Chapter 16 Summary

Chapter 16 discusses how you as a writer can write with style. This chapter has two major sections, the first section is how you can start writing with style and the second section discusses how you can polish your style. This is important to keep in mind while writing your paper because you want your voice to be heard and you want to express yourself in your paper. Writing with style will help make your paper stand out compared to someone else's paper. To start developing your style this chapter makes some suggestions on how you can go about that. You first as a writer need to understand your writing situation and that is your starting point. This will help you develop an appropriate style that relates to your audience. For example, if you were writing an essay for 5th graders your sentences would be far less complex then if you were writing to a group of 5th grade teachers. Another tip they suggest is that you should write concisely. This means removing unnecessary modifiers, take out unnecessary intro. phrases and eliminate stock phrases. Next they suggest that you use active and passive voice effectively and stick to the same point of view meaning either consistently writing in first, second, or third person. After that you will want to find words that will keep the audience engaged. This will also help frame your argument. When deciding on what type of vocabulary you should use you should keep in mind the formality, any specialized language and to use a variety of words. After you have developed your style your next step is to polish it. Polishing your style is important because it will make the quality of your paper. One of the tips that this chapter suggests is that you vary your sentence structure. They discuss the four basic structure and go into detail about each one. Next is to use effective transitions, these are essential to the paper because your readers need to be able to see things you are comparing, showing the differences of and when you are moving on to a whole different topic. Another key part of being able to polish your style is to be able to introduce other authors where you attained your information from. These all play into making your paper your own and helping you develop a style that you cam carry on to other papers.        

Research Proposal

Research Proposal: Public School Funding

Introduction: For my research project, I am looking into funding of our public school systems. This topic has been a very popular topic in the news with many initiatives trying to be passed to benefit our school systems. For example, in our state Initiative 1351 will help decrease class sizes in our state, which ranks 47^th for having large classes sizes among the other states. This project will help highlight the benefits of funding for our schools and what the outcome would be and also go over where funding should come from and ideas to better budget. Questions that will be kept throughout the paper are: What would the effects be if funding was increased/decreased? What affects the funding of schools? Do cuts benefit schools or do they harm them? How would funding to schools be managed? What models could we follow to improve our school funding? What can individuals do to help improve funding? Improving our funding to public schools will benefit not only our students but also our society. 

Review of Literature:  Sources reviewed so far include “The Recession and Education: Seize New Opportunities,” by Alan Haskvitz, from a 2011 edition of Education Digest. This describes the benefits the recession can have on education and how instead of being a downfall it could actually improve education. Another source is “No Time for Old Tactics,” by Eamonn O’Donovan, from a 2010 article in District Administration. This article describes budget problems and cooperation between school management and unions needs to occur. Also puts more responsibility on the schools for funding rather then the government. A similar article is “California Districts Used Funding Flexibility to Save Jobs,” by American School & University published in 2012 an article in American School & University. Uses California as an example that uses 4.5 million dollars to save teachers jobs and balance budgets. Another article is “Aid Offers Opportunity to Keep Programs Aloft,” by Michele McNeil, published in 2010 in Education Week. Takes a county from Nevada and how they used federal stimulus funds to improve achievement through tutoring, professional development and credit recovery programs, also shows what funding could provide our schools when it is done right. A similar article to that is “Governors Make Pitch to Obama for Stimulus Money,” by Michele McNeil, published in 2008 in Education Week. Discusses ways US governors were pleading to have Obama pass an economic stimulus package to improve education finance. Another article is “Achieving Public Schools,” by Kathleen Knight Abowitz, published in 2011 in Educational Theory. This article describes what the function of public schools hold and government funding plays into that. The next article is “Beyond Equality and Adequacy: Equal Protection, Tax Assessments, and the Missouri Public School Funding Dilemma,” by Ronald K. Rowe II, published in 2010 in the Missouri Law Review. The article discusses a guarantee under the Missouri Constitution to provide free education to school age children.  Another article is “SCHOOL FINANCINIG IN OHIO YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW: SEARCHING FOR A "THOROUGH AND EFFICIENT" SYSTEM OF PUBLIC SCHOOL,” by Unknown, published in 2007 in Case Western Reserve Law Review. Article describes how the financing systems for schools work and what changes have been proposed. Another article is “EDUCATION FUNDING AND THE ALABAMA EXAMPLE: ANOTHER PLAYER ON A CROWDED FIELD, by John Herbert Roth, published in 2003 by the Brigham Young University Education & Law Journal. This article describes how Alabama has proposed programs where students pay fees to participate in certain activities and the example they are leading. The last article is “School Reform: Linking Public School with Human Services,” by Cynthia Franklin and Calvin L. Streeter, published in 1995 in Social Work. This article discusses school reforms during the 90’s and the link between human services.

Plan to Collect Information: In addition to the sources collected so far, I will be looking for articles dealing with what is going on at state level to improve funding to our schools and what can be done. I will also be looking for more peer-reviewed articles like Education Week and Education Digest. Additionally to that, I will also be looking at scholars articles from JSTOR on the topic of funding of public education. I also am hoping to find some data about what the lack of funding does to our schools and show where the funding that is provided is used for. I would also like to find a table that shows class sizes and relate them to our state and other states surrounding us. I am hoping that I can find some of these visuals with more research done into Initiative 1351 and also find surrounding states that are taking similar action that our state is.

Project Timeline:  This coming week, I will spend a lot of time looking for additional sources that will help build my claim. I will also be working on my Annotated Bibliography that I will finish by November 4. For my Annotated Bibliography I will have to have at least 20 sources. I have most of those sources already, but doing some additional research will benefit me. After that, I will be working on my Lit Reviews, which I will have done by November 13 with at least 20 sources again. After finishing both of those I will begin to start my outline, rationale and abstract, which will be due on November 20. In-between working on these assignments it will help start to form my paper which I will need a Rough Draft of by November 25. Lastly, my final paper will be due on December 5 at midnight. 

Working Bibliography:

Abowitz, Kathleen Knight. "Achieving Public Schools." Educational Theory 61.4 (2011): 467-489. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.

Arocho, Joshua. "Inhibiting Intrastate Inequalities: A Congressional Approach To Ensuring Equal Opportunity To Finance Public Education." Michigan Law Review 112.8 (2014): 1479-1505. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.

"Budget Woes Could Mean School Cutbacks." Education Week 28.15 (2008): 14. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.

"California Districts Used Funding Flexibility To Save Jobs." American School & University 84.11 (2012): 50. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.

Chakrabarti, Rajashri, and Sarah Sutherland. "New Jersey's Abbott Districts: Education Finances During The Great Recession." Current Issues In Economics & Finance 19.4 (2013): 1-11. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.

Franklin, Cynthia, and Calvin L. Streeter. "School Reform: Linking Public School With Human Services." Social Work 40.6 (1995): 773-782. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.

Gibson, Mark T., and Tom Bisschoff. "'Successful' Schools As Agents Of Inner City School Transformation In England." International Studies In Educational Administration (Commonwealth Council For Educational Administration & Management (CCEAM)) 42.1 (2014): 3-16. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.

Green III, Preston C., Bruce D. Baker, and Joseph O. Oluwole. "Having It Both Ways: How Charter Schools Try To Obtain Funding Of Public Schools And The Autonomy Of Private Schools." Emory Law Journal 63.2 (2013): 303-337. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.

HASKVITZ, ALAN. "THE RECESSION AND EDUCATION: Seize New Opportunities!." Education Digest 76.5 (2011): 57-59. Academic Search Premier. Web. 14 Oct. 2014.

Jaekyung, Lee. "Dual Standards Of School Performance And Funding? Empirical Searches Of School Funding Adequacy In Kentucky And Maine." Education Economics 18.2 (2010): 207-228. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.

Lytton, Michael. "Have All The Costs Of Closing A School Been Considered?." CELE Exchange. Centre For Effective Learning Environments 2011.5-8 (2011): 1-4. Academic Search Premier. Web. 14 Oct. 2014.

Green III, Preston C., Bruce D. Baker, and Joseph O. Oluwole. "Having It Both Ways: How Charter Schools Try To Obtain Funding Of Public Schools And The Autonomy Of Private Schools." Emory Law Journal 63.2 (2013): 303-337. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.

McNeil, Michele. "Governors Make Pitch To Obama For Stimulus Money." Education Week 28.15 (2008): 14. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.

 O'Donovan, Eamonn. "No Time For Old Tactics." District Administration 46.5 (2010): 56-57. Academic Search Premier. Web. 14 Oct. 2014.

Roth, John Herbert. "Education Funding And The Alabama Example: Another Player On A Crowded Field." Brigham Young University Education & Law Journal 2 (2003): 739. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.

ROWE II, RONALD K. "Beyond Equality And Adequacy: Equal Protection, Tax Assessments, And The Missouri Public School Funding Dilemma." Missouri Law Review 75.3 (2010): 1037-1066. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.

"SCHOOL FINANCINIG IN OHIO YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW: SEARCHING FOR A "THOROUGH AND EFFICIENT" SYSTEM OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. (Cover Story)." Case Western Reserve Law Review 57.3 (2007): 671-716. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.

Works Cited:

Abowitz, Kathleen Knight. "Achieving Public Schools." Educational Theory 61.4 (2011): 467-489. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.

"California Districts Used Funding Flexibility To Save Jobs." American School & University 84.11 (2012): 50. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.

HASKVITZ, ALAN. "THE RECESSION AND EDUCATION: Seize New Opportunities!." Education Digest 76.5 (2011): 57-59. Academic Search Premier. Web. 14 Oct. 2014.

McNeil, Michele. "Governors Make Pitch To Obama For Stimulus Money." Education Week 28.15 (2008): 14. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.

O'Donovan, Eamonn. "No Time For Old Tactics." District Administration 46.5 (2010): 56-57. Academic Search Premier. Web. 14 Oct. 2014.

Roth, John Herbert. "Education Funding And The Alabama Example: Another Player On A Crowded Field." Brigham Young University Education & Law Journal 2 (2003): 739. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.

ROWE II, RONALD K. "Beyond Equality And Adequacy: Equal Protection, Tax Assessments, And The Missouri Public School Funding Dilemma." Missouri Law Review 75.3 (2010): 1037-1066. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.

"SCHOOL FINANCINIG IN OHIO YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW: SEARCHING FOR A "THOROUGH AND EFFICIENT" SYSTEM OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. (Cover Story)." Case Western Reserve Law Review 57.3 (2007): 671-716. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.

Chapter 15 Summary

Chapter 15 discusses how to use your sources effectively. This is very important because your sources provide your paper with knowledge that you may not have known otherwise and when you don't use them properly they aren't as effective anymore and bring your paper down. Being able to use your sources and use them in a effective way is key to show your audience you know what you are talking about and then back it up. This chapter has three major chapter which breakdown how you can use your sources to accomplish your purpose,  how to integrate sources into your draft and how to document your source. To begin with, your sources to help you as writer accomplish your purpose. You can use your sources to help you introduce ideas, contrast ideas, provide evidence, define specific evidence, clarify, set a mood you want your audience to feel and provide an example.  The next step with this is how you introduce it into your paper. The book suggests that you use a quotation, paraphrase, summary, illustrations such as images or videos. Using this will help you accomplish your purpose. Another problem very many people have is how you integrate your sources into your draft. This can be tricky because you don't want your paper to seem choppy and "cut and pasty." Some ideas to make it sound more fluent is you should first identify your source, by doing this you will be able to tell if this source will fit into this part of your paper. This also helps reduce your risk of plagiarism. Another key thing to keep in mind is that you want to quote strategically. This means you don't want over half of your paper being in quotes you want to place quotes in that will benefit your paper. Another way to incorporate your sources is you can paraphrase the information where you restate the information you discovered from your said source. Lastly, you will need to document your sources. By doing this you are giving credit to where credit is deserved and you are providing where your information came from and making yourself reliable. As you do this you want to keep in mind what type of documentation system you are using, for this paper we will be using MLA format. Make sure you clearly distinguish between your own ideas and ideas of your sources. All of these are to help you make sure your paper is providing credit where credit is deserved and that you are given credit for your own ideas.

Chapter 9 Summary

Chapter 9 discusses how to search for information using print resources. The chapter is broken down into three which are, how you can use library stacks to locate sources, how you can use a library periodicals room to find sources and lastly how you can use a library reference room to locate sources. These play a huge role in producing a paper because you need to find as many sources as possible, but you also want them to be credible and reliable. To start off, you need to first know where to locate sources using the library stacks. You want to start off with browsing the stacks, which you will look at how the sources are classified. Many sources are classified by subject which they may use the Dewey decimal system or the Library of Congress. Another great thing about finding a publication that may work is you can check their work sited page which can send you in the right direction of finding more related sources. One issue with using the library is an article that may have benefited your paper may not be available but there are ways you can get around that speed bump. You can also do an Interlibrary loan which means you borrow the book/periodical from another library that has it. Next this chapter discusses how you can use the library periodicals room to find sources. In this room you will find newspapers, magazines and scholarly/professional journals. Among these sources you will discover the work sited list which will help you find "key voices" that some of the sources share. This will help you because it will point you in another direction to find a source that seems to be reoccurring and may have beneficial information provided. Lastly, this chapter discusses how you can the library reference room to help locate sources also. These reference rooms contain a wide variety of topics. The one key thing about the reference room is you can get your hands on bibliographies, indexes, biographies, encyclopedias, handbooks, almanacs ands atlases. This sections goes into detail about where you can find the bibliographies in these sources and breaks down each field. This chapter is very beneficial because it discusses ideas for research that I hadn't though of before reading.

Chapter 3 Summary

Chapter 3 discusses how to develop your research question and your proposal. This is another vital part of this paper. Being able to distinguish what you are trying to convey to your audience is very important. This chapter breaks it down into two parts, the first is how you develop your research question and the second one is how to create your research proposal. To help develop your research question you should first start by reflecting on your writing situation. This is where you pick a side to take your topic. Your decision can be made from the research you have found and where you want your paper to go. Next, think of possible research questions that relate to your topic. You can come up with those from the information you know or don't know, history relating to your topic, assumptions people tend to make about your topic, goals that you as a writer have for your readers to understand, what outcome you want to gain and lastly, how is this going to be carried out. These are just the starting questions to ask yourself when you are trying to discover your research question. After running through of a list that could help generate questions start to think of questions that will reflect your writing situation. After going through that process you should go back and select a research question that best suits your topic and will reach you to your end goal. After finding a research question you must make a research proposal. A research proposal is a plan for your research writing assignment. This typically includes a title page, an intro that will identify your topic (issue) and the research question, a review of literature, how you collected your info, a timeline and a working bibliography. This will benefit you when it comes to writing your essay.

"Incorporting Sources Effectively"

1.       According to Alan Haskvitz, a teacher who is a member of the National Teachers Hall of Fame, “The recession presents a rich opportunity for teachers to work in the community and, most important, for the community to get to know the teachers. This builds stronger support for public schools.” (58)

In an article done by Education Digest,  Haskvitz writes, “In this bad economy that holds little       hope for obtaining a job—especially for those without a high school diploma—students may stay in school longer. As unemployment figures remain high, staying in school may look more attractive to potential dropouts.” (59)

2.       Eamonn O’Donovan is a superintendent of human resources in California.  In Eamonn O’Donovan’s article titled “No Time For Old Tactics,” which appeared in the District Administration in 2010, he states, “Districts have already cut down to the bone. They can reduce the number of employees who serve children—this means teachers mostly, thereby raising the number of students assigned to remaining teachers—or they can cut salaries and/or health and welfare benefits for all employees.” (56) Stating a solution for this problem O’Donovan proposes, “In these scenarios, management and

unions each identify common core interests and use them as a platform to develop solutions. Bargaining is seen as an ongoing process to create solutions that address the content of agreements, the process through which agreements are reached, and the relationships that need to be developed to implement successful agreements.” (57)

 

Michael Lytton is a consulting school facilities planner that was two decades of experience in public education. In Michael Lytton’s article titled, “Have all the costs of closing a school been considered?” which appeared in the CELE Exchange in 2011, he states, “The consequences impact on both schools and the community, and include: one-time expenditures to make an existing school ready to accommodate additional students; lost funding if students leave the public education system; diminished education outcomes; and multiple impacts levied on a community when a neighbourhood school is shuttered.” (3) With regards to the impact that school closures have on students and the community there could also be a bright side according to Alan Haskvitz, a teacher apart of the National Teachers Hall of Fame, he claims, “The recession presents a rich opportunity for teachers to work in the community and, most important, for the community to get to know the teachers. This builds stronger support for public schools.” (58)

 

3.       Work Cited

 

HASKVITZ, ALAN. "THE RECESSION AND EDUCATION: Seize New Opportunities!." Education Digest 76.5 (2011): 57-59. Academic Search Premier. Web. 14 Oct. 2014.

 

Lytton, Michael. "Have All The Costs Of Closing A School Been Considered?." CELE Exchange. Centre For Effective Learning Environments 2011.5-8 (2011): 1-4. Academic Search Premier. Web. 14 Oct. 2014.

 

O'Donovan, Eamonn. "No Time For Old Tactics." District Administration 46.5 (2010): 56-57. Academic Search Premier. Web. 14 Oct. 2014.

 

4.       http://ezproxy.olympic.edu:2257/ehost/detail/detail?vid=2&sid=0318a7d5-d358-4242-b868-21c3156e7206%40sessionmgr113&hid=125&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=94635635

 

http://ezproxy.olympic.edu:2257/ehost/detail/detail?vid=3&sid=0318a7d5-d358-4242-b868-21c3156e7206%40sessionmgr113&hid=125&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=51095478

 

http://ezproxy.olympic.edu:2257/ehost/detail/detail?vid=7&sid=0318a7d5-d358-4242-b868-21c3156e7206%40sessionmgr113&hid=125&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=96257444

 

http://ezproxy.olympic.edu:2257/ehost/detail/detail?vid=8&sid=0318a7d5-d358-4242-b868-21c3156e7206%40sessionmgr113&hid=125&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=96192409

 

http://ezproxy.olympic.edu:2257/ehost/detail/detail?vid=9&sid=0318a7d5-d358-4242-b868-21c3156e7206%40sessionmgr113&hid=125&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=88300343

 

 

5.        

 

"The Ins and Outs of School Finance." GreatSchools. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2014.

http://www.greatschools.org/improvement/volunteering/101-the-ins-and-outs-of-school-finance.gs

 

"How Should Schools Be Funded?" Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2014.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2012/11/02/how-should-schools-be-funded/

 

"Business-Managed Democracy." - School Choice. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2014.

 

http://www.herinst.org/BusinessManagedDemocracy/education/choice/private.html

 

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/public-schools-are-hurting-more-in-the-recovery-than-in-the-recession/

 

http://seattletimes.com/flatpages/local/balance-washington-state-budget-game.html

Chapter 7 Summary

Chapter 7 discusses how to avoid plagiarism. It starts off with discussing what plagiarism is, what research ethics are, common knowledge, what is fair use and what should you ask for permission to use, avoiding plagiarism and lastly what you should do if you are accused of plagiarism. It first start out we should define what plagiarism is, plagiarism is using work of someone else's and not giving them credit for doing that said work. It is easy to accidentally take someones else's idea and give them no credit for it actually being their own. I know a story of where two classmates of mine were working on a paper together, but with them working on it together both if their papers sounded very similar causing the teacher to believe they copied. It can be done with not even meaning to done. So for the cases of unintentional plagiarism it could include quoting a passage but neglecting to use proper punctuation, using a paraphrase that doesn't really differ from the original phrase, you don't clearly distinguish your ideas separate from your sources and you don't list where your sources come from in your works cited page. When doing research you should follow these ethics to stay away from plagiarism, acknowledge the sources, accurately represent information and provide citations for your sources. Another thing to remember is that not every little thing must be documented. Because that would take forever and we all have a handy dandy thing called common knowledge where we know it wasn't your idea or thought. Lastly, you can avoid plagiarism easily by making a list of what you already know, have carefully written notes, distinguish between your ideas and your sources, cite sources and realize misconceptions about intentional plagiarism and unintentional plagiarism.
Plagiarism is important to be aware of while writing, but you shouldn't fear it. Just remember to give your sources credit where they deserve but also give yourself credit where you deserve.