Counterintuitive Fall 2024

RESEARCH CHALLENGE – There are more than two genders

A white paper is a preliminary paper, a repository for your sources and thinking, it’s a practice paper, a sample paper. A place to try out ideas. The collection of purposeful summaries. A place to make notes to yourself about what’s lacking.

Thesis changes -> some things are irrelevant and you can always get rid of them.

Goal to have 4-5,000 words. When it’s time to hand it in, squeeze it into 3,000 words.

A clear point of view, well written words in a paper is better than random ramblings

“We don’t have a thought in our head” We are reacting to our environment, not really thinking

• Write about sources as I read them

Writing first, examine what we’ve written for organization is the process. That is why we start so early

WRITING IS THINKING

Elect a source and write about that source, develop a hypothesis. Whittle down the nonessentials of your paper going into it deeper.

Try different introductions. Try to see which one feels most appropriate to you (at the moment)

OPENING

• Have a thesis
• Have numbers
• Note for further research

Incorporate someone else’s point of view into my problem

SAMPLE OPENING

Something in this world that needs to be done to save children is polio eradication. People say that the children are our future, but if all of the children eventually grow sick due to the disease, what future will this world have? Most United States cases were contracted outside of the US and imported into the states, thought there’s only 8 cases per year. What has to be concerned is the third world countries such as Iraq. Harry Hull, chief of the World Health Organization’s Polio Eradication Program says, “We have great vaccines against polio.” This, however, is not enough to destroy the disease because not every child is vaccinated. Polio paralyzes hundreds of children every year and is an epidemic that needs to be taken care of before it takes care of us. If every person in a room has the disease, the one person who is vaccinated will not contract the disease, therefore the vaccination would be useful if it were everywhere, but that’s a very difficult problem to solve. Polio will most likely never be eradicated from the world completely, and even if it does it won’t be for a long time, but for now all we can do is vaccinated children who are able to be vaccinated. Even though the last case in the US was documented in 1993, there are still cases outside of the US that need to be address and that need to be eradicated. This world needs to work together in eliminating the disease, because the countries suffering cannot do it alone.

The Polio virus will never be completely eradicated from this world as long as the world is still full of idiots. People who didn’t graduated from a college with a degree in medicine aren’t qualified to decide that vaccines aren’t good for a child. It is because of this stupidity and people thinking they know more than doctors polio is never going to be all the way gone. These poor children of parents who are scared of vaccinations will always be at risk for the disease. Then when they get it all the other children of idiot parents will get sick and another polio outbreak lies dormant until the idiot population grows large enough that their are more idiots in the world than people with common sense. If there is any hope to truly rid the world of polio and every other vaccinated disease for that matter people need to listen to the doctors who are educated on the matters of medicine and get themselves and their kids vaccinated. It’s one shot and it wont kill you, but the polio virus just might. It’s not too late for these idiots either all they have to do is take a trip down to their doctor and get the damned shot.

A white paper is a preliminary paper, a sample paper, and a place to tryout ideas. It’s the collection of purposeful summaries. My habit is being eradicated. Our work in progress is being graded which means I cannot sit down and have one 10 hour writing session. The white paper is a place that sources can be places as soon as their found. It gives us an opportunity to talk our way through the source and to discover how useful the source really is. It allows us to own our own language of the source.

A white paper is not intended to be polished. Thing will be erased, scratched, added, and replaced. Eliminating useless information would be helpful in showing the true size of the paper. The goal is truly focused 3000 word paper. With that goal, the white paper should be 4000 or 5000 words so the best information can be taken and trimmed down. When we have to explain our thoughts, it helps us understand them and understand the level that we know them.

While reading about sources, we should write about them. While we think about a source, all we do is argue with the text draining ourselves.  We learn nothing and only have a paper about why someone else is wrong. So writing about sources while reading is the alternative. Write before examining the order.  Following the 7 step process could prevent us from writing until the last week.  If writing about sources while they are read, the writing starts at step 2.

Cutting, not writing, is the final step!!! Try different introductions to further the paper. The most outrageous opening that can be proved is the best bet. Have someone read the opening and look for a thesis. Practice practice practice. Keep throwing out ideas and testing new openings. This will help lay out all of the options.

“Myself to myself as to what the article has provided me.” Can go back at anytime to reference material that will help with the paper. Nothing in particular to prove. A source is just explained/summarized and works as a good reference while writing a paper.

RESEARCH CHALLENGE: WHY DO ADULTS HAVE “BETTER LUCK,” SO TO SAY, WITH POLIO?

Purposeful summary after purposeful summary. Quote collection and summaries all together. 5 different attempts to launch a paper.

This generation has the strength and determination to eradicate polio. In 1977, the world came together to eliminate the threat of smallpox with great success. With the United States having a grim reminder of the dangers of declining vaccines as a result of the Disneyland epidemic in 2015, the eyes of the world have been opened. As a first world country with top of the line healthcare, the revival of the once presumed dead disease was just enough to show the world that no one is safe. Even the most sophisticated of countries must vaccinate against the wide array of diseases that threaten the world. With this mindset, those from around the world can see the benefit of vaccination and how dangerous it is to neglect from receiving them.

White paper-

• preliminary paper, repository for our sources and thinking, practice/sample paper, place to try out ideas, collection of purposeful summaries, make notes to ourselves of what is lacking
• add to the “messiness” of our thinking, can add or delete information
• by the end of this, should have to shrink it down to get to the straight point of view
• collect sources, read sources, write about sources as I read them, write new sources suggested by a developing hypothesis, write about those sources, incorporate someone else’s point of view of what you found important in that source.
• add quotes
• variety of purposeful summaries
• result in argument able to prove

RESEARCH CHALLENGE: Virus that causes polio thrives during mayhem and conflict, but why do are children mainly impacted, whereas adults can fight off the virus.

PRACTICE OPENING

When it comes to polio, younger children are more likely than not the group that contracts this disease. They are left in sickness and nothing to help them get out of this horrible state. Since children are more susceptible and surrounded by the harmful illness, it spreads easier to them. Rather than adults developing this disease, they are just left to take care of their children instead.

A white paper is a preliminary paper that is a repository for your sources and your thinking. It is a practice or sample paper. It is a place to try out ideas and the collection of purposeful summaries. It is also a place to make notes to yourself. It is supposed to reflect the messiness of your thinking. You can add and delete things at anytime. You should not think when you are reading the sources, only during the writing process. Instead write about the sources as you read them instead of reading the sources and thinking afterwards. The steps are to collect sources and then write about that source. Then collect new sources suggested by developing a hypothesis and then write about those sources again. Finally write a first draft that is way to long and then go back and analyze it and revise it constantly. You should organize your thoughts after you have written your first draft. Read your practice opening after writing and analyze it to see if you have a thesis and see if you need more detailed information such as statistics. RESEARCH PROPOSAL: How come children are more likely to get polio than adults are? What is it that allows adults to fight off this disease but not children? Write a lot of purposeful summaries along with quote collections that you think might be useful.

We will eradicate polio in my lifetime. We have been working to eradicate this deadly disease for decades and we are finally very close to ending it for good. There are people going to indigenous countries and giving immunizations  everyday in hopes to get every person vaccinated. There are only around twenty humans that still have this disease so why can’t we get the number down to zero? New vaccination strategies and research will allow us to get every person vaccinated and protected from these twenty people. Once these twenty people either die with the disease or are miraculously cured then polio will be gone forever. If no person has this disease and everyone is vaccinated it is impossible for it to ever come back to us.

What is a white paper:

-preliminary paper, repository for sources and thinking, practice paper, place to try out ideas, collection of purposeful summaries, notes about what’s lacking

Polio White Paper: work in progress

supposed to reflect the messiness of thinking

constant editing

Produces work product

Cutting, not writing, is the last step

write 1st draft that is way too long then edit and organize into a persuasive essay

write multiple openings

RESEARCH CHALLANGE: ARE THERE OTHER WARS/MAYHEM THAT COINCIDES WITH POLIO OUTBREAKS?

Practice opening:

The chance of eradicating polio in my lifetime is highly unlikely due to the combative nature of the anti-vaxxer community. These people are so against compulsory vaccines that they would never vaccinate their children. Thanks to a single falsified experiment by a disgraced doctor, Andrew Wakefield, thousands of children go without vaccines due to a lie about the link between vaccinations causing autism spectrum disorder. While these people may be the minority of the population, all it takes is one unvaccinated child to spread the disease to others. Since not everyone can get vaccinated, (the immunologically deficient, babies, religious observers) parents who don’t vaccinate their children because of fear put those who cannot receive vaccines for other reasons at serious risk for contracting polio.

Polio Notes- kingoflizards

Value of a White Paper

• A white paper is preliminary.
• It is a place to try out ideas.
• A white paper is a collection of purposeful summaries
•  a repository for other ideas
• a place to make notes to yourself about what is lacking.
• Perduue OWL: “Typically, the purpose of a white paper is to advocate that a certain position is the best way to go or that a certain solution is best for a particular problem.”
• This means that a white paper should have a purpose. To explain a position or an idea is the purpose of a white paper.

• From my understanding, a white paper is a collection of the sources as well as a glorified brainstorming sheet. A collection of thoughts on what has been researched, as well as what needs to be researched.
• Doing research is a key part of writing a paper. The work leading up to the paper should be more work than the actual writing of the paper.
• Laying out the research in a way that makes it clear is a great way to see what is missing.
• Finding out what is missing helps with the research process. The more research that is done, the better the paper should be.
• Thinking about a source does not help with the paper. Writing about a source will help with the paper. It is easier to pull out ideas, if you are looking for ideas to begin with.
•  Our white paper is 3000 words.
• Write first, then organize the ideas.
• Put words on paper. That is the best advice for writing a white paper.
• Colect a source, write about the source, collect new sources, write about those, repeat beyond what is needed, write a long first draft, lastly edit out the nonessentials and organize.

RESEARCH CHALLENGE:

• Polio Eradication and Endgame Strategic Plan. 2013-2018

Sample Opening

Polio has been reduced by 99% worldwide. The world is so close to having polio eradicated, but polio is still running rampant in the middle east. In India, polio has been completely eradicated. Oral vaccines were dispensed to the country, and the entire country was effectively immunized. The population of India is 1.21 billion, and the population of Pakistan and Afghanistan together is about 210 million. If it eradication is possible in India, then it is possible in these countries as well. Polio will not be eradicated unless the world makes a combined effort. By shining the spotlight of the world on the topic of polio eradication, the countries that are still impacted by polio will be forced to vaccinate. Certain issues are meant to be worldwide. Things like the Geneva Convention, and conservation are efforts that the world is concerned with, and global health should be on that list. It is expensive, but with a worldwide effort eradication is possible. The fact that families are still impacted by the effects of polio is unacceptable.

when you have a rough draft it’s almost good to have 4,000-5,000 words because you have to trim it down to 3000. A preliminary paper is meant to be an expression of a jumble of ideas,and then refined and polished so that the statement is clear and provides the appropriate evidence. Only after you write, and write, and write can you truly organize your paper. Having an outline is great and all but once you have everything on paper, only then can you figure out the puzzle.

A Practice Opening

The Example professor Hodges gave us gives us good insight to how a topic like polio should be opened. It begins by telling how polio spreads in the Middle East through war and poverty, and how it crosses the borders of countries thanks to war time travel. It discussed how it mainly affected kids but it also was compared to how smallpoxs is gone. The point of the paper is either can polio be eradicated or not.

Purposful Summaries

having clear sources and strong summaries helps you better structure and really write your paper. You’re allowed to have other opinions within your paper from other sources, this allows for more debate and a bigger view on the topic.

Polio

polio is literally spread from poop to mouth, it’s just the natural way polio is spread. RESEARCH CHALLENGE: Can adults really fight of polio naturally? Being in a refugee camp, which is almost makeshift, poor conditions easily spread polio.

Practice Opening

the optimistic thing to say is that this generation is more than capable of not only stopping polio,but eradicating it altogether. However, this isn’t the case, polio can easily spread in wartime situations, refugee camps, and poverty situations, all of which humans have yet to stop. Yes we have the minds and the technology to stop it, but it would be useful because of these situations, and not only that but other things like vaccine prejudice and distrust of “vaccination teams”, in regards to seal team six and Osama. We can stop dieses like polio, but only if we can stop our destructive tendencies.