Pro/Con

Write your topic:

The dangers in unhealthy foods and what we should be eating instead

Write your tentative question:

Just how bad are the foods we eat? What should people look out for and eat instead?

Write your tentative thesis (this should be a statement that is debatable, with which someone could disagree):

A growing number of people, kids and adults both included, are choosing the unhealthy food options over a nutritional diet. There are a lot of long term health effects, like obesity, that are caused by eating processed foods with high amounts of fats and sugars; people should be more aware about the harmful effects about a lot of foods and find healthy alternatives.

Claims that support/strengthen your argument:

1. I want to expose just how unnatural the foods are that we are eating. I will need to include specific ingredients that are used that are processed and how much ingredients, like sugars, are being added into our foods. In order to reveal the effects of unhealthy foods, I would like to go into detail about why these foods are so unhealthy.

2. There is a correlation between obesity and fast food/packaged foods. I want to find specific numbers and statistics that prove how more and more people are being diagnosed with obesity, and how there are more fast food options available to people. I would also want to find specific cases of people/families/common lifestyles that admit to how they eat these packaged/processed foods and are now facing the challenges of obesity.

3. The majority of people are more inclined to choose the unhealthy option over the healthy one. I want to provide evidence that people tend to choose junk food over fruits, vegetables, and homemade meals. And that even those who do choose to make foods at home, a lot of people resort to canned foods or anything that make it easier and faster to cook at home. I basically want to incorporate just how big of a problem this is among people. And I might narrow in on specific people, like kids, college students, and young adults in general.

4. There are healthy alternatives that are available to people, they just need to be introduced to them. I want to include what nutritional  options are out there and how these are the foods that people should be eating. And it would be great if I could find statistics on certain foods that include how popular certain healthy foods are so that people realize that healthy food doesn’t necessarily mean disgusting or bland food.

 

Claims that undermine/challenge your argument:

1. One claim that will definitely challenge the idea of needing to eat healthier is that healthy foods are very expensive. A lot of people choose to eat fast food because it’s cheaper and most people can afford that. It’s very hard to maintain a healthy diet when the prices are so high. I’m going to try to counter this claim by including how people can either try to grow their own produce; identify the super markets with healthy foods, but lower prices; and find any deals that allow the buyer to buy healthy foods for good deals, like buying in bulk.

2. A lot or chain restaurants and fast food restaurants claim that they have healthier options, like salads and fruit. In order to counter this, I want proof that these alternatives that are available are not all that healthy. Salads get drenched in fattening dressing, and are loaded with meats and cheeses to cover the taste of the lettuce. And a lot of the lettuce used is iceberg lettuce, which has virtually no health benefits. Even if there are “healthier” options at these joints, most people do not pick them over the other choices.

3. Some people simply believe that healthy foods just don’t taste good. And for a lot of people who grew up eating an unhealthy diet don’t believe that it’s possible to stop eating the only foods that they know. So I want to find sources that identify a lot of foods that are both healthy and found to be popular based on their taste, like a fresh smoothie over a milkshake.

4. A lot of people argue that they don’t have enough time to cook food for the family and that it’s just easier to go pick up fast food. While it definitely is difficult for people to find the time, it is still possible. There are plenty of healthy meals that are extremely quick to make, and there are also meals that can be made in advance and then heated up later or used for a couple meals. It’s better to have the same healthy meal twice a week than constantly have fast food.

pro/con

Write your topic: weather and moods

Write your tentative question: why do people always relate bad weather to depression? Is it just a common sense that people are told to think this way since they were born, or are there any scientific explanations behind it? If there do exist scientific reasons, how does weather influence our negative emotions invisibly? If not, what is the true factor to influence our moods?

Write your tentative thesis (this should be a statement that is debatable, with which someone could disagree): People should be responsible for their moods’ changes, rather than weather.

Claims that support/strengthen your argument
Identify the claims that support your argument; for each one, draft one or more sentences.
What evidence (stats, studies, trends, anecdotes, expert opinion) will you need to support
each claim? Aim for a good mix of evidence. As you look for evidence at this step,
start compiling your annotated bibliography.

1. In a few cases, weather relates to moods, but it doesn’t mean that weather is a reason to cause moods’ changes. Someone else say it is true, so it implies the fact is true. People relate mood to weather because of psychological autosuggestion.

2. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is also possible to happen in summer. There are some true personal experiences shared in an article called “Seasonal Depression Can Accompany Summer Sun” in NY Times. So the disease contains summer SAD and winter SAD.

3. People use a small amount number of extreme cases to represent the whole, such as SAD.

4. The experiments which conclude weather changes mood does not consider other factors, such as age, gender. There is an experiment conducted by Goldsteim in 1972 by questionnaire, suggesting that sex, belief in external
Control may be related to reactivity to the weather. Klimstra wrote a report on Individual Differences in How Weather Affects Mood, acknowledging that people may be happier in sun and may be happier in rain as well.

Claims that undermine/weaken/challenge your argument
Identify the claims that challenge your argument; for each one, draft one or more sentences.
What evidence (reason, stats, studies, trends, anecdotes, expert opinion) will you need to counter
this claim? Aim for a good mix of evidence. As you look for evidence at this step,
start compiling your annotated bibliography.

1. Suicide rates are high in areas with low temperature and less sunshine. For example: Alaska has the highest suicide rate among all states the US. On the Statewide Suicide Prevention Council website: “The rate of suicide in the United States was 11.5 suicides per 100,000 people in 2007. In 2007, Alaska’s rate was 21.8 suicides per 100,000 people. Alaska has the highest rate of suicide per capita in the country.” Also, the suicide rates of Sweden and Norway are very high.

2. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), which mostly occurs in winter, with symptoms like depression, anxiety and extremes of moods. “SAD occurs in both the northern and southern hemispheres, but is extremely rare in those living within 30 degrees latitude of the equator” (Mental Health American.org).

3. Some experiments claim that bad weather causes depression and good weather is happy. For example, Howard and Hoffman (1984) had 24 college students keep track of their moods, which shows a significant effect on mood correlated with the weather. And also, another study by Keller and his colleagues (2005) declares the same opinion.

Pros/Cons Exercises

Write your topic:

Smartphones and the public’s relationships                      

Write your tentative question:

Does smartphones benefit or ruin the public’s life, especially for the public’s relationships?

Write your tentative thesis (this should be a statement that is debatable, with which someone could disagree):

Nevertheless, Smartphones bring convenience to people’s lives, they indeed cause conflicts of  people’s relationships. People who do not arrange the usage time of smartphones hurt their relationships than smartphones themselves. Therefore, people should appropriately arrange the usage time of smartphone and increase the time of communicating with friends, families and partners in order to maintain relationships.

 

Claims that support/strengthen your argument

            Identify the claims that support your argument; for each one, draft one or more sentences.

What evidence (stats, studies, trends, anecdotes, expert opinion) will you need to support

each claim? Aim for a good mix of evidence. As you look for evidence at this step,
start compiling your annotated bibliography.

1. Smartphones allow parents and adolescents to contact frequently and freely. Frequency of adolescent-initiated calls for social support increases the communication and closeness between parents and adolescents. Similarly, parents ending calls with “I love you” may related to the adolescent’s feeling of caring and warmth, elevation self-esteem.

2. Smartphones leave the freedom of the romantic relationships. People can text to their partners via smartphones in order to speak out what they cannot say face-to-face, such as, expressing love and caring to each other.

3. Smartphones can tie partners together. The ubiquity of cell phones makes them available as tools dating partners use to maintain their romantic relationships. Contacting freely and sharing funny things via text and Internet increase the closeness between partners.

4. People prevent themselves from mobile addiction via controlling themselves of using smartphones.

 

Claims that undermine/weaken/challenge your argument

            Identify the claims that challenge your argument; for each one, draft one or more sentences.

What evidence (reason, stats, studies, trends, anecdotes, expert opinion) will you need to counter

this claim? Aim for a good mix of evidence. As you look for evidence at this step,
start compiling your annotated bibliography.

1. High frequency of parent-initiated calls to adolescents let adolescents perceive ubiquity of parental monitoring. This may cause conflict and quarrels between parents and adolescents and decreases the self-esteem of adolescents when they are staying with their friends.

2. Smartphones allow uncertainty about when, how, and how much to communicate-uncertainty to which relational partners need to respond. Sometimes, late for response increase quarrels and hurt the romantic relationship.

3. The ubiquity of smartphones arise the problem of keeping eyes on partners. Highly frequent calls and numerous texts make partners feel embarrassed and choky.

4. Mobile addiction reduces the concentration of adolescents during studying. Staring at the smartphone to look for something funny on Twitter or Facebook all the time may hurt the romantic relationship. Living in the virtual world for a long time causes the deficiency of communicating with others in the real world.

Pro/Con Earlier, More Emphasized Science Education

With more people every day being less religious, which is often thought of as the core of ethics and morality, how do we teach future generations the fundamental lessons of life? Through its logic and reasoning, I believe, science is able to teach children the proper ethics and morals in life that will stick with them forever.

Pros

1. There is a need for another method to teaching ethics and morals. To prove this, I need to research statistics showing how religious people are, and the percentages of all religions.

2. Science can be used to teach ethics and morals. To prove this, I need to research studies on science methodology and how it effects individuals. Possibly schools or communities have attempted this before, which I will look into.

3. Earlier science education is capable of possibly improving cognitive reasoning at a much younger age. To back this, I would need proof that science stimulates brain growth.

Cons

1. There is no need for another method to teaching ethics and morals. Who are you to judge society?

I would need statistics showing decline in people following religions to disprove this counterpoint. I would also need to argue that, alternative methods are always needed in life to provide growth for society. Which is why there are multiple religions to begin with, since everyone thinks there own ways, people should be free to choose this new method of teaching ethics and morals if they please.

2. Using science to teach ethics and morals would have the opposite effect. People would start to look at life too objectively and would be carved to think a certain way instead of for themselves.

To counter this, I would need to argue that science promotes rational thinking, and therefore creates the ability to think for oneself. Proof wise, I could show examples that scientists argue with each other every day over the others view points on a subject. Scientists all think for themselves, which helps create ideas that could help find a ground breaking discovery, such as the cure for small pox or polio.

3. Cognitive reasoning comes with age and brain growth. It isn’t possible to improve cognitive reasoning at a younger age.

I would need to argue, knowledge is a different story. Humans are capable of learning cognitive reasoning earlier, surely it comes with age and is prohibited by the maturing of the brain, but some stages could be advanced earlier. I would need studies that show, late teenage cognitive reasoning can be gained by early teenage years through circumstances of learning science earlier. Science education can help humans achieve the next step of cognitive reasoning at the earliest point possible.