2/1/08

Article:
Rabenmutter: Germany in Angst over Low Birthrate
By: Emma Pearse

This article by Pearse really focuses in on the roles of women as mothers, bit it says nothing about men and where they come in to the picture of taking care of children. It was all about the options for women. So what really is the role of the father in Pearse's essay? As a reader i also caught on to how the Germans really puts a negative push onto women as mothers. They give them two roles either "rabenmutter" which is the uncaring mother for those who had a full time job and a child, as well as "hausmutterchen" which was given to the "stupid" mothers who chose to stay home with their children. How are women supposed to feel any pride for themselves if they are considered stupid for either chose they make? And now because of they two pressure put onto them, Pearse says how a lot of women are choosing to not even have children now. For the women to receive these comments and then still be expected to have kids because the society needs them is completely wrong. How a women goes about taking care of her child is her call to some extent. If a mother can juggle a job and a child then good for her, and if she does choose to stay home with them , then good for her as well. Judgment by Germany on their women is very harsh and negative. Maybe instead of focusing in on how they think that their decisions are stupid they should work on the childcare that is lacking to give these women more options. The article by Pearse was very well written and prompted a lot of questions about this negativity toward women as mothers in Germany.

1/18/ 08

Article-
Rise of the Plagiosphere: How New Tools to Detect Plagerism Could Induce Mass Writer's Block
By: Ed Tenner

Ed Tenner's article is focused around his word, "Plagiosphere." He uses this term to compare the biosphere, which is what we know of living in. The comparison between the two shows that such a common word of biosphere meaning all livings things that surround us, in other words the life we live, to Tenner's word plagiosphere which is the depiction of the very common and now advancing plagiarism. Our future has brought on such an advance in technology and not that the advances are bad, it is just that because of there being so much in front of us it is hard not to use and sometimes plagiarize this information. As Tenner mentions practically everything that people want to say or want to think is already written down so therefore there is nothing left to say anymore which leads to this problem. Plagioshpere comes off as this destroyer to new ideas, to our creativity. We have nothing left to create, it is all already here, and now all we have left to do is to repeat the words that are already someone else's. This thought provokes a devastating thought of how we can no longer be independent, for we are dependent on the words of others. Our creativity was what made us independent and now we do not have that. This ever so quickly advancing plagioshpere is taking that trait away from us. As Ed Tenner states it is this closing frontier of ideas. We are losing this power and meaning of our own words. Overall this article really opens your eyes to what damage plagiarism is doing and how serious it is becoming. It is not that people do not know it happens, because that is evident, it is that they do not know the lack of creativity it is causing to us and our futures.

1/11/08

Article: The Art of College Management: Cheating
By: Rebekah Nathan

After reading this text I find it to be very valuable and intriguing. The fact that the article is based off of cheating in college allows it to relate to a topic college students know about and that it is going on. I get the vibe that Nathan is not necessarily saying a lot of negative or wrong statements about cheating, but instead she is talking about and making statistics on reasons for why college students cheat. I feel as though My thought of Nathan's thesis statement, "Cheating is an active part of classic college culture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and remains so in the twenty- first, as schools across the country report high levels of academic dishonesty," shows a large picture of what her article represents. As well as when she tells us about some of the comments that students said about when they were asked if it is okay to cheat. I feel as though the comments that the few students answered don't not only answer the questions, but they also show that students really do feel as though they have proper excuses and maybe it is the universities that need to find answers to their reasons. Nathan listed the four reasons that should be taken into consideration of why students cheat and i really feel as though those may be good statements and understandable excuses sometimes; however, any of those excuses could be said every time someone cheats because they are so broad and easy to have a story about. The fact that this article is both quantitative and qualitative make is very interesting and an easy read to follow. I feel as though this topic that she talked about and majority of the statements she said in it are very true. Students in college cheat everyday and it is not fair and seen by these students who do not cheat and are in college to be taught how to learn and understand for the educations and knowledge they are trying to biuld. These students who cheat themselves into an education will be the same ones cheating at future jobs and down the road in their future lives.