Visual Analysis of a Photo

Recently, there was a photo essay competition known as Girl Culture. One photographer took multiple pictures, which they believed to represent “girl culture.” As I was scrolling through all of these pictures, there was one specific picture that caught my eye. In the picture, the focus is directed to two young girls who appear to be about twelve or thirteen years old. The first girl is wearing a leotard and has her hair tied back. There are two arms that hold a measuring tape around her breasts and she is looking down observing the herself being measured. Her face shows distress and a little bit of worry. The other girl standing next to her is wearing a bra and underwear with her hair tied back as well. She has a hand placed on her hip and the other is holding a sheet of paper that has numbers scribbled all over it. Her focus is on the other girl being measured, her expression is very observant and it is clear that she is used to this process.

            My first observation was that the girls were being measured which then directed me to notice that they weren’t stick straight or very skinny. After I noticed all of these things, I read the caption, which states, “Danielle gets measured as Michelle waits for the final weigh-in on their last day of weight-loss camp, Catskills, New York.” This caption allowed all of the pieces of information about the picture floating around my head fit together like a puzzle piece.

This picture is showing the struggles young girls have with weight and body image in the U.S. In society today, the general “desired” look in a female is one who has a stick straight body while also having faultless curves, being large breasts and a large butt. These expectations are very unrealistic and almost impossible to achieve. Yet, this idea of the “perfect woman” still occupies almost every girls mind can in turn control the way they act. This has become a large issue due to many girls having issues with obesity, eating disorders, and body image due to these expectations. In the photo, the photographer is showing a specific example of how this desire to be “beautiful” can be taken to an extreme. Because the expectations are so high for the physical aspects of a woman’s body, young girls are attending “weight loss camps” to try and achieve these goals.

It is very sad to see young girls unhappy with their bodies because of the way society depicts the perfect woman. It is easy to compare yourself to others today because we have magazines where photo shoots are edited to an extreme amount. Most movie stars or singers have great bodies, which portray a flawless hourglass shape. There are even Carl’s Jr. commercials, which show the idea of an unrealistic woman’s body figure. Not everyone can have those types of figures but almost every woman wants to look like this. This ambition is due to the fact that people in society truly believe that specific body type is what is appealing and pleasing to others and people of the opposite sex. This photograph’s purpose was to show that everyone has a different body type and that the idea of the perfect woman today is very unrealistic which in turn is negatively affecting young women today.

Picture Linked

A Reflection on Unit One

Now that I have finished my QRG, I am going to reflect on my work and experience throughout the entire process. Over the past few weeks, I have learned so much about my field of study, new tools

and writing strategies, how to write a QRG, and how to go dive deeper into my subject rather than just gliding across the surface. Every week, we had to post four to five blog posts, but little did I realize, all of this information and short clips of researching I was doing was leading up to my overall paper. Through this process of blogging, I learned about many new tools that will help me with my future writing.
First, I learned how to correctly use a picture on google images, rather than just copying and pasting any random picture. There are certain pictures that you can and cannot lose. Second, I learned about Google Scholar. Google Scholar allowed me to find strong, credible articles and journals about my subject. Every source was filled was great information and had links to other very useful sources as well. Third, I learned how to make a cluster diagram, which allowed me to put all of my thoughts on paper. By creating a cluster diagram, I was able to organize all of my information easily, which helped me to begin writing my rough draft. Fourth, I learned how to use the PIE format in my writing effectively which showed me what needed to be added or deleted from every paragraph in my overall paper. Last, I simply learned how to write a QRG!
There were many skills I improved on during this entire process. In high school, we were required to have a blog post as well, however, we were only posting about one or two times a week. This project has improved my writing as a blogger and I now know what to write in my posts, how much I should write, and effect ways to get my point across. I also learned how to cite in MLA format correctly, I had been citing incorrectly for a while but one of our assignments was to look at our peer’s blogs and compare our citations to theirs, then leave a post with suggestions of how to correct them. This helped me see what I was doing wrong in my citations.
 Although I am undeclared major, researching information about psychology gave me a better idea about the major and what goes along with it. I learned that a large majority of psychology is based on other people’s research and various experiments. Therefore, communication is usually between professors or those conducting experiments. There are thousands of experiments that have been published in order for others to observe and build upon. All of this research can be found on websites, in scholarly journals, and in many books.

I learned a lot about my own writing process as well. First, I learned that I am a very organized writer and that using a cluster diagram helps me significantly. It allows me to put all of my ideas and information I wish to include on one piece of paper. I also learned that I have a tendency to just summarize information rather than actually analyzing it and taking it a step further. For this specific assignment, I found a lot of very strong and resourceful information. This is because I spent hours researching my topic on the computer and finding the most valuable, important, and relevant information. To further improve my writing process for the next time, I can work on analyzing the rhetorical situation more. I need to do this because otherwise I’m just telling the readers information and skimming the surface. Last, if I could summarize the most important thing I learned it would be: writing is a process; it is not something you are just going to whip out in one night. It takes time, patience, and work. 

Picture Link

Revised Paragraph

Original:

One of the main reasons why this topic is such a large controversy is because parents are worried about the effects violent video games has on their own children or their children’s friends. Gamers, usually preteens and teens, are directly affected after playing a violent video game. Although the behavior change is small, it is still prevalent. Furthermore, psychologists are researching and performing many experiments to see if there is any correlation between aggressive behavior and video games.

On another note, President Obama recently began funding research to learn more about the impact of violent video games. This also includes executive orders to focus the research on gun violence. The debate about violent video games resurfaced after the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. In his speech President Obama stated, “I will direct the Centers of Disease Control to go ahead and study the best ways to reduce it- and Congress should fund research into the effects that violent video games have on young minds. We don’t benefit from ignorance. We don’t benefit from not knowing the science of this epidemic of violence.” There are many people involved in this topic while a large majority is being directly affected.

Revised: 

This topic is a huge controversy for many reasons, however, one of the largest concerns comes from parents worrying about how violent video games are effecting their children and their children’s’ peers. Those who engage in these games, usually preteens and teens are directly affected after playing a violent game. Although research shows the behavior change is small, it is still prevalent. Furthermore, psychologists are researching and conducting many experiments to observe if there is any correlation between aggressive behavior and video games.

            Recently, President Obama began funding research in order to learn more about the impact of violent video games on users. In addition, this research follows executive orders to investigate gun violence. The debate concerning violent video games resurfaced after the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14^th, 2012 where twenty children and six adults were shot. In his speech discussing his decision to fund this research, President Obama stated, “I will direct the Centers of Disease Control to go ahead and study the best ways to reduce it-and Congress should fun research into the effects that violent video games have on young minds. We don’t benefit from ignorance. We don’t benefit from not knowing the science of this epidemic of violence.” Large majorities of the people in the United States are being directly affected by this topic.

What I Changed and Why:

-First I changed the opening sentence because it was very confusing, it was too wordy, it was passive, and it didn't clearly explain what I was going to discuss

-I reworded the second sentence to make it flow better 

-I added a few more words to the third sentence in order to make sure the reader knew what I was exactly explaining 

-The only thing I changed in the last sentence of the first paragraph was the word "performing" to "conducting" because when one does not "perform" an experiment.

-I reorganized the first sentence in order to make it active. This also helped the flow of the sentence

-I shortened the second sentence to make it easier to understand rather than having a long, run on sentence.

-In the third sentence, I added more information about the Connecticut shooting rather than just assuming the reader knew everything about it.

-Last, I changed the last sentence because the original sentence sounded elementary

Link

This is the link to my revised QRG:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E6aI3Mldc-lZ46NHIUXeueU85QmrUjSlOhMhPRUt4h4/edit

Peer Review and Revised Thesis

Friday in class, we printed out our rough draft of our QRG. Then, we exchanged papers and read each others and peer reviewed them. We focused on sentence structure, the thesis of the paper, and if the writer provided strong examples to back up their argument. This exorcise was extremely helpful and showed me things I needed to fix in my paper and new ideas to try. 

First, I recognized that I needed to change my thesis statement. Although the original statement held the ideas I was trying to prove, it was extremely confusing and didn't make much sense. In order to revise it, I shortened it while rewriting it completely. This allowed me to have a fresh start and different ideas. I also tried to keep it somewhat broad rather than extremely in depth. My new thesis statement is much stronger and it gets straight to the point, explaining exactly what I am arguing. 

Second, those who revised my essay helped point out that I needed more subheadings. I only had two originally in my first draft. I wrote my QRG as if it was a long essay rather than splitting it up into subheadings. It is important that I made this correction because if people want to find information fast about my topic, it would be rather difficult to do with a large essay. Therefore, I split my paragraphs up and added more subheadings. 

Third, when my peers were done correcting my paper, I noticed many "E's" written on the sides and under quotes. This is because of the PIEIE process. By writing an "E", my peers were telling me that I was using strong evidence to support my argument. These markings also allowed me to breath and showed me that I was actually doing something correctly. Furthermore, we will begin to make much more drastic changes in class which will overall help my paper abundantly.

New Thesis: Violent video games can have a negative effect on gamers however research shows that they can have a positive effect as well.

 I commented on Katie Lista's and Michael Gee's blog explaining what I thought their thesis' would be. 

Thoughts on Drafting

This week, I wrote my first QRG draft! Yes, this was a very exciting and intense process but I think I was successful in my first draft for the most part! In writing our draft we were asked to do many things such as write a thesis statement, write in PIE form, write introductions, organize information, and write conclusions. Every single one of these topics in the book was extremely helpful.

In the book, the authors provided many examples of strong thesis's and examples of good thesis's versus poor ones. This helped me get a better idea how to construct my thesis. Not only this but the book explained what I thesis is very well; I now like to think of a thesis as the broad argument one is trying to prove with evidence and examples. Furthermore, I learned about the PIE form which is something I have never used before. PIE form is simply a way of paragraph structure. The P stands for point, the I stands for information, and the E stands for explanation. This helped me organize my paragraphs and make sure I was getting my points across in a clear and productive way. 

I also learned how to write introductions, which is basically the P of the PIE form. In order to write an strong introduction, one has to pick the points to discuss that are most relevant to the topic. The introduction shouldn't be too long however it should provide enough information so that the reader knows what the writer is discussing. Last, in writing conclusions, its simply a wrap up of your entire paper and it should reiterate why you're argument is right. Considering writing a QRG however, it may be difficult to follow the organization of an essay because a QRG's format is rather different. Other than this, the book extremely helped in writing the first draft and was a great resource.