Week 7 Reflection

my first infographic about problems in bees

Part 1: SMC Wrap-up

I think the SMC really helps me a lot to learn about the problems facing my species. My past research experiences are all about bees social behavior and their communication patterns, and etc. My research focus were more on the scientific studies on bees in the previous weeks that I do not know much about the problems facing my species. I think SMC gives me a chance to really focus on researching for the problems that bees are facing. The most important issue about bees is the use of pesticides. Pesticides is the most important issue because many other problems about bees are related to pesticides. For example, CCD is believed to relate with systemic pesticides. I want to write about pesticides in my Advocacy Project since for my literature review, I reviewed studies about several chemicals that can influence the social behavior of bees. Some of the chemicals can be found in pesticides. I found that the most reasonable solution is to use pesticides with less bees-killing chemicals. It is not possible to ban pesticides because it does help to kill some bad bugs on corps. Bumble Bee Trust is the organization that provides some simple and easy tips that the general public can do to protect bees.

Part 2: Making Arguments

I learned a lot from the 4 different texts about making arguments. The most useful thing I learned from these 4 texts are their structures while making arguments. All these 4 texts do not only make their own arguments but used many resources to support their arguments. For example, Ryder uses Darwin’s quote, and Marino uses many scientific studies to help build up their arguments. These are some methods that I can use in my own argument as well.

Part 3 : Peer Review

I reviewed Francisca Okeke’s and Chengyu Zhang’s essays this week. I think they all did a good job in general. Francisca was writing about cetacean and dolphins and their social behaviors. I think she needs to work more on providing the history context of her field of study. She also stated her purpose of writing the essay very well. The best advice I gave to her is that she needs to add some subtitles in order to make her essay easier to read. However, I am not sure if it is effective to write both dolphins and cetaceans together in one essay since they are different species. Chengyu Zhang’s essay is based on domestic cat. He analyzed the scientific studies well. I think he needs to work on his introduction since he missed some important parts, such as history context in is introduction. I received a comment saying that my conclusion is kind of out of topic, since I tried to set my direction for my advocacy project. I think we should at least mention something that we will advocate in the future, but I am not confident about this.