4/24 Homework

1. What was your research question?

What are Free Trades effect on the U.S. economy?

2. What is your argument/position/thesis? (In other words, how did you answer your research question?)

I am opposed to Free Trade.

4/11 Homework

The pros for each of the digital presentations are that it is stylistically nice to look at.  It helps for the user to organize through material and put their information down.  One of the cons in using it is that it is a little hard to read off the presentation.  After doing all of the examples on the page, I am going to do the digital presentation platform since it is easier to organize your information.  I have already done my bibliography, outline, and digital presentation, so I like some of the presentation tips that they give out. I have already completed my presentation on a PowerPoint, because to me a PowerPoint has always been the easiest and most efficient way of doing things.  But I nevertheless liked seeing a different way of making a presentation, such as using a website or a graphical one.

http://prezi.com/w7humdihohq6/edit/

4/4 Homework

A lot of younger people, especially undergraduate students, do not think that getting information from the web is necessarily plagiarism since they cannot find an author to give credit to the source, such as Wikipedia.  Many young people are used to downloading music, often illegally, so they do not think that grabbing information from the internet should be any different.  A lot of critics believe that this is cutting individualism out and creating laziness.  A survey was done, and it was reported that 40% of 14,000 undergraduate students admitted to plagiarizing at some point before in their college career. 

If you go to a see a standup comedian perform, you might use one of his jokes that he said for presentation or for some other reason.  It’s hard to know whether or not to give credit to the joke because somebody else might of said the same one before 

4/2 Homework

Research Question: What is Free Trades effect on the U.S. economy?

Burfisher, Mary E., Sherman Robinson, and Karen Thierfelder. "The Impact of NAFTA on the United States". Journal of Economic Perspectives, 15(1): (2001) 125–144. 

            This journal gives a detailed analysis about the effects of NAFTA during the 1990s. It also gives a synopsis on whether the deal had any positive implications.  I could use this article to support my claim that NAFTA had a disastrous effect on the labor force.  I could also use some of their data to back up my claim.       

Hananel, Sam. “Membership in Unions continues to decline”. The Washington Times. January 23, 2011. 

            This website gives information based on the relative power of the unions in the U.S. and how they have declined.  I could use this source as evidence that unions have declined dramatically over past few decades as a result of Free Trade.  I could use this source as an argument that unions maintained middle class jobs.

 

3/14 Homework

I searched for new websites that use statistics, because I think that this topic deals with a lot of raw numbers and that is the easiest way to understand my argument against Free Trade.  I went to the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, by using the link on one of your blog posts in class.  I have found the website very helpful in terms of finding detailed economic statistics.  This could be a source I could use for my project.  Some of the new materials that I found that could help are the industry and commodity databases under the Producer databases.  There was also an import and export index on their front page that you can access to.  It also has statistics that are broken down by region, which will give researchers even more detailed information.  There is a tool bar that gives you the latest up to date information.     

3/4 Homework

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/spains-jobless-hits-record-million-february-18645416#.UTRqxhX2t2I.reddit

I went to the social network site Reddit and found an article about the unemployment rate of Spain.  It said that the rate increased to 26%.  About 59,444 people lost their jobs in January.  There are now over 5 million people in Spain that are out of work.    It could possibly be a useful search engine for me to use when it comes to Free Trade, even though it is not covered in the news very much anymore.  I could see myself using this website on a regular basis to find updated news and other global events.

I use social media to find out what other people, which I do not see very often, are doing.  I also go just to look up news and other events.  I do not use a wide variety of social networks simply because news usually gets filtered around the web.    

2/26 Homework

This article is about the recent elections in Italy and how there was no clear winner from the results.  About 57% of Italians voted for parties that were against austerity.  The biggest party that won was the five star party which won 25% of the vote.  The current party in power received just 10% of the vote.  This has sent shares world wide tumbling. 

The author I believe makes an argument since he gives three possible options for Italy's government: they can form a national government, Grillo can change his position and form an alliance with Bersani, or there could be a re-election in the next 3-4 months.  The author I believe emotionalize or at least sensationalizes the topic.  I will give a quote from the article, "Already the signs are that this political explosion will reignite the financial crisis".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/debt-crisis-live/9894176/Debt-crisis-Italian-election-impasse-reignites-euro-fears-live.html