Research paper: Example

Students were asked to do a research paper on the Black Lives Matter movement. The paper is shorter than yours (half the size), but the research is solid, and the citations are well-done. You'll be writing a longer paper on a different topic, but other than that, the assignment is the same. In particular, notice how the student uses in-text citation and how she constructs her citation page.

ENG100

Tom Amano-Tompkins

11/27/16

Because Black Lives Didn’t Matter

            Social media connects the world. It has been used for years to stay connected with family and friends, but those days are now evolving. Nowadays, people are using the power of social media to get their voices heard. One of the most powerful modern day movement that started from social media is Black Lives Matter. BLM is for the injustice black lives face from the laws that were meant to protect them. The overwhelming amount of violence and underwhelming amount of attention for the black community created a modern-day movement for black people, but misinformation of the true meaning is leaving a bitter taste for others.

            “No justice! No peace!” (Boedecker) chanted the protesters who had been waiting outside the Sanford Courthouse after finding out the verdict of the Trayvon Martin murder case. Seventeen-year-old unarmed black male, Trayvon Martin, was shot on the night of February 26, 2012. The person who fired and killed Martin was neighborhood watch coordinator, George Zimmerman. Zimmerman was put on trial and claimed that he acted out of self-defense because Martin was beating him up. Since Florida has the stand-your-ground law, which states that one can threaten and use deadly force if in presumption of fear of death or great bodily harm (Florida Statues), Zimmerman was found not guilty of second degree murder and was acquitted from manslaughter on July 13, 2013.

            On the night of July 13, 2013, Alicia Garza posted, “Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter.” (Day) on her Facebook page following the verdict of the Zimmerman trial case. Her friend, Patrisse Cullors, reposted her post with the hashtag, #blacklivesmatter. Garza and Cullors decided to create a campaign on the sentiments on the verdict and how black people in America are dehumanized. The two then teamed with Opal Tometi, an activist of immigration rights. Garza’s reason for creating a campaign was, “To make sure we are creating a world where black lives actually do matter” (Day). The three women created Black Lives Matter.

            The roots of Black Lives Matter started as a hashtag on social media, mainly Twitter. With the hashtag, people, predominantly black people, voiced their opinion. Many were dumbfounded and enraged over the ruling and demanded justice. According to Pew Research Center, the Black Lives Matter hashtag was only used 5,016 times on Twitter in the second half of 2013 (Anderson). The hashtag didn’t become fully charged until the shooting of Michael Brown. After that, it became a movement for the voice of the unheard blacks in America.

            On August 9, 2014, an eighteen-year-old unarmed black male, Michael Brown, was shot and killed by an officer named Darren Wilson. Wilson is a white police officer from Ferguson, Missouri. After the shooting, protests and riots raided the streets. Stores were broken into and looted. Following the shooting, the hashtag was used 58,747 times per day in three weeks after Brown’s death (Anderson) and Black Lives Matter members organized their first in-person protest. On November 24, 2014, Wilson was not indicted for the shooting of Michael Brown. The next day, the Black Lives Matter hashtag was used 172,772 times and 1.7 million times the following 3 weeks (Anderson).

            As Black Lives Matter grew, so did many misconceptions about the movement. People who are against it uses the argument of, all lives matter. “All Lives Matter” also became a hashtag where people voiced their distaste over how one race was being valued over another and how, like the hashtag says, all lives should matter. What those people fail to remember or decide to block out is Black Lives Matter’s actual intention of their movement, “#BlackLivesMatter doesn’t mean your life isn’t important–it means that Black lives, which are seen as without value within White supremacy, are important to your liberation.” (Black Lives Matter). Other variations of the “group name” Lives Matter hashtag is #bluelivesmatter. Blue Lives Matter stands for the lives of police officers and the violence towards them. Blue Lives Matter was created because an increasingly number of citizens fail to accept responsibilities for their actions and places their blame on law enforcement due to them being easy targets (Blue Lives Matter).

            People come up with many arguments against Black Lives Matter. One major argument that comes up is the lack of discussion on black-on-black crime. Writer and activist Franchesca Ramsey says, “Black Lives Matter isn’t solely focused on the loss of black lives but also on a lack of justice” (Hafner). The lack of justice lies when it’s a police officer that takes the life of a black person whereas a black-on-black crime would get carried out regularly. It is much harder to get a police officer indicted because of the status they hold.

            As people in society, we cannot ignore the mistreatment of black lives. No sides are needed to be picked when fighting against the injustices. People must stay informed for the voices who are wanting to be heard. People need stand beside the oppressed in order for the country to progress into one that provides fair treatment for all its people.

Works Cited

Alvarez, Lizette, and Cara Buckley. “Zimmerman Is Acquitted in Trayvon Martin Killing.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 13 July 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/us/george-zimmerman-verdict-trayvon-martin.html.

Anderson, Monica, and Paul Hitlin. “3. The Hashtag #BlackLivesMatter Emerges: Social Activism on Twitter.” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science &Amp; Tech, Pew Research Center, 15 Aug. 2016, www.pewinternet.org/2016/08/15/the-hashtag-blacklivesmatter-emerges-social-activism-on-twitter/.

Boedeker, Hal et al. “George Zimmerman Trial Juror Tells ABC: He 'Got Away with Murder'.” Orlando Sentinel, Orlando Sentinel, 26 July 2013, www.orlandosentinel.com/news/trayvon-martin-george-zimmerman/os-george-zimmerman-juror-b29-speaks-20130725-story.html.

Bosman, Julie, and Emma G. Fitzsimmons. “Grief and Protests Follow Shooting of a Teenager.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 Aug. 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/08/11/us/police-say-mike-brown-was-killed-after-struggle-for-gun.html.

Cobb, Jelani. “The Matter of Black Lives.” The New Yorker, 28 Oct. 2016, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/14/where-is-black-lives-matter-headed.

Cullors, Patrisse et al. “About the Black Lives Matter Network.” Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter, blacklivesmatter.com/about/.

Day, Elizabeth. “#BlackLivesMatter: the Birth of a New Civil Rights Movement.” The Observer, Guardian News and Media, 19 July 2015, www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/19/blacklivesmatter-birth-civil-rights-movement.

Demby, Gene. “Combing Through 41 Million Tweets To Show How #BlackLivesMatter Exploded.” NPR, NPR, 2 Mar. 2016, www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/03/02/468704888/combing-through-41-million-tweets-to-show-how-blacklivesmatter-exploded.

“George Zimmerman Juror B-29 Says 'My First Vote Was Second-Degree Murder' in 'GMA Interview.” YouTube, ABC News, 26 July 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQb-_BebVHA.

Hafner, Josh. “Why Black Lives Matter Doesn't Focus on 'Black-on-Black' Crime.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 27 July 2016, www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/07/27/why-doesnt-black-lives-matter-doesnt-focus-talk-about-black-black-crime/87609692/.

“The 2016 Florida Statutes: Justifiable Use of Force.” Online Sunshine, The Florida Legislature, 22 Nov. 2016, www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799%2F0776%2FSections%2F0776.013.html.

“Organization.” Blue Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, 2016, bluelivesmatter.blue/organization/.

Research prompt

There are several reasons for your research project. First, it’s an opportunity to become familiar with the amazing resources of the Cerritos College Library. This is probably your first experience using the library’s databases, but you’ll use them more and more as your continue your education. Once, students and researchers were limited to the books and periodicals that were physically in a building. Now, information is organized and searchable.

You will practice and refine your search skills; specifically, with the exception of Google Scholar, you will not use Google or any of the mainstream search engines. You must learn to search using academic search engines; you’ll practice using various search terms; and you’ll develop skills that will be essential to your academic future.

You will also learn how and why to use MLA citation and format style, including in-text citations.

Your project will concentrate on the challenges facing Vietnamese immigrants to the U.S. during the 10 year period after the end of the Vietnam War. You will have the choice of two topics:
1. The resettlement policies of the U.S. government to Vietnamese immigrants who arrived in 1975 and then in 1978-80 (the so-called “boat people.”)
2. Explore the challenges facing the Vietnamese-America children whose parents arrived between 1975-80. Some of these stories were not published until later; but they should refer to those years when they first came in contact with American culture. You’ll find academic as well as first person material of the sort that Lac Su wrote (but you can’t use that book).

You must use at least five sources: one book (digital or hard copy), one scholarly journal, one newspaper or magazine, one website, and one video.

Your paper will be 2,000 words long. You will use Times New Roman, 12 point type, and MLA format and citation rules. The paper is due in-class at the final exam.

Example of literary essay

Student

Mr. Tompkins

English 100

November 12, 2016

Real Family Ties

            The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, is driven by tortured family relationships. Some are shaped by collisions of culture and class, others by the unfortunate differences that occur between family and friends. The book has many examples of traditions that worked in Afghanistan but don't in America, as well as problems between parents and kids that probably are universal. Amir's relationship with his father as well as Soraya with her father show the reader just how troubled they can get. Tradition, gender, honor, and pride are key factors to what twists up their relationship with their parents.

          As you read the book, you can’t help notice the similarities between Amir and Soraya. One major similarity is their parents. Both of their fathers worked in important jobs and held high social status in Kabul. Amir’s father was a businessman and Soraya’s father was a general. They were even well acquainted before moving the United States. Both wanted decent careers for their children. Baba insisted for Amir to pursue for a career in the medical or law field, General Taheri wished the same for his daughter. But despite their parent’s efforts, Amir and Soraya decided to take other career paths. Amir wanted to be a writer and Soraya a teacher. Each child has greatly disappointed their fathers. Amir when he had Hassan fight his battles for him and Soraya when she fled with her boyfriend and possibly causing her mother’s stroke. As a result of their past mistakes, both Amir and Soraya have lived with the guilt.

          Despite the similarities shared by Amir and Soraya, tradition is a major issue that separates the two.  For one, gender plays a big role in shaping a relationship. Soraya, being a woman, is not entitled to the same liberties as men are according to Afghan culture. One example of this is when Amir sees Soraya in the flea market and begins to talk with her. Soraya then brings up how she heard he was a storyteller. Amir was taken by surprise by this and questioned if her father had been the one who told her. But then put that thought to rest as he explained how Afghan men do not speak of single men in front of their daughters, whereas men could speak of single women.

            There didn’t seem to be a problem when Amir was talking about Soraya to his father. Baba explained how Soraya’s father is a Pashtun, which means he has too much pride and honor to talk about single men in the presence of wives or daughters. One could say he is a traditionalist where Amir’s father seems to be lenient when it comes to old fashion ways, like how he drinks and is not a strong believer in God.  Another difference between the genders is that women are looked down upon when having sex with men, while men seem to not be dishonored. This was the case at Soraya’s cousin’s wedding when Soraya overhears two women talking behind her back. They were saying how the groom picked a good and “pure” bride, not like her cousin. Soraya cries to Amir about the ludicrous fact that the men have slept with numerous women and yet they are not talked bad about.

          As the characters grow, so does their relationship with their parents. From the beginning of the book, when Amir is in his childhood, he feels distant from his father and his father feels the same way. He once said, “Had I not seen him come out of his mother’s whom with my own eyes, I would think he is not my son.” Baba compares him to his other son Hassan and says how he sees more potential in Hassan than Amir. Amir and Baba have quarreled over Amir’s stubbornness. When Amir asks his father if he would ever consider getting new servants, Baba snapped at him and had become ashamed of his son. Another time they butted heads was when they were fleeing from Kabul and had arrived at the checkpoint. There, Baba confronted a Russian soldier and stood his ground against him in defense of a woman. Amir worried his father would die and pleaded for him to sit back down. Baba then turns to Amir in frustration and asked him if he had taught him nothing.  

            Things seem to be this way until Baba and Amir settle in America. When Amir graduated from high school, Baba took Amir to a bar and bought him a Ford Gran Torino. It is here where we begin to see a shift in the father-son relationship. Amir feels a kind of respect from his father, and he also feels love. Their relationship shifts ever more when Baba is diagnosed with cancer. When Baba collapses in the flea market and Amir runs to his side saying, “Your son is right here.” After this incident, Amir and Baba grow in their relationship. Amir looked after Baba, taking care of his medical and personal needs. Baba even did the honorable act by knocking on the door of Soraya’s father to ask permission for Amir and Soraya to get married. We see that at first, Soraya’s father is hesitant to have Amir be with his daughter. In the flea market, when Amir presents Soraya with a roll filled with his stories, General Taheri showed up and threw the roll in the garbage. General Taheri seems to be very protective of his daughter, probably due to her past history. Ever since Soraya ran away with her boyfriend, acting against her parent’s beliefs, Soraya had been a bit of an outcast. Taheri also put a strict requirement for a suitor. But eventually General Taheri warms up to Amir and Soraya and allows them to marry.

          The relationship between Soraya and her father and the relationship between Amir and his father are dictated by many factors. Though there are a few similarities shared by the two families, tradition seems to be the key element that makes them dissimilar. And as the characters grow, we see that their connection with their parents softens.

The truth about folks who read

Why you should read (seriously)

Essay 2: Literary Analysis of City of Thieves

Write a four-to five-page literary analysis essay on the topic from the list below.  A literary analysis asserts an interpretation of a literary work and supports that interpretation with analysis of specific examples and details from the text of the literary work.

"[My grandfather] talked about his childhood, about the war, about coming to America. But mostly he talked about one week in 1942, the first week of the year, the week he met my grandmother, made his best friend, and killed two Germans." David Benioff, City of Thieves

Is it ironic that war - the insane, murderous collision of men and deadly machines that has marked society since the ancient Greeks began to record history - generates the other extreme of human behaviour? Does cruelty provoke its opposite, tenderness and a realization that salvation lies in our shared destiny? Most of us can't answer that from first-hand experience, but if experience was the only way to learn about the world we'd be in trouble. In City of Thieves, David Benioff brings us to Leningrad in 1942, and introduces us to Lev Beniov, 17 years old, born and raised in "Pita." In that one week, Lev learned about war, about courage, about friendship, and about love.

1. Your assignment is to examine that first week of 1942. Find the horrors - hunger-weakened doctors treating casualties nightly without anesthesia; starving citizens dying on their neighborhood sidewalks; young women raped nightly by German officers; Russian prisoners executed because they could read and many others. Then, examine the other side of this coin by examining the world of Lev and Kolya, which - despite the insanity around them - is bursting with curiousity, discovery and an appreciation of life. Theirs is an unlikely friendship, but it's forged in these incredible circumstances. Explain the relationship between the loss of humanity on one hand, and heroism and self-sacrifice on the other. How did all this produce the rich, lifelong friendship?

2. At the beginning of the novel, Lev is a scared teenager, too shy to tell Vera he likes her, but by the end of the book he shows he is capable of acts of both bravery and calculation. How does Kolya help Lev develop as a young man?

Facts of the Siege of Leningrad

Hidden horrors of Siege of Leningrad

The History.com summation of Seige of Leningrad

The Siege of Leningrad

Reading Presentation: fiction

Reading Presentation: Fiction

Reading Analysis Guide for fiction

On the day that you present in front of the class you must also write your response to the questions below and hand in your answers. You must hand in your answers on the day you signed up for.

Guidelines for Reading Analysis Presentation

Sign-up on the presentation on the board at the end of class or during a break. Make a note of the chapters and presentation date that you sign up for.

You will be presenting your analysis in class along with other classmates. The class will be counting on you to be on top of the article you are covering, so please be prepared!

You will be graded primarily on your written analysis (breakdown of scoring below), but outstanding presentations will be rewarded.

Read the chapters or section that you will be analyzing carefully. On your first reading, just try to identify the main idea(s) and get a feel for the writer’s approach and the flow of the chapter. On your second reading, go over the text more carefully; notice how the writer creates characters and tells the story.

To prepare your written analysis:

Identify the author’s name and the title of the chapter(s) you are covering

1.    What is the central theme of your chapters? Your answer should be a complete sentence in your own words (not a quote!). Be as specific as possible, but remember that the theme of a book refers to the overall concerns of the author. Don't confuse this with the plot, which is what happens chapter to chapter as the book moves ahead.

2.   There are several parts to question two. What are the concerns of the characters in the chapter(s) you have read? This book is a work of fiction, but do you think the events in the book could happen in real life? Do you think the way the characters act is believable? If so, does it make the book less effective?

3.    Is the central theme expressed explicitly or implicitly? The claim is explicit if the writer spells out what it is. The claim is implicit if the writer only implies the claim but does not state it outright.

4.    Did the events and actions in your chapter(s) surprise you or change your mind about the characters in the book?

5.    What is the tone - the feel - of the chapter(s) you read?

6.    What things in the story give the most insight into human nature?

7.     Does the writer leave the opinions and feelings to the readers? If so, why? Is this approach effective?

8.    Make up a question to ask the class about your chapter.

Text for example essay

Our Gas Guzzlers, Their Lives

Nicholas Kristof JUNE 28, 2007

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Water levels have dropped at Lake Tanganyika in Bujumbura, Burundi. Credit Will Okun

BUJUMBURA, Burundi

If we need any more proof that life is unfair, it is that subsistence villagers here in Africa will pay with their lives for our refusal to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

When we think of climate change, we tend to focus on Alaskan villages or New Orleans hurricanes. But the people who will suffer the worst will be those living in countries like this, even though they don’t contribute at all to global warming.

My win-a-trip journey with a student and a teacher has taken us to Burundi, which the World Bank’s latest report shows to be the poorest country in the world. People in Burundi have an annual average income of $100, nearly one child in five dies before the age of five, and life expectancy is 45.

Against that grim backdrop, changing weather patterns in recent years have already caused crop failures — and when the crops fail here, people starve. In short, our greenhouse gases are killing people here.

“If the harvest fails in the West, then you have stocks and can get by,” said Gerard Rusuku, an agriculture scientist here who has been studying the impact of global warming in Africa. “Here, we’re much more vulnerable. If climate change causes a crop failure here, there’s famine.”

Nicholas Kristof

Guillaume Foliot of the World Food Program notes that farmers here overwhelmingly agree that the weather has already become more erratic, leading to lost crops. And any visitor can see that something is amiss: Africa’s “great lakes” are shrinking.

Burundi is on Lake Tanganyika, which is still a vast expanse of water. But the shoreline has retreated 50 feet in the last four years, and ships can no longer reach the port.

“Even the hippos are unhappy,” said Alexander Mbarubukeye, a fisherman on the lake, referring to the hippos that occasionally waddled into town before the lake retreated.

The biggest of Africa’s great lakes, Lake Victoria, was dropping by a vertical half-inch a day for much of last year. And far to the north, once enormous Lake Chad has nearly vanished. The reasons for the dipping lake levels seem to include climate change.

Greenhouse gases actually have the greatest impact at high latitudes — the Arctic and Antarctica. But the impact there isn’t all bad (Canada will gain a northwest passage), and the countries there are rich enough to absorb the shocks.

In contrast, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned this year that the consequences for Africa will be particularly harsh because of the region’s poverty and vulnerability. It foresees water shortages and crop failures in much of Africa.

“Projected reductions in yield in some countries could be as much as 50 percent by 2020, and crop net revenues could fall as much as 90 percent,” the panel warned. It also cautioned that warming temperatures could lead malaria to spread to highland areas. Another concern is that scarcities of food and water will trigger wars. More than five million lives have already been lost since 1994 in wars in Rwanda, Burundi and Congo, and one factor was competition for scarce resources.

“It seems to me rather like pouring petrol onto a burning fire,” Jock Stirrup, the chief of the British defense staff, told a meeting in London this month. He noted that climate change could cause weak states to collapse.

Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s president, describes climate change as “the latest form of aggression” by rich countries against Africa. He has a point. Charles Ehrhart, a Care staff member in Kenya who works full time on climate-change issues, says that the negative impact of the West’s carbon emissions will overwhelm the positive effects of aid.

“It’s at the least disastrous and quite possibly catastrophic,” Mr. Ehrhart said of the climate effects on Africa. “Life was difficult, but with climate change it turns deadly.”

“That’s what hits the alarm bells for an organization like Care,” he added. “How can we ever achieve our mission in this situation?”

All this makes it utterly reckless that we fail to institute a carbon tax or at least a cap-and-trade system for emissions. The cost of our environmental irresponsibility will be measured in thousands of children dying of hunger, malaria and war.

Gender based toy marketing

Guys and Dolls No More?

By ELIZABETH SWEET DEC. 21, 2012

Davis, Calif.

IMAGINE walking into the toy department and noticing several distinct aisles. In one, you find toys packaged in dark brown and black, which include the “Inner-City Street Corner” building set and a “Little Rapper” dress-up kit. In the next aisle, the toys are all in shades of brown and include farm-worker-themed play sets and a “Hotel Housekeeper” dress.

If toys were marketed solely according to racial and ethnic stereotypes, customers would be outraged, and rightfully so. Yet every day, people encounter toy departments that are rigidly segregated — not by race, but by gender. There are pink aisles, where toys revolve around beauty and domesticity, and blue aisles filled with toys related to building, action and aggression.

Gender has always played a role in the world of toys. What’s surprising is that over the last generation, the gender segregation and stereotyping of toys have grown to unprecedented levels. We’ve made great strides toward gender equity over the past 50 years, but the world of toys looks a lot more like 1952 than 2012.

Gender was remarkably absent from the toy ads at the turn of the 20th century but played a much more prominent role in toy marketing during the pre- and post-World War II years. However, by the early 1970s, the split between “boys’ toys” and “girls’ toys” seemed to be eroding.

During my research into the role of gender in Sears catalog toy advertisements over the 20th century, I found that in 1975, very few toys were explicitly marketed according to gender, and nearly 70 percent showed no markings of gender whatsoever. In the 1970s, toy ads often defied gender stereotypes by showing girls building and playing airplane captain, and boys cooking in the kitchen.

But by 1995, the gendered advertising of toys had crept back to midcentury levels, and it’s even more extreme today. In fact, finding a toy that is not marketed either explicitly or subtly (through use of color, for example) by gender has become incredibly difficult.

There are several reasons gender-based marketing has become so prevalent. On a practical level, toy makers know that by segmenting the market into narrow demographic groups, they can sell more versions of the same toy. And nostalgia often drives parents and grandparents to give toys they remember from their own childhood.

Such marketing taps into the deeply held beliefs about gender that still operate in our culture; many parents argue that their daughters and sons like different things. This is particularly true for boys: parents tend to stick with gender-typed toys for boys, either because they understand that the social costs for boys who transgress into the “pink” zone are especially high in a homophobic culture or because of their own desire for gender conformity.

This becomes a self-reinforcing cycle: as toys have become more and more gender segregated, the social costs of boundary crossing and the peer pressure to stay within the lines are huge, for kids and parents alike.

But if parents are susceptible to the marketers’ message, their children are even more so. In a study on parental toy purchases led by the psychologist Donna Fisher-Thompson, researchers who interviewed parents leaving a toy store found that many bought gender-typed toys because their kids had asked for them, and parents were a bit less likely to choose gendered toys — at least for girls — on their own.

Moreover, expert opinion — including research by developmental and evolutionary psychologists — has fueled the development and marketing of gender-based toys. Over the past 20 years, there has been a growth of “brain science” research, which uses neuroimaging technology to try to explain how biological sex differences cause social phenomena like gendered toy preference.

That’s ridiculous, of course: it’s impossible to neatly disentangle the biological from the social, given that children are born into a culture laden with gender messages. But that hasn’t deterred marketers from embracing such research and even mimicking it with their own well-funded studies.

For example, last year the Lego Group, after two decades of marketing almost exclusively to boys, introduced the new “Friends” line for girls after extensive market research convinced the company that boys and girls have distinctive, sex-differentiated play needs.

Critics pointed out that the girls’ sets are more about beauty, domesticity and nurturing than building — undermining the creative, constructive value that parents and children alike place in the toys. Nevertheless, Lego has claimed victory, stating that the line has been twice as successful as the company anticipated.

The ideas about gender roles embedded in toys and marketing reflect how little our beliefs have changed over time, even though they contradict modern reality: over 70 percent of mothers are in the labor force, and in most families domestic responsibilities are shared more equitably than ever before. In an era of increasingly diverse family structures, these ideas push us back toward a more unequal past.

Elizabeth Sweet is a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of California, Davis.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on December 23, 2012, on Page SR12 of the New York edition with the headline: Guys and Dolls No More?. Today's Paper|Subscribe

Instead of Jail, Court Fines Cut to Fit the Wallet

BY TINA ROSENBERG

 OCTOBER 9, 2015 3:21 AM October 9, 2015 3:21 am

Fixes looks at solutions to social problems and why they work.

David Stojcevski died in jail in Macomb County, Mich., a far suburb of Detroit, last year. He was taking doctor-prescribed methadone and two anti-anxiety medicines to alleviate symptoms of drug withdrawal when he began a 30-day sentence in June 2014. His family alleges that officials at the jail did not respond to his pleas for his medicines. He began hallucinating and was placed in a special cell with 24-hour camera surveillance. (Local 4 television in Detroit first showed the video. A warning: Watching will produce nausea and outrage.) There he lay for 16 days, naked, on the floor. He lost 44 pounds. Finally he stopped breathing, was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.

Guards are required to monitor the cell cameras, taking notes every 15 minutes. They watched Stojcevski for days as he died.

But this isn’t a story about horrendous jail practices, although the lessons should be obvious. Rather, the point is that Stojcevski received a death sentence for a traffic ticket: He had been arrested for obstruction of justice when he couldn’t pay a $772 fine for reckless driving.

His death is an extreme consequence of cash-register justice, a practice that ruins lives across the country every day in less dramatic ways.

And this is a story about a possible remedy: Make fines proportional to an offender’s ability to pay.

About a dozen countries in Latin America and Europe use such fines, called day fines. In countries where their use has been studied, day fines have markedly reduced the number of people incarcerated, made the criminal justice system fairer and less abusive to the poor, lowered recidivism and saved government money.

Day fines were tried in a handful of cities in the United States a quarter-century ago. They didn’t catch on, in part because the political climate was uncongenial: It was the peak of lock-’em-up sentiment. But America no longer wants to lock up every offender. Today, there is a rare bipartisan consensus on the harm created by mass incarceration.

So it’s time to take a serious new look at the day fine.

Photo

CreditIlana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times

First, why we need it:

In America, people are routinely jailed for failure to pay fines. Since the 1990s, courts in many parts of the country have had to pay for themselves, or even support their cities, so fines can be exorbitant. Ferguson, Mo., is the most notorious example: “Ferguson’s law enforcement practices are shaped by the city’s focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs,” said the Justice Department’s report on the police and courts in Ferguson.

Someone pulled over for a missing taillight can be given multiple fines, plus court fees that might equal or exceed the original fines. If the accused can’t pay, her case may be turned over to a private company that supervises “pay-only probation” — bill collecting, really. The company collects the money and charges the offender for doing so. (Here’s an excellent summary of the process, written in plain English.) The offender could pay off her whole fine and still owe thousands of dollars. If she doesn’t pay, she could go to jail, which would probably mean losing her job.

Cash-register justice incarcerates or keeps on probation many people who are not dangerous, just poor. And taxpayers are being abused by legislators who keep heaping fees on offenders. The lawmakers are not considering the enormous cost of jailing those who can’t pay, the cost of collecting their debts, or the cost to society of turning a civil violator into an incarcerated criminal.

“I don’t think legislators know this is not working — that the fees on the books are costing more money than they are bringing in,” said Karin Martin, an assistant professor of public management at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. The Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, for example, looked at the incarceration of 246 people in Mecklenburg County, N.C., who fell behind on their court debt. The county collected $33,476, but jailing them cost $40,000.

Legislatures should not be making courts pay for themselves. It creates terrible injustice and ruins lives. It perverts justice by giving courts an incentive to convict.   But if judicial systems are going to be made to pay their own way, it should be done fairly.

One way is to use the day fine. Rather than a set dollar amount, it is a percentage or multiple of an offender’s daily income — hence the name. In some countries, “daily income” is simply after-tax earnings. Others adjust for the number of dependents or fixed obligations like child support, and some consider only what is earned above a basic living allowance.

In the United States, for example, a very minor offense carrying a fine of one day’s income might cost a minimum-wage earner $72 if based only on straight income, while someone with an annual income of $250,000 might pay $685. A more serious offense could carry a fine of 10 or 20 days’ income, or more. For the system to function, additional court fees should also be proportional to income.

Different fines for different people — is that fair? Compared with the current system, yes. Even $500 for a traffic fine and fees can ruin the life of a minimum-wage worker. For someone who makes $250,000 a year, that same fine is a minor inconvenience, and an ineffective deterrent to further violations. The rich are more likely to drive recklessly, and they can put a fine on a credit card without a thought. Same offense – two very different punishments.

But with a day fine, an offense would carry a similar punitive hit for rich and poor.

Germany is probably the biggest user of day fines. In 1975, the government of what was then West Germany adopted the practice because it wanted to reduce prison overcrowding, and because research had shown that low-level offenders jailed for short times emerged more violent and dangerous. Offenders were no longer given short sentences, but rather fines that were adjusted for income.

In 2010, Germany used day fines in more than 94 percent of traffic offenses and in a vast majority of crimes that would otherwise have drawn short jail sentences, like fraud, embezzlement and theft.

An early study, published in 1980 by Hans-Jorg Albrecht of the Max Planck Institute, found that the fines were more effective than short sentences at preventing future offenses.

Since day fines are calculated to be bearable, collection rates are much higher than with traditional fines. But they still require enforcement – in Germany’s case by means of other civil (not criminal) sanctions like the seizure of property, the garnisheeing of wages or the imposition of a sentence of community service. Nonpayers go to jail very rarely.

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Read previous contributions to this series.

Day fines were tried briefly in several American court systems at the close of the 1980s, led by the Vera Institute of Justice.

Ron Reinstein, at the time the presiding judge of the Superior Court of Maricopa County, Ariz., said the program in Phoenix was only “moderately successful.” One obstacle was that judges had to give mandatory fines for drug possession; neither those fines nor court costs could be adjusted for income. Nor was everyone convinced of the project’s importance. “There were some good results in the pilot, but there wasn’t the commitment from everybody,” he said. “The prosecutors were not that interested.”

On Staten Island in New York, Vera itself operated a day fines office in the court, where staff members interviewed defendants, calculated fines and managed collection. “The rate at which people paid in full shot up,” said Judith Greene, at the time Vera’s director of court programs. “The amount of money collected over all shot up.”

The big challenge in administering day fines is determining an offender’s income, since tax returns are not public. But that is true in Germany also, and the courts there find what they need. The police and courts routinely collect information that helps determine income. And they can simply ask the defendant. About half give information voluntarily. The police end up investigating in less than 2 percent of cases.

Professor Martin, of John Jay, wants to resume day fine experimentation in the United States — not just for traffic fines and minor infractions, but the way it works in Europe: as an alternative to jail for anyone who might get a short sentence. “This is the only way we’re going to extricate ourselves from the horribly expensive and punitive system of punishing people with criminal justice debt,” she said.

One question is whether the fines should have a cap. If they did, they would be less fair — the superrich would pay less, proportionally, than others. And that would bring in less money, although very few offenders have multimillion-dollar income. But a cap would have value in heading off a public relations disaster: those few enormous fines that might make the whole system look outrageous. The New York Times ran an article about day fines in Finland in April, focused tightly on a $58,000 speeding ticket issued to a businessman with an income of about $7 million a year and the public-relations campaign he started in retaliation.

Day fines could keep offenders with modest means out of jail and at home, with their families and in their jobs. The system could save money by reducing incarceration and probation. Supervising offenders on probation is pricey, and leads to more incarceration — half of all the inmates in American jails are there for technical violations of parole or probation.

Perhaps the most important advantage of day fines is this: The current system persists because it doesn’t affect people of means and clout. Cash-register justice is a poor-person problem. But it won’t change until it’s also a rich-person problem. Then there will be political pressure to do something about America’s counterproductive and unjust system of having defendants pay for our courts.

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Tina Rosenberg won a Pulitzer Prize for her book “The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism.” She is a former editorial writer for The Times and the author, most recently, of “Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World” and the World War II spy story e-book “D for Deception.” She is a co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network, which supports rigorous reporting about responses to social problems.

Example Rhetorical Essay

Shaheriar Malik

Mr. Tompkins

English 100


2nd November 2016

United We Rise, Together We Fall

The article “Our Gas Guzzlers, Their Lives” is about a country in Africa named Burundi, and how the climate change is affecting it. This article is mainly aimed at the people in well-established countries who have it better off. Nicholas Kristof, the author, wants the readers to be convinced that global warming is real, serious, and not a matter to be ignored. To achieve this goal, he uses the three rhetorical appeals: ethos, logos, and pathos in such a way that the reader is, both, convinced, and sympathizes with the text.

The author starts off with a hook to gain the readers’ attention and intrigue them. He uses strong adjectives and interviews different people to make it even more convincing, and states facts on strong grounds. He also adds a touch of sympathy, or pathos, in the article. He doesn’t only use the three rhetorical appeals, but shapes the sentences, and the entire article in such a way that it’s comfortable to read, and easy to understand.

Kristof arranges the words, and uses them in a way that makes the reader feel bad about the situation. This is where he brings in ‘pathos’. He tells us that Burundi is the poorest country in the world with an annual average income of $100 per individual. It is also stated that one of every five children die before the age of five, and that the average life expectancy is 45 years. Not only does he state facts but also quotes other people, like scientists, officials, locals. He even tells us his own opinion about it, and says that global warming affects the whole world, not only a part of it. “Against that grim backdrop, changing weather patterns in recent years have already caused crop failures – and when crops fail here, people starve [P4 GGTL]” he says. The last sentence of the last paragraph states “The cost of our environmental irresponsibility will be measured in thousands of children dying of hunger, malaria and war” which is the author’s own opinion but it also plays a part in pathos.

The author also uses facts and figures, or ‘logos’ in his article. Kristof says that Lake Tanganyika’s shoreline has retreated 50 feet in the last four years, and ships can no longer reach the port, and Lake Victoria is losing half an inch of water every day. The reason these facts are believable is because he quotes credible people like scientists, and people who live or work there. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, he states facts like the average life expectancy, the average income of an individual, etc.

The answer to the question “Why should I believe this?” is that he actually went there and shares his own experience. And not only that, he quotes credible people: scientists, officials including the president of Uganda, locals, etc. Some of these people live there and go through the harsh conditions every day. The author interviewed them and shares their opinions in his article. All of this comes under ‘ethos’. He quotes Mr. Ehrhart, “It’s at the least disastrous and quite possibly catastrophic. Life was difficult, but with climate change it turns deadly. That’s what hits the alarm bells for an organization like Care,” he added. “How can we ever achieve our mission in this situation?”

The article would’ve been dull and boring if not played around with. The author doesn’t leave the facts and quotes left separately, but mixes the three appeals. He brings in sympathy to logos and ethos, and gives his own opinion about the situation. All by shaping the sentences to make the reader feel bad, and agree with him. The facts like the shrinking of lakes, average income, life expectancy, death rate sound very sad because of how they are expressed, and how they are arranged. The author also mixes ethos and pathos by quoting others sharing their opinions about the climate change, and positioning them in a way that it looks convincing. All three rhetorical appeals are also mixed together when he quotes the panel “Projected reductions in yield in some countries could be as much as 50 percent by 2020, and crop net revenues could fall as much as 90 percent”, where there are facts in a quote which bring in sympathy.

The whole article is perfectly organized and arranged as it makes the reader agree to his argument and feel bad about it. The reader might share this article with others, so they can try and make a difference. The author slipped in his opinions in some parts, quoted credible people, stated facts to support his argument, and brought emotions in this article and did a very good job at it. Although there is a quote from a fisherman that says that even the hippos are unhappy, which brings in a bit of humor and makes the reader not take the matter seriously. Other than that, it was all well rounded.

Words Cited (this would be on a separate page)

Kristof, Nicholas. “Our Gas Guzzlers, Their Lives.” The New York Times, 28 June 2007

Prompt: Essay 1

Essay 1 – Rhetorical Analysis

“To analyze an argument rhetorically means to examine closely how it is composed and what makes it an effective or ineffective piece of persuasion. A rhetorical analysis identifies the text under scrutiny, summarizes its main ideas, presents some key points about the text’s rhetorical strategies for persuading its audience, and elaborates on these points.”                              -- Ramage, Bean, and Johnson in Writing Arguments

]

Write a rhetorical analysis essay of 4-5 pages on one of the articles listed below from The New York Times (search nytimes.com or use links on course site):

·         “Instead of Jail, Court Fines Cut to Fit the Wallet” by Tina Rosenberg

·         “Gender Based Toy Marketing Returns” by Elizabeth Sweet

·          

Your essay should explain the argument presented in the article and evaluate its effectiveness in persuading its audience of its central claim and reasons. Your essay should identify at the outset the audience at which the piece is aimed, its argumentative purpose, and its central argument.  Once you have identified these concerns, evaluate the rhetorical effectiveness of the given text.  A rhetorical analysis examines 1) the writer’s use of the three rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, and logos); 2) the arrangement and style of the piece; 3) the context (kairos) of the piece

To earn a passing grade, your essay should include:

1.      A title!

2. An introduction that identifies your article and sets up your argument about the article.
3. A thesis that evaluates the effectiveness of the article based on the author’s use of rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, logos), style, and context.
4. Effectively organized paragraphs with strong topic sentences and transitions.
5. Examples from the article (summaries and paraphrases in your own words and sentence structure, as well as some brief, correctly integrated direct quotations).

6.      A conclusion that provides closure to the essay and considers the implications of the argument.

7.      Consistent, correct use of MLA style, including

1. Proper MLA in-text citations for all paraphrases and direct quotations from the article (see pp. 384-7) and
2. A Works Cited page in correct MLA format (which does NOT count towards your page minimum) since you will be quoting from your article (see pp. 387-96). Your only source will be your article. No other research is allowed.

8.      Adherence to the conventions of standard written English.

Prewriting:

1. Choose an article and read it over carefully a few times.
2. Freewrite about your response to the argument made in the article.  What is the argument? Did the author convince you of the argument? Why or why not?  Be specific.
3. Freewrite or brainstorm responses to each of the following questions:

a.       How does the author present her- or himself as credible (ethos)?  Does this strategy work? Why or why not?

b.      Does the author use any emotional appeals (pathos)?  Are such appeals effective?  Why or why not?

c.       Does the author use sound reasoning (logos) to present the argument?  Be specific.

d.      Is the style and organization of the text effective? Why or why not?

e.       What does the author do to frame the context (kairos) of the piece?  Could more have been done? How so?

4.      List 4 quotes you might use in your essay, and explain how each one relates to your assessment of the author’s use of ethos, pathos, logos, or kairos.

5.      Write a possible thesis for your essay.