Motivating Your Research

I am trying to learn about the owner's involvement and role in the current NBA lockout.
I am trying to learn about the owner's involvement and role in the current NBA lockout because I want to know why it is still an ongoing issue and why it has yet to be resolved.
I am trying to learn about the owner's involvement and role in the current NBA lockout because I want to know why it is still an ongoing issue and why it has yet to be resolved because I want my reader to better understand this confusing situation. I want my reader to know the truth and what is really happening. Why a huge business/franchise can shut down over small percentage points.

Argument Venue

The venue for an argument about the NBA lockout would be a sports website,magazine,or sports section in a newspaper. The article I chose is from the sports section of the Los Angeles Times, which usually writes about the Lakers.

1. It is about the NBA lockout, and talks about how the owners are more at fault for the work stoppage than the players.

2. The author's stance is the same as mine. He says the owners are being unfair to the players. He explains how they have ridiculous and unfair proposals and expectations. They aren't willing to comprimise in any way and continue to prolong the work stoppage.

3. They use good stats and evidence to back up their point. His knowledge of previous proposals by both the players and owners enables him to back up his statement that the owners are being unfair. He also gives good background on the situation so the reader knows why their is a lockout and what the issues are. Without that, the reader could get lost and not understand the evidence that the writer uses to back up his argument.

4. Yes. It is the exact point that my article is about. The owners have ridiculous and unfair expectations and seem to have no urgency to complete a deal. The players have compromised greatly, yet the owners still won't agree. They are greedy and unfair and are treating the players and fans like garbage. They seem to only care about themselves and their bank accounts, not about the sport of basketball.

5. I like that his point gets backed up. He doesn't just say the owners are at fault, he shows you why. That is important because without evidence, then the argument is just an opinion piece and there is not really any merit to it. It isn't believable. I would have talked a little more about the past and why there is a lockout, but overall he does a nice job.

6. I will definitely use the same stats about the Basketball Related Income and how there has been no compromise on who gets what. Also the past proposals made by both sides show how far apart they are, and how the players have been very flexible, while the owners have been stubborn, greedy, and unfair.

Entry 8: Merit and Criteria

I will evaluate the television show Breaking Bad. It was recently recommended to me and has won numerous awards, so I decided to start watching it.

1. Breaking Bad is a tremendously popular TV show on AMC and it was won tons of awards including numerous Emmy's. The fourth season just had its season finale so a lot of people were talking about it. It is also a controversial show because it is about a high school chemistry teacher who decides to make and sell crystal meth to pay for his cancer treatment. I wanted to see how they could pull off this topic and make you root for the "bad guy".

2. It is in the category of a television drama. It is for entertainment and it is valuable in that it entertains people and makes tons of money. It could be compared to other tv drama's like Lost, Walking Dead, Mad Men, Dexter, etc. Especially Dexter because that is also a show that focuses on someone that commits crime, yet you still root for them and see them as the good guy.

3. Criteria could be, does it have a good story line, is it interesting or unique, does it set itself apart from other shows. Does it have a real topic, or a current issue that will keep us interested. Does it have good acting, is it believable. Is their good writing? Are the episodes changing and exciting or just the same story over and over again?

Entry 6: Research

It is Big Ten Season. Penn State is playing an average squad from Chicago, Northwestern University. NU is not that great of a team, but they are good enough to keep the game close and make it exciting. Penn State is a good team this year, closing in on their first NCAA tournament appearance in 10 years. So, the crowd was filling the stands in support of their finally good basketball team. Well, not really. I walk in 20 minutes before tip, and I can pick practically any seat I want. The older season ticket holders have found their seats, but there isn't much more than that. The Bryce Jordan Center feels cold and empty. A sea of blue can be seen, but not from fans shirts, but from the color of the fan-less seats. A black curtain is covering half of the upper deck, as those tickets will not be sold due to no interest. Closer to the game, the walk up ticket buyers start to fill in the stands and it starts to look a little but better. But, the student section is the main concern. The student section is split into two sections. One section that is parallel to the teams benches, and it goes back about 15 rows with standing room in the front as well. The other section is behind the hoop, and it covers all rows in that section except for the upper deck. This section never fills, and on this day it is filled about five rows out of 40 or 50. The other section has the standing room filled and then some students in the seats. A poor showing again. But why is this? Penn State has a huge student body, yet basketball games can barely attract any. Why?

The first quote I got is from someone like me who went to every game last year and is a Freshman at Penn State this year. "It gets frustrating to go to every game and to keep seeing this empty student section. When you look at other schools, some get huge student crowds, and the atmosphere in those arenas is so good. I just wish we could have that, instead of only filling up for 1 or 2 games a year when people decide to jump on the bandwagon, then PSU loses and they never come back. It sucks"

The next quote is from a member of the student section, Ben. He is part of their committee that makes decisions. " We keep trying to spread out interest to others in different ways. Free food and shirts and videos but it still hasn't really caught on. (New head coach) Pat Chambers has done a great job thus far in spreading the news and getting kids interested so we are optimistic that things are getting better."

The last quote is from someone that hasn't been to a game and is a Freshman at PSU. "I haven't heard great things about the team but I know they did pretty good last year so I will probably go to a few games to see what's up. I just don't see myself going to a lot of games because they are during the week and I have lots of things to do on weeknights."

I have do dig up some of the facts as one of the main ones i wanted to use looks to have been taken down from th epenn state website. It said that this year a record number of student tickets have been sold to freshman. So the incoming freshman are excited about the team. It also said that they had sold them with football tickets for the first time, so maybe that is why the sales increased. So those two facts need to be dug up.

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/23576/some-things-never-change-at-penn-state

This article on ESPN about Penn State talks about the university and how they treat the team poorly. So if they are treated poorly by the higher ups, why should students care.

http://www.gopsusports.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/040209aaa.html

THis article talks about the year the team won the NIT tournament. 36! buses full of students traveled to new york city to support the team. SO the support is there, maybe success is all the students want?

Entry 5: Party School

The issue that This American Life is discussing is the naming of Penn State as the number one party school in America. They talk about how the drinking at Penn State is hurting students, and the community. First, the students grades and health are being worsened by the amount of drinking they do. Some students can't keep up with their school work after long nights. It is also hurting the community because drunken students can damage property and other people's belongings. And drunken students just create havoc in the surrounding communities.

The audience is people that listen to this program regularly. Their usual audience is middle aged adults, so they try to gear their discussions towards that group. This is why they bring up the topic of students also hurting the communities. Since their listeners aren't students, This American Life had to get their listeners connected. By saying that drunk students were damaging communities, the program was getting their older audience more connected.

The facts they present are mostly from interviews with various members of the community. Residents, policemen, and even pizza delivery guys. They all give insight to what the drunk students actually do, and the damage they cause. The resident said that people pee on their property and pull out road signs. The cop talked about continually getting calls about drunk kids walking into other people's homes and falling asleep in them. The delivery guy also had many stories about hungry drunks.

The conclusion they seem to draw is that from the outside, it looks like the drinking is causing harm, but from the inside people don't seem to mind it. The students love Penn State the way it is and they keep coming back and they keep giving back. So, if everyone loves Penn State the way it is, should they try to change?

They used a lot of dialogue in this piece. I will try to use dialogue in mine, so listening to this did give me some insight into how I could do that. But, I probably will not use as much as this piece did.

I did like listening to it. The amount of interviews they did enabled them to have many interesting and entertaining stories so those were fun to listen to.

Entry 4:Bird by Bird

Reading Bird by Bird was a good experience for me because it was different than anything else I had tried before. People always give you advice on how to be a better writer, but its always boring and hard to put into action. Lamont uses stories and actual life experiences to get her points across. That helped me connect a lot more and I found it easier to use some of her techniques because of the way she presented them. The main one is her advice on the writers block. I have always struggled with getting started and I was excited when I saw she dedicated a whole entire chapter to this very problem. I read her advice on starting from the beginning and I didn't think that writing about something off topic would help me that much. The piece of advice that got me thinking was her letter idea. To write a "letter" to someone describing what you want to write about and how. I like this because if I can get all my ideas on paper and see everything I want to write, it will make a much clearer picture. Seeing everything in front of me will help me piece everything together. Instead of being a jumbled mess in my head. I can see all my ideas together and just start writing about them. When I see all my ideas together, it will be easier to decide their order and meaningfulness. I realized that not knowing how to begin was never my problem, it was not knowing what to begin with.

Entry 3: Bad Teacher

This story is about a writer who wants to make a difference. The writer decides to become a teacher. Not just any teacher, a teacher in the Bronx. The Bronx is known for having bad schools that don't care and students that don't want to learn. The writer tries to turn things around but is told he is wrong and a bad teacher for trying to fix things. IN the end, he can't deal with the idiocy anymore, and leaves the job. The main conflict is between the principal of the school and the narrator. The principal won't let the teacher do anything he wants to do. She shuts down all of his ideas and basically pushes him out the door. That is the resolution. The narrator leaves the school for good.

The point of the story is to educate the reader about the injustices and stupidity that rule this school. But not only this school, schools like it all across the country. The writer wants a change to occur. It is almost a calling for someone out there to try to do something. The writer tried and failed, and now they are asking if anyone out there thinks they can do better.

There are some writing techniques used that I found interesting and helpful. One that this writer uses really well is dialogue. There is tons of dialogue in this piece and it really keeps it entertaining and interesting. The writer uses it very well in that they are short but informative conversations. There is always a point to the dialogue, it is never unnecessary. Another thing I like is that he got the reader on his side. It may sound dumb, but I think it is really important to this story to have the reader on your side. If the readers liked what the principal did or didn't think anything was wrong, then the whole point to the story is lost. He did a good job of painting the picture and showing us just how terrible the educational system was. I also liked the chapter breaks that were used. To introduce you to a new scene, the writer made "chapters". Just small titles at the beginning of the scene to show that you were starting on something new and important. I don't know if I can use these for my memoir because the style conflicts with it, but I will remember it for the future.

School Lunch

My school was very territorial. I don't know if it is like this in every high school, but in mine it was very clear at lunchtime. Everyone sat at the same table, in the same seat every day. First thing you see walking into the white, boring cafeteria is that the Juniors all sat on one side, while the Seniors all sat on the other side. The cafeteria is divided into many different cliques, all staying exactly where they were since the first day. The first group is the the the "popular" Junior girls. Wearing their skimpy clothes, they all have tiny, green salads sitting in front of them, never finished. Next is the kids in the band. A mix of Juniors and Seniors, these kids are very quiet and keep to themselves. They sit in their own corner and never bother anyone, so I don't mind them at all. That brings us to the big Junior boys table. All the "cool" Juniors were there. Always loud and obnoxious, this table always seemed to get on my nerves. It went so far that I started a fight with them in a basketball game later in the year. They are annoying, preppy, and just think they are all that. You know the type. Can't stand them. There are other quiet tables mixed in there but nothing that stands out until you get to the Cross Country table. Juniors and Seniors. Boys and Girls. They are the loudest, most idiotic table in the cafeteria. Louder than the Junior boys. They think they are the funniest table and love to have,"hilarious" outbursts at the TV. Not funny. They love to pull lame pranks on everyone like turning a backpack inside out. Not funny. No one likes them outside of their group, yet they still love their antics. They were the subjects of many verbal disputes in the cafeteria. So the walk through my cafeteria would seem boring looking at the bland, pasty walls. But once inside, the loudness of the people inside hits you like a wall. You can barely hear yourself over some of the idiotic kids. But, if you get past the verbal disputes and the food that could be described as hot garbage, then you could have a nice time with your friends. But it could be better.

Entry One

I find it hard to start my writing, and I find it hard to stop my writing. That about sums up my experiences as a writer.

As a writer, I have weaknesses that I have never been able to shake off. Every year an English teachers asks this same kind of question and I always have the same answer.

My main weakness is starting. I never know how to start a paper or piece of writing. I end up staring at the paper for dozens of minutes not knowing what to say. Even though I answer this same question on a yearly basis, I still can't start the paper. I know exactly what my answer is but I don't know how to express it. This problem has always followed me. No matter what I am writing about or how long it is supposed to be, I just can't start. I don't think it really alters the final product, but it has always bothered me.

The other weakness I have always had is imagery. I am not too good at painting a picture for someone through words. I just never know exactly what to say. I feel like if I get too complex, I am just going to lose the person reading instead of helping them.

Moving on from the negative stuff, I think I also have some good writing qualities. One would be that if I know what I am talking about, I can write very well. This may sound kind of obvious but for me it has to be the most important thing. I hate leaving my comfort zone. I like writing about subjects that I find interesting and I have knowledge in. Writing about sports comes easily to me and my best work comes out of it. But if I am forced to write a fairy tale or Sci-Fi, I will really struggle. This could be described as a strength or weakness. In my opinion though, it is a strength because in the real world I will hopefully only be writing about things that I know and enjoy.

Another strength is that for some reason I am never bothered by length. Although I find it hard to start, once I begin I find it hard to stop. I can keep writing and writing for pages. And its not that I necessarily enjoy writing. I just have a big opinion and personality that I can't contain. So I find it hard to start my writing, and I find it hard to stop my writing.

There are many inspirations that I have come across that have made me feel like I can easily be better. Things that make me feel like, "I could do that too." To me that is part of being an inspiration. Someone that makes what they do look easy, even if it is in fact extremely hard.

My first inspiration is a writer by the name of Keith Mano. He wrote in the 60's and 70's, primarily as a book writer. But Sports Illustrated wanted him to cover our very own Joe Paterno. So, Mano followed Joe around for a couple of days and wrote a beautiful piece about him. It is unlike anything I have ever read about Paterno and truly paints the portrait of who he is. Mano's imagery is tremendous and his strength is my big weakness. I can learn a lot from this one fantastic article.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1090853/5/index.htm

My other inspiration is a scene from Seinfeld. It is one of the funniest shows of all-time and the scene that inspires me is arguably the best scene ever in the show. One of the characters, George, is telling a story about his encounter with a whale earlier in the day. While that premise is very funny, his monologue isn't really that funny, if you read the words. There aren't really any jokes, yet it is one of the funniest moments the show ever had. So, the writers at Seinfeld knew they had to be funny. They decided that it would be funny if they broke away from their normal style. A long monologue like this almost never happened on this show. They were also rarely ever this serious. And yes, I know he is talking about running up to a whale but the words describe the encounter in a very serious manner, at least in terms of how the characters normally speak. So, breaking away from yourself is sometimes a good thing, and I need to be able to learn that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u8KUgUqprw&feature=player_detailpage#t=51s