WR 123 and meeeee

Okay, I did NOT turn in my final essay. Excuses do not matter. No one died (Thank goodness! I don’t want that to happen again).

This was supposed to be the last assignment. I wasn’t going to do it, since not turning in the essay basically took care of my grade, but figured since I did do the essay, I might as well as do this..
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Oh, I will post the essay here too. (I might even post the rough drafts that got me to this point). I guess I need to get the the CCC computer lab to copy and paste it though…or if I can find a cheap copy to purchase.. (My Microsoft Word expired just in time to make obstacles impassable and with everything else going on, my life melted… And yeah, I know that sounds lame, but that’s just how it is.. )

In what ways have your ideas about your topic changed through your research and writing?
Well, my writing started out exploring whether irradiation was useful or if was there something to fear. I found no evidence saying it was the wonderful, cure-all as spouted by some governmental agencies, nor found credible evidence that we would all end up like the mutated frogs living in the Columbia basin. Okay, I’m exaggerating a little bit here, but for a society that lives on twinkies and rock star energy drinks, isn’t food nutrition moot point, anyhow? ( Yeah, yeah, I’m still being cynical).

At what point did your ideas, and/or your paper, undergo their biggest or most important changes?

Writing the exploratory essay was really difficult for me because I finally began to not care whether irradiation was good or bad.. The topic irradiation had begun to bore me. That particular question has already been answered a million ways, and I had no new answers. I did not feel I was giving the paper a “voice”. I felt what I was writing was meaningless. After rewriting the (final)paper an umpteenth time, I started to input all of the other research I had done…and it turned into more of an exploratory essay on food safety in general. First I blamed the FDA.. After all, we’re a first world nation, why would our government “let” things like this happen.. Then, I started analyzing my own thinking. What makes our country great is that WE are our government and I, personally, do not want that to change …So then I rewrote the paper again and turned it more into an analysis that maybe the current safety net isn’t actually broken, and maybe giving the FDA more recall power isn’t the fix we need when it comes to foods processed and manufactured within our nation. Maybe the “fix” needs to come within the companies themselves providing the foods. Maybe the FDA needs more inspectors, and maybe companies should be required to hire their own, whether in- house and/or preferably outside food inspectors (who could report to the FSIS) which might inspire entrepreneurship, which is what our country thrives on.
One thing though, we do need a better watchful eye on imports and I am all for giving FDA, FSIS, USDA, or whoever complete recall authority and stop import authority when it comes to dealing with other countries.

Have your ideas about research or the writing process changed because of taking this course?
Yes. I knew there were credible sources, but had no idea how to access or truly determine credibility. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, but still I managed to let other challenges become obstacles.

Finally, what advice would you offer to anyone taking this class next term?
Just turn it in! (Of course, I have a problem with that, because it seems I always have to think and rethink things over…The next product always deviates so far from the original..But interestingly , I came back and used a lot of what I had originally wrote… ).