Monday, October 31, 2011

Stealer!!!

"In 'Something Borrowed,' Gladwell asks where the line should be drawn when it comes to plagiarizing another person’s work. Gladwell tells us of Dorothy Lewis, she is psychiatrist who studies serial killers. Lewis discovered that her words have imitated in a play called “Frozen.” She filed a lawsuit against Bryony Lavery, the woman who wrote the play. Lavery then goes on to explain that she did not think that she was plagiarizing because she considered Lewis’s work as “news.” It is questionable whether she did steal Lewis’s work because she did not copy main thoughts and ideas, she copied quotes that Lewis used from another work and reproduced her work in a way that did not take the whole idea. Gladwell compares this to music, a piece can have the same sound, but it one note is changed then the music is technically not stolen. There are so many artist with so many ideas out there in the world so it is hard to prove original work because there is a possibility that someone else has thought of the same idea.
This article makes me question my work. I am sure, that there is another Linh Trinh out there in the world, which has written the same paper, with the same ideas. It makes me nervous to write this ten-page paper because it would be so simple write the same sentence that has been written by another person.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Chapter 6 and 7

This chapter is about a man name Al Dunlap. He is known for firing people and shutting down companies. There once was a company name Sunbeam, but when Al Dunlap became the CEO he shut it down. When Ronson discovered this guy, he went to investigate whether Al Dumlap is psychopathic or not. When he arrived at Al Dunlap’s mansion he sculptures of animal predators in his house. After talking with Al Dumlp, Ronson concluded that Al Dunlap is in fact a psychopath because he fit many of the trait on the psychopath test.  

Chapter 6 was really interesting. It makes me wonder if there really are people like Al Dunlap running huge corporations out there. I think that Al Dunlap is a psychopath. I was appalled by his answers to Ronson’s questions. Chapter 7 was fascinating! I felt really bad for the lady name Deleese! I cannot believe that they use people for entertainment like that!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

In What Ways Does the Media Influence Sex?

I think this will be an easy question to answer. I googled the topic and  quickly skimmed over the pages. There seems to be a lot of research already done on the topic, but the information was not from legitimate sources. Hopefully I will be able to find some primary sources for my paper. There are many different directions that I can go with on this topic, which is a good thing because I am going to have difficulty filling up TEN PAGES!!!! This makes me soo nervous just thinking about it! I can write about the different types of media, the ages it affects, and the types of behaviors it encourages. 

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Chapter 4

This chapter was about the psychopath test. It was created by a man name Bob Hare. Bob was doing research on psychopaths by using electric shock, but when it became illegal he had to find an alternative to identifying psychopaths. He came up with 20 questions called the psychopath test. Essentially if someone fails the test they are a psychopath. Jon Ronson tells us of Case Study H, someone who failed the test; he locked up his mother as a young child and enjoyed hearing her cry and takes pleasure in beating people up. Bob says that the reason these people are psychopaths is because there amygdale is not working like a normal persons brain does. At the end of the chapter, Jon Ronson is able to identify psychopaths much easier
This chapter was no fun compared to chapter three! It was interesting to learn about how the psychopath test was created.  But one has to wonder how Bob knows the way that a psychopath would respond, is he a psychopath to?  I think that Bob is not sane himself, he wants to use the electric shock, knowing that causes harm, but he does not care about the way his participants feel; that’s sign of a psychopath.