Free Writes Matraca Mckay

Reflection for Proposal Process Work Credit

Throughout the course of this semester
  • What went well?

What went well for me was being able to work on the paper through out the semester. Writing the first two papers gave me a great start to the last paper, which was very helpful.

  • What gave you trouble? What did you do to address that trouble?

The one part that gave me the most trouble this semester was trying to find/ come up with counter arguments. What I did to address this problem was to ask for help, lots of help! Even after asking for help I still felt like it was my weakest points in my paper.

  • What did you learn?

I learned a lot throughout this semester. One thing I learned that I have never done was the bibliographies. I think doing a bibliography for a research paper is extremely helpful. It helps you find creditable sources that you may want to use in your research paper, and narrow out sources that are unnecessary. With the debates I learned to be more confident in myself and I definitely feel I improved with my debating skills as the semester went on.


January 27

Do you read food labels? If so, why? If not, why not? What information do you think should be included on food labels in the United States?
Yes I do read food labels, not religiously but probably about 85% of the time I do. I read the food labels because I want to know on an estimate how many calories I am eating and to see if there are any trans fats in the food product. I try to avoid trans fats as much as possible because they are so bad for you. I think the information on the food labels are pretty well put in the United States. One thing they could do is make the ingredients easier to read and easier to understand instead of having fourteen different ways to say that there is sugar in them.

January 29

After reading the NY Times article, What information should be included on food labels? Who should decide what is included on food labels? Did reading the article change your mind, or make you think about food labeling in a different way?
Information that could be on the labels is things they use to purify the process or the things they use to clean their products. I feel that there should be federal laws that they follow to a certain point, then each state or company (depending on how big the company is) should be able to add more information on the food labels as they wish as long as they are following the federal laws. After reading the article I think I may start to read the food labels for on meat products, because before I never really bothered to read them because naturally meat (protein) is suppose to be healthy for you.

January 31

After reading the three articles about the pink slime debate, where do you fall on this issue? Should it be labeled differently? Which argument(s) did you find most compelling? Why? What preconceptions (baggage) did you bring with you to this debate that might be influencing your position?
On this issue I feel that if this "pink slime" has been in our food and there is not significant health issues coming directly from the pink slime that it is not issue to me. I feel that the "pink slime" is okay to be used because it uses more of the cow and then there is less waste. I do feel that it should be labeled differently on the packaging so that consumers are aware of what is going into their beef that they are buying. The article I found the most compelling was the one by Atlantic, Why You Should Learn to Love Pink Slime. This article caught my attention when Robin Hanson was talking about politics isn't about the party or food is not about nutrition; this is so true, along with the other points she listed in this article. The baggage I brought with to this debate is that I have grown up my entire life eating all kinds of meat and I have yet to get sick from any of them. Granted my parents buy most of it directly from the meat market where it is made, or my parents make their own hamburger from the deer we get in the fall.

February 19

What are the most direct causes of the exigence about which you are writing? What economic or business conditions may play a role in this exigence? What societal attitudes, fears, or values may have initiated it or indirectly supported it?
The most direct causes of childhood obesity is too much of the over eating and not enough exercising. The economic or business role being played within childhood obesity is the fast food marketing places and also the junk food marketing play as huge contributors in obese children. I think that society would support less marketing of fast food and junk food but also, these two things are such a convenience to most Americans its hard to say if they would completely support a movement to less marketing or not. The convenience issue is what I would say the biggest indirect supporter, its fast and easy to get; that's what everyone wants in this go-go-go society we live in. No one wants their children to get obese, but not many stop it either.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License