Revision of Essay 1: Final Exam. By: Lauren Henderson

Abstract: I Chose to revise this essay because it was my very first essay and i knew the less knowledge when i wrote this one. I felt like i could use more of my knowledge and make better sense of the topic. Although it was very hard to revise something, i put a great effort into changing my word choice. I noticed throughout my writing i would time and time again have very complicated sentences to read. I also added more detail to my thesis to give the reader a better idea of what they were about to read. I feel as if this made my paper stronger because it have the reader insight to what they needed to know in order to keep reading or move on from my paper. The last way i revised my paper was by really paying attention to my paragraph structure. I noticed before that i would add random information in my paper just to fill up space. Or i would have too much information on one thing in one spot. To revise it, i either deleted information that was not needed or just rearranged my information to make the paper make more sense. Get Started On Your Life! When the phrase, “30 is the new twenty,” is said in today's society, twenty year olds automatically think, "Oh yeah, I have all the time in the world." A lot of controversy is spoken when speaking about this subject among many generations, especially older ones. The phrase, unfortunately, provides a time cushion that allows young people to procrastinate on starting their lives. Meg Jay, whom has a PhD in psychology, experienced something that changed the focus of “twenty-somthings” to the “Defining Decade” and gave her three ideas worth spreading. These ideas target young adults to help make their lives successful starting right now. Jay delivers a speech entitled, "Why 30 is not the new 20." She gives this speech to a big auditorium full of "twenty something's." During her speech she tries to reason with her audience, telling them that by wasting time with something right now rather than moving forward and starting something that matters, can negatively effect them in the long run of having a successful life. By explaining an experience she encountered in her early practicum days, she now is lucky enough to help and counsel young adults in their twenties to become more successful in their own lives as soon as possible. Throughout her speech she uses rhetoric, such as, work choice and diction, as well as her personal experiences. Through doing this, she persuades “twenty-something's” to have identity capital, use their network of people or "weak tithes," and pick their family to better their chances of a successful life sooner rather than later. Furthermore, during student clinical at Berkley University, Jay tells about her first experience conducting a session with a young woman named Alex. This experience changed her focus on her career and allowed her to specialize in the age group she now refers to as “The Defining Decade." The purpose of her speech is to persuade young adults in their “twenty-something's” not to procrastinate in starting a successful life. While she is giving the speech she repeatedly states “twenty-something's.” Not only is she talking to young adults in that age group but she is also including people who are raising, loving, and even losing sleep over a “twenty-something.” Her speech provides an example of ethos such as “I was a student in clinical psychology at Berkeley acquiring my PhD.” (Jay). This sentence gives her an image of authority and importance, which she is trying to portray. This gives the audience a reason to listen to her. In order to grab her audience’s attention, she gives many examples of logos. For example, she states, “There are fifty million twentysomthings in the United States right now. This relates back to the thesis because it shows how vital people in their twenties are to society. She goes on and states, "We’re talking about fifteen percent of the population, or one-hundred percent if you consider that no one’s getting through adulthood without going through their twenties first” (Jay). Another example is, “We know that eighty percent of life’s most defining moments take place by age thirty-five” (Jay). This fact is so true and is placed well in her speech so that it will really reel in the audience and have her words be heard loud and clear. Many of these examples have a lot to do with her very first client, Alex. Just as the old saying, "Time flies when you're having fun," most people don’t realize how wasting that amount of time can hugely affect success in someone’s life. Some women like Alex just sit back and wait later in life to start anything. She explains how marriage happened later, jobs happened later, and even life happened later. During this explanation she slows down her words to empathize the importance of each sentence she is speaking on. Her word choice is very unique because it appeals to the audience by being simple and easy to understand. The key to really get across to someone is to put it in their words. Most people tune you out when you began to talk about something that is out of their reach in knowledge. Her speech was down to earth and it was not like you would expect a psychologist with a PhD to talk like. Her diction was very well applied. The story of Alex starts off with Alex having so called "boy problems." Dr. Jay begins to counsel Alex and just brush off the procrastination she is seeing. Dr. Jay is confronted by her boss, which tells her that she is helping Alex waste her life by letting time fly and her youth slip away. This was when Dr. Jay actually had an "Aha moment," as Jay describes. This was when she completely changed her way of counseling. As her speech progresses she starts to portray examples of pathos by talking about a woman named Emma. She explains to Dr. Jay that she is having an identity crisis. Emma is in her mid-twenties and feels like she has no time left. Of course, she had dreams, but she didn’t know if those were the right dreams to have so late in life. She wanted to work with artwork but did not know where to start (Jay). Alex goes on to tell her that she has no one she can count on. She has no one to take care of her if something really bad happened to her. This story grabs the audience emotionally and allows her to leave them with a thought to focus on bettering “twentysomthings” in their own lives. For example, “She’d just bought a new address book, and she’d spent the morning filling in many of her contacts, but then she’d been left staring at that empty blank that comes after the words, 'In case of emergency, please call … .'” This brought an awe in the audience that drew them in and allowed them to feel Emma's painful emotion. She goes on to illustrate Emma’s next steps in successfully starting her life and filling in that blank (Jay). The first idea she mentions is about claiming your adulthood and having identity capital. She says, “Claiming your twenties can be the simplest, yet the most transformative, thing you can do for work, love, for your happiness, maybe even for the world” (Jay). Dr. Jay begins by telling Emma that having identity capital requires her to do something in her life that makes her feel like she accomplished something. She tells Emma, “To explore work and make it count!” (Jay). During this point she adds in an example of kairos, “So now is the time for that cross-country job, that internship, that startup you want to try.” This gives the audience a decisive moment (Jay). I feel as if she did a great job at slowing down her words and selecting a good word choice to really relate to the audience, which is diction. The second idea is to use your weak tithes. Jay states, “… the urban tribe is overrated.” (Jay). This means that your friends cannot be the people you always surround yourself with. It is better for you to branch off from the group and surround yourself with diverse people. This ties into using your weak tithes, for example, Emma went through the address book and found an old friend from college that had a cousin, which worked in an art museum out of state. By knowing this girl she had went to college with, she was able to land a job in the field she had dreamed of working with. By using weak tithes, this was a prime example Dr. Jay wanted to portray (Jay). Lastly, the third idea of picking your family, is mentioned when Emma states in one of their sessions that “You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family” (Jay). This saying has been drawn out through time and has really began to show how untrue it is. Dr. Jay goes on to explain that picking a partner is picking your family, because choosing a person you want to start a family with is choosing who your family will be later on down the road. Emma married a man that she met when she moved out of state for the job she landed. By marrying that man, she chose him to start her life with. Later on, Dr. Jay, tells her audience that Emma stayed in touch with her by sending a card stating, “Now the emergency contact blanks don’t seem big enough!” This is also another example of pathos. It emotionally grabs the attention of her audience and leaves them with a thought they could use to make a difference in the lives of a “twentysomething” today (Jay). In conclusion, I think Dr. Jay did an excellent job of getting her point across. Her talk was very effective, not only to people in their twenties, but basically to anyone listening. My opinion of starting a life has changed tremendously, in that I plan more thoughtfully for whom I may marry one day, potential children I may parent one day, and the surroundings of friends I may be involved with someday. I use to think that waiting later on in life to make my decisions would make a better, in fact I was waiting for the "later" moment to spike so i could start making decisions. I now agree with Meg Jay that by having identity capital, using my weak tithes, and picking my family, can better my success earlier in life and make my chances of living life on time greater than ever. Works Cited Jay, Meg. “Why 30 is not the New 20.” TED Conferences, LLC. 2010. Lecture.

digital presentation

Self Reflection of this semester. By: Lauren Henderson

As a student in college, I struggle with English class. Most of my struggles begin with not being sure of myself and what i write. I always keep to myself and do not engage in the writing part of it. I usually do really poorly on the research end of the class. My journey through English has been long and drawn out, but i have learned a tremendous amount of knowledge from both English 101 and English 102. During this semester i have improved in my critical learning skills dramatically. I have never really enjoyed critical thinking, reading, or writing too much. It seemed very complicated to me to understand. I have come a long way from where i started when i first began English 101 my first semester of college. As a critical thinker, my improvements have helped me be a better researcher. Research, for me, use to be my most dreaded area of English class. I would always procrastinate because i honestly did not know how to go about researching what I needed. One way this class helped me is to know how to research. It taught me what to use and what not to use. I really took a lot from the library session that we had before the third paper. Even though i really did not know how to use the library database, i was not going to ask about it either, because i did not think it was going to help me anyway. Turns out, I have used the library database for every single paper i have written thus far after that session. This helped me become a better critical thinker by using the STARR method mentioned in the library session. I would look at a piece of research and know if i could use it and where i could embed it into my paper. Therefore, this made my critical thinking skills better and helped me do better on my papers throughout the semester. As a critical reader, i struggled to really understand what i was reading when we were given passages to read out of "They Say I Say." At the beginning of the semester i would scan through them and wonder what it was talking about. I would sometimes get a gist of what it was talking about, but most of the time i did not. The problem was that i did not know how to break down a passage and understand bits and pieces of it. When Mrs. Thomas had us annotate each passage it really helped me to slow down and really think about what i was reading. Using Kaizena to give feedback to our fellow class mates really helped me to take bits and pieces at a time and understand each part. As a critical writer i have learned so much new ideas to really help me throughout college. Most importantly, i have learned how to arrange my paper so that it follows my thesis and makes sense to the reader. I use to include my thesis, not matter what, at the beginning of the paper. As a critical writer i learned that sometimes the thesis did not belong there. It was wherever it flowed the best. I also learned new ways to embed research so that it followed my flow i had going. During the end of the semester i read over the sample essays and this finally made sense. I was reading a sample paper that basically talked about the same thing mine did. It gave me some insight on how to organize my paper. I have come a long way from jotting ideas down and meshing them together to actually relating, weaving, and joining ideas to make a better paper overall. Over all I have learned that being a critical thinker, reader, and writer is not that difficult. It just involves some effort and really helps you with a lot through life in general. I use skills i learned from this class everyday in other classes as well. I have brought my grades in several classes just by slowing down and thinking critically about what i am learning about. I plan to use all the techniques we have used such as, the STARR method, library guides, and numerous passages out of "They Say I Say." As i progress in my education i really think that this class has helped me by helping me understand research and how to narrow it down to one topic. As a pre-nursing student, i know there will be so many research papers for me later on that will require critical thinking. I am so glad that Mrs. Thomas exposed me to different technologies that i could use in other classes down the road. I want to give Mrs. Thomas a special thank you for getting me to engage into my learning and also teaching me how to become a better critical thinker, reader and writer!

Changing the world of cosmetic surgery. By: Lauren Henderson

Prospectus essay 4 by: Lauren Henderson

-The problem i am proposing is that cosmetic surgery is causing too many problems within the society and wasting a lot of money. The biggest issue is having so many women try to look youthful by face lifts, botox injections, and implants. These things harm the skin and the body in ways that catch up to you later on in life. I want to make a difference in how women look at youthful beauty. These problems are not just affecting the women that get these procedures done, it is affecting the young women who look up to the older women and follow right in there footsteps. This includes the audience i am trying to target. Basically women from nineteen to fifty. I want to shine a light to them so that they can start a different path to looking more youthful. I want to help the younger girls get some insight to what can later affect them down the road that they really do not want to deal with. Some solutions i want to suggest are the law that hospitals will have to pass that will bring down the rate of cosmetic surgeries gone wrong. The second solution includes more and more insurance companies requiring a guideline copay that will secure that it is needed and not wanted by the patient. The last solution will include salons getting involved in skin beauty with teens and young girls. This will promote natural beauty and not fake beauty. I will back up these solutions by the evidence of resources i found. I will use rhetoric by appealing to the hearts of women and young girls explaining just how beautiful someone can be naturally.

Essay 3 reflection by: laruen Henderson

My third paper this semester was not my best work. It needed a little more revising than i had done. I got so behind in my other classes that i did not create the best paper possible. I learned a lot from my essay though, i learned that plastic surgery is something i may be really interested in once i become a nurse. I realized that the good out weighs the bad when it comes tho the topic. I really took the time to research each essential question i had for my essay. I enjoyed reading about the topic and engaging myself with people who were personally involved in this field. I could have took a little more time to edit more and put in more quotes.

Haiku deck essay 3 by: Lauren Henderson

"We gotta problem." - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires