Statement of Purpose

        Almost every skill I`ve learned here will be very useful, especially the ones I learned with Sean. Doing academic writing will be really useful in my future and in the college. Learning how to do a thesis will be important for the rest of my life, and in my opinion, I learned really well.

There are other skills that I learned in other classes too, for example: the American culture through music, I learned a lot of things I didn`t know, and some argumentation aspects.

I know I will remember everything I`ve learned here, not only the most useful things, like some drama aspects, but I`m very grateful to everyone whom I learned something.

Analyzing Arguments - The Early Bird Gets the Bad Grade

This article is about teenagers waking up early to go to the school. The thesis is that waking up really early isn`t good for the education of teenagers, manly in the first lesson, when 28% of the teenagers sleep and many others are so sleepy that they can`t even hear the teacher, so the class should start later, and should finish later too, around 5 pm.

The author says that all teenagers go to school very early and having classes early is not productive to teenagers, so going to school really early isn`t productive to teenagers.

In my opinion, having classes early in the morning is something really bad, almost everyone can`t produce 100%, many people fall asleep and many others can`t think. We should stay one hour more in the school and start one hour later, this should be something good for everybody.

Are computer games bad for children?

Thesis:

As was noted earlier, the majority of computer games produced today have violence as their

principal theme. Despite the growing concerns of parents and teachers in the past decade, it

would appear from my research that violence in computer games is becoming increasingly

realistic and explicit. We are thus faced with the familiar question: Does playing violent

computer games lead to aggressive behavior in young people? This is clearly a highly complex

issue. Research conducted in the past decade has revealed that young people who regularly play

violent computer games have a tendency to be more aggressive than those who do not. Perhaps

not surprisingly, my findings tend to support this position. (extracted from p. 116)

Walker, A. (2001). Computer games and adolescent aggression. In N. Peters (Ed.), Research into

the effects of computer games (pp. 108-124). London: St Martin’s Press.

Antithesis:

On the issue of violence, the modern media surrounds us with violence. Movies such as 'The

Matrix', television programs such as the news, newspaper reports of sports such as boxing, and

radio dramas often involve violence. It is difficult to watch TV for one evening without seeing an

explosion, car chase, death or violence. Children's programs are especially violent, as is shown

by Tom and Jerry. If young children are expected to realize that it is only a cartoon, teenagers

playing computer games can also recognize that it's only a game.

In addition, many computer games are non-violent, for example, 'The Sims' is a very popular

game of social interaction, and football playing and management games involve almost no

violence.

Smith, A. J. (2003). Synthesis. Retrieved October 20, 2008 from The Hong Kong Polytechnic

University, The English Language Centre Web site:

http://elc.polyu.edu.hk/CILL/eap/synthesis.htm

Synthesis:

The question if violent games are bad for children has a lot of different opinions, but normally there are two opinions. One is like Walker, A. (2001) said, that researches had come to an answer that children who play violent games tend to be more violent that the ones who don`t. Nevertheless, there are the ones who say something like Smith, A. J. (2003) said, that violent games are like cartoons, movies, tv shows and other things that show violence, so like a cartoon or a movie, children can recognize that video games are not real. In my opinion, violence is not something good for children if they don`t know the difference between reality and fiction, but games are not the problem, in this case, any fiction that shows violence is bad for them, so the violence is not the problem, it`s how you deal with it.

Article Summarize - NASA’s Opportunity rover gives us a panoramic view of what it’s like on Mars

Boxa, Andy (July 9, 2012). NASA’s Opportunity rover gives us a panoramic view of what it’s like on Mars.  Digital Trends. Retrived July 9, 2012.
From: http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/nasas-opportunity-rover-gives-us-a-panoramic-view-of-what-its-like-on-mars/

               As a celebration of the 3000th day of exploration in Mars, NASA has supplied a panoramic photo in it`s site. The photo is composed by 817 photos and were taken between December 2011 and May 2012.
               The object that took the photos was on Greeley Haven, where it spent it`s fifth winter. It is possible to see a place NASA called the North Pole on the top of the picture.
               Opportunity, how this rover was called, had other duties to do in Mars with another rover that is arriving in Mars in August, Curiosity.

Introduction

 Hey, my name is Marcelo and this is my blog for the Academic Writing class, but this blog is much more cooler than all the other ones. I am interested in learning new things and having excellent experiences, and this Study Vacation program is perfect for my interests. What makes me a good student is my interest in almost everything, and a very good humor everyday. I am looking forward to be an engineer, because I really like maths and physics.