"Review of Sources"

With the sources I have, majority of them are arguing the same thing I am going to argue, but it is very difficult to find sources that are more credible than anything else. Most of the sources I have came from the databases because the websites I am searching is not giving me articles or credible websites but are presenting blogs.

The sources that best agree with my argument are the articles by Cathy Gulli and Ben Goldacre, both authors presented the argument that vitamins are dangerous and could be helping people die quicker. These sources are beneficial because they are arguing the same topic that ties in with the topic of argument. With my argument, I am arguing that a healthy diet is better than relying on vitamins and these sources give me the background to why these vitamins are harmful to peoples' health.

The source that disagrees with my argument would have to be the article by Mark Hyman, which expresses that vitamins are beneficial more so to older people and expecting mothers. This source gives the upside to why the vitamins are not as bad as the other sources are trying to make them seem. The report from the University of Maryland Medical Center also argues that vitamins are beneficial , but more so beneficial to people with fatal diseases and expecting mothers. With both sources, they are showing that this specific group of people are either aiding a disease, taking vitamins for deficiencies, or helping to make their unborn babies develop better.

My favorite source will have to be the one written by Mary Wakefield, which she explains that people are reliant upon vitamins and the horrors of big businesses that are creating disease to sell products. This source is very help because she uses personal experiences to help her argument and to give the audience a look why she is actually arguing the topic.


I believe these sources will help with half of my paper because I still need more credible sources and more of a variety of sources than articles from the same database. I believe that by looking for more sources it could help to make my argument stronger.

[365 Words]

Paper Topic Ideas

For my paper, I will be arguing the harmful effects of relying on vitamins versus a healthy diet. I work in a pharmacy and majority of my customers rely on vitamins. Everyone comes to the pharmacy and buy all these vitamins that are supposed to help but in deed are harming the person. With some vitamins, there are certain foods that can't be eaten while taking these vitamins. This topic interest me because customers believe that without taking vitamins they would not live. People depend on vitamins more than on the health foods that could help with their health problems.

I plan on arguing that vitamins are harmful and are the reason behind some of the health problems that the people have. With any medication, there are side effects that could possibly give people health problems versus having a healthy diet that could stop all the health problems. So the argument is vitamins versus vegetables. Having a healthy diet could help a person with health problems get better than using vitamins on top of taking their regular routine medications that are already supposed to be helping but are not really helping.

The direction I am taking this paper is against the pharmaceutical companies that are making vitamins that are supposed to be helping people but are really harming people and making them rely on the effects of the medication. I believe that vitamins and any medication that is supposed to be preventing certain health problems can be fixed without medications. I would like to also argue which foods could help the health problems as well.

Skills to be Learned: Part 1

As I looked over the list, I realized there were things that I could improve upon and most of them are things I have learned before, didn't quite grasp completely. When I'm working on a major paper, I tend to have so many thoughts and I find myself not being able to organize them. Improvement with organizing my thoughts would help my writing improve because I would be able to stick to one topic and make my papers flow correctly, instead of jumping all over the place. I also need improvement with being able to write longer papers because I had to do a research paper in a previous semester and I didn't meet the paper requirement. Even though , I still passed the class, I would like to be able to make my papers longer by learning to know what to do when I get stuck writing and don't know what else to say to defend my argument.

Previous teachers have taught MLA well and I would like to learn about APA because I am a chemistry major and I would probably have to use that style of writing in the future which will be very helpful. By learning the style of writing early, it gives me an advantage to have knowledge in how to do it when the time comes to use it.

With my writing, I usually like other people to critique what I've written because I like the feedback and the help with ideas from other people. I believe my downfall is being able to identify my own problems when writing and I would like to improve that because it will help me to go back and fix my mistakes before someone else sees them. I would like to also improve the issues I have with researching because I believe I know what I am looking for but tend to not find the sources due to the lack of knowing how to go about finding them.

When I collect data and/or research, I usually have good sources but I tend to use them in the wrong way. I would like to improve the skill of collecting quality research and being able to expand my ideas because I will have the information in my head but when it comes down to writing and putting it together then ideas seem to be all over. I want my final paper to be better than the ones I have written before and I honestly believe that with these improvements my paper will be .

Word Count: 423

Review of TED Talks

Malcolm Gladwell: Choice, happiness and spaghetti sauce
Mr. Gladwell explained how Howard Mosokwitz took one idea and changed the true meaning of happiness to people when it comes to the variation of foods. Immediately, I thought that Gladwell would discuss the ingredients that make up spaghetti sauce but in deed the ted talk was not necessarily based around spaghetti sauce. Also, he started off talking about pepsi and I instantly thought the ted talk would be about aspartame that's in pepsi and its harms or how much of the artificial sweetner is actually added. Mr. Gladwell explained that people are more likely to be happy with the variations of a product because people are afraid to voice their own opinion of what they really like. So with food industries, they are making a variety of the same product and advertising the product to make the people aspire to eat the things that they have an idea of liking. Mr. Gladwell used a number of examples to explain how Mr. Mosokwitz used his idea to not make one Pepsi perfect but to make Pepsis better as whole. This ted talk sparked the idea that people could only eat a certain food because of the advertising and because they are not willing enough to voice what they really want. For example, Mr. Gladwell says, if a group of people were asked what kind of coffee they like, majority would give the same answer , "strong, rich, etc.", when some people could possibly like "milky, weak coffee". Mr. Mosokwitz wanted to explore variation and give the people the happiness that they didn't know they were lacking. By giving variation, it gave a whole new meaning to happiness. Also, it gives the people a product that they didn't even know they wanted. Mosokwitz introduced this way of marketing (not sure that's the word I'm looking for), to give people what they were afraid to say they wanted. Now their are a variety of different spaghetti sauces and campbells soups, all to make the people happier. It is interesting because I never thought about why the companies introduced new variations of a product but always assumed that the reason was to make more money and try to beat the competitors.

Word Count: 374 Words