says about divorce vs. what the scriptures say about divorce. The publishing source for this article generally targets an audience that fits the following description: divorced, pastor, church involved, married, wanting to remarry, evangelists, and abused. This audience would be interested in this subject because he brings up what the pastors think about divorce and how many pastors could think differently about the issue. Also he talks about what leads to divorce and what the stipulations of divorce are. This evidence builds credibility because he specifically shows in scripture where divorce is okay if one person in the marriage is breaking the vows but is also limited because there is no outside focus for other cultures that might not have strict marriage vows. Bases in my own opinions, experiences, and research, I agree with this author because being taught at LBC I see a lot of connects on what my professors say as well as what the authors say. I think this article is important to include in my essay because it brings a lot of my other sources together. It just doesn’t say what divorce does but it explains what leads up to divorce and how divorce was portrayed back in biblical times and in the present day.