Revised Preliminary Plan – Josh

The paper will be in a sort of debate style layout. i will set up a strong introduction, followed by a breif summary of the video game industry. After all of that there will be three major sections in the paper before the conclusion; danger in video games, educational value, and regulation. Each section will be set up in an argument followed by a counterargument style. I do not plan to keep each section specifically rigid in its setup, meaning there will be times where an argument or position will be immediately countered.

For the upcoming research paper i plan to analyze the life and growth of the video game industry. I will argue that video games are not harmful because they do not teach people how to be violent, even if the game is violent in nature. to corroborate my point, a first person shooter game is violent in the sense that you go through the entire game shooting at things to achieve a goal, however. There is no part of the game that actually tells its user how to build a gun, maintain it, or fire it in real life. These games do not explicitly tell people that they have to go out into the world and shoot people to get the same thrill as the video game supplies. I do believe that parents, consumers in general, have the right to know what type of game they are buying to play. This is not the main point of the paper, but exploring it will help me support my earlier claim. I will analyze the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), which plays a major role in supplying knowledge and labeling all sorts of video games. This will help me show that the industry is taking steps to keep violent video games out of the hands of children.

There are many people who would say that video games rot the minds of our children. They say that the violence in the ghames makes children violent, and has nothing of value to offer to them. To counter that appeal I say that games teach children how to be good thinkers and problem solvers. I found an interview with a professor from stanford University, James Paul Gee, that will support my claim that video games are not harmful because they are teaching children how to be better thinkers not killers.

Lastly, I’ll look into regulation of the video game industry. Skeptics have always tried to get their local and/or higher government(s) to regulate video games. they have used above arguments to try and persuade legislators to ban games, but I think the fact that the industry is trying to self regulate should be satisfactory enough for people. I have an article by Hal Halpin about how the video game industry is utilizing the ESRB to keep violent games out of the hands of young Children.

Final Paper Diana T.

Thesis:  Even though Lily the main character from Baby Face and Tony from Scarface do immoral acts they are considered likable characters within the film.

Explain the history in the 1930s

Transition to Baby Face

o   Present the film

o   How Lily is likable

§  Mention she has an African American friend who she helps

§  Humor

§  Making it during the depression

§  Entertainment

o   Critics’ of the time opinion, if they missed or what they missed about the character.

o   Explain why this makes her likable

Transition to Scarface

o   Present the film

o   How Tony is likable

§  Mention love interest Poppy

§  Humor

§  Entertainment

§  Tony’s  secretary, who is an immigrant but adds humor

§  Howard Hawks is a screwball comedy director

o   Critics’ of the time opinion, if they missed or what hey missed about the character

o   Explain why this makes him likable

Conclusion

o   Tie in thesis statement

o   The resolution

o   Why are the character’s likable even though their acts are immoral

o   Are likable because they entertain us how they act is not always moral.

In Class Discussion with Tammy, Lynn G.

Tammy and I discussed the plan for my final research paper.   Tammy told me that she understands the way I am developing my thesis and that it makes sense to her.  She shared some of her insights regarding the value of Huckleberry Finn as a literary work, as well as a moral social commentary.   I appreciated talking with Tammy, hearing her opinions, and talking to her about her paper.  Thanks Tammy! 

Purposal (Final paper)-Sadaf W.

Violent movies cause more crime and make families realize simple yet dangerous things around them that occur on daily basis but they do not notice it. Parents can watch a violent movie with their children but the parent might simply watch the movie and forget about it, but that same violent movie might affect the child differently. The child could be brain washed by that violent movie and start behaving like a criminal. People watch all kinds of violent movies and get a wrong impression of the criminal or negative parts of the movie instead of positive parts of the movie. For parents, it is too late by the time they realize that there is something with a movie their child has seen, it might be too late for the parent to get back their child from the violent world that the child is lost into.  The article by New York Times reported that at the Englewood Club Scores Crime Films came to an urgent call that the children cannot attend a crime movie without the attendance of supervision or unaccompanied by elders…(source)…

After my classmate, Patricia read my paper, we discussed about it. She agrees to my thesis and taught is was pretty clear. Patricia also agreed that there should be censorship about movies, video games, etc.

Conversation About My Research Paper (Christopher Robinson, Jr.)

My conversation with Christine regarding my final research paper went really well.  I told her that I would be addressing the Hays Office and the Lord-Quigley Proposal in more detail in order to give the reader a background about the two enforcers that silenced the original concepts for Scarface.  Christine and I also talked about the section in my paper that deals with the incest plot between Tony and Cesca.  Christine thought that it was really good that I added a brief background about Al Capone and Lucretia Borgia; the two individuals that Hawks modled the incest plot after.  Overall, the conversation was productive, and I can’t wait to see what my final paper will look like.

Peer Review of Plan for Final Paper – Andrew Price

I discussed my paper with Yusif and it was helpful to hear verbally my own plan for the structure of the paper.  Speaking about this helped me realize that the evidence for my argument was not laid out in such a way that it was easy to follow.  I will rearrange and combine a few of my paragraphs in the body of my paper, so that I can bring clarity to my argument.  Also I realized that my conclusion needed some revision, it was not clear that I was wrapping up my paper and my thesis was lost. 

Final Paper-Yusef E.

     After discussing  my introduction and idea with my classmate, we both agreed that I lacked a strong thesis statement.  One idea that would fit my planned paper is that censorship inhibits art from depicting life as it really is. With Manet’s impressionistic depiction of Olympia and Warner Bros. film Babyface, the medium as well as the message were scrutinized and critisized. It was believed by the art and entertainment establishment of their respective times, that viewing either painting or movie was not beneficial to society.

Final paper – Patricia

The basic thesis to my final paper is that i agree that children’s entertainment, such as video games, internet, and Television has gotten increasingly worse over the years and i believe that there should definitely be some sort of censorship for these types of entertainment with children, but the ultimate responsibility lies on the parents. i think the government can do but so much to try and control what the children are seeing and what they are viewing but if the parents aren’t becoming actively involved in the children’s lives and monitoring what they are viewing, then we’re not going to get anywhere with solving this issue.

i know that a lot of the video games that are out today are or can be extremely disturbing to a viewer, and what makes it even more disturbing is that the controller is in the hands of an at times, younger child. The child is the one that is controlling these “hit man” or military men, or whatever kind of role the child is almost becoming while they are playing these games.

Another issue is Television programs that are readily available for children to watch are pushing the limits more and more. It’s said that a child will view roughly 200,000 murders on T.V. by the age of 18. It was also said that teens who viewed sexually explicit material on T.V. we much more likely to engage in risky or sexual intercourse before their fellow class mates who did not.

So basically for my final paper I’m just going to expand a lot more on the negative effects of entertainment on children, how it should be censored more, but that the ultimate breaker for fixing this issue lies within the home starting with the parents.

Proposal Convo – Christine S

My converstation with Chris was productive in the ways that he gave me some good advice on formulating a stronger thesis and tying my points together in a clear and consise manner. He suggested I use the concepts in my outline in my thesis. Also, he told me of a news story he heard discussing a website called XTube, think YouTube but explicit, and the discussion that is currently being held over the site and its easily dodged age restrictions. Something that could make for an interesting section in my paper. Dr. Thompson also gave me some excellent pointers and encouraged me to look at my thoughts in a different way in order to make more clear my feelings and better my thesis, including thinking about why I want to focus on filtering, rating, and parents, and whether or not explicit material should be on the Internet in the first place.  

Conversation recap Chris A

I talked with Josh Reed about our paper proposals.  We discussed my paper, and the fundamental difficulty I face with it, broadness.  It would be really easy for my paper to become broad and disjointed, so I have to work really hard to make sure that it stays narrow and focused.