Chapter 8 Response

The reading we had from Envision this week is actually very helpful during the beginning stages of our multimodal assignment. The reading went through the different way to express an argument based on the audience, how to write an abstract, how to effectively use visuals, and how to design an effect web site and photo montage, which are both options for the multimodal assignment.

The reading began by explaining how different voices are appropriate for different audiences. This is important when we do our multimodal assignment, because it means that our group has to both decide who our audience is, and also present our project appropriately. After reading the descriptions of different audiences, I think it is probably most appropriate for our project to have middle or plain style. I think our project should appear more casual, even if the actual textual elements have a higher writing style.

The reading also went into how to write an abstract. I think this is especially important for the website component of our project, because it will provide a summary of the project, which is good for the home page of our website. I have never written an abstract before, and have not even seen many in my experience, so it was interesting to learn about the different types of abstracts, and some guidelines for making a good abstract for our project.

The reading went into some detail about how to use visuals in both a paper and a project. It went into the importance of placement, as well as how important labels, like “Figure 1” and captions are in a project. Since we will definitely be using visuals in our project, it was helpful to learn the ideal ways to place images in both a paper and a website. This will be very important while we are creating our website for the project.

The final way the reading seems to pertain to our multimodal assignment is how it went into detail about how to make an effective website for a project. Since part of our multimodal assignment will be in website form, this seemed especially relevant. I personally have never made an actual website before, so I found the reading very helpful. The reading explained how to organize a website in an appropriate way so that viewers can implement the website to its full potential.

Through all of these ways, this reading was very good to read before starting our multimodal assignment for many different reasons.

Images in Crisis response

In today’s culture, we are overwhelmed by uncomfortable images after every well-documented tragedy. In fact, I am so personally used to seeing graphic images that I find I have become numb to them. After some self-reflection, I realize that whenever I watch the news, I expect to see horrific images, and almost view them as a ploy for ratings, and not an actual depiction of actual, horrible events. I believe it is this unfortunate side effect of publishing images of a crisis that has led to the backlash and negative feedback from the public. People do not wish to see an image of a mutilated child if it is only so the news network can boost its ratings. This is unfortunate, because I do not believe that is always the intention of the photographers, or publishers, of these graphic images. For example, the children on page 200, who are smiling while holding a poster with horrific images on it, are not doing anything wrong. They are smiling because someone asked them to say ‘cheese’ before snapping a picture. In fact, the children are actually taking the time to raise money for a tragedy that they became aware of through those very images. The fact that anyone questions the motives behind a set of eight year olds raising money to help others only proves how cold our society has become. This is because the media portrays these images so frequently; they lose their meaning, or worse, are questioned for their motives and authenticity. Any form of media is, unfortunately, very subjective to the author’s bias and opportunity. People, including myself, need to except this and learn to actually look at these images again, instead of passing them off as a hoax or a trick for attention.

Sarah Pim

21 October 2011

English 103, Section 30

Mr. Stowe

Research Paper Outline

1)    Introduction

a)     Hook

b)    On a grand scale, the lottery is an excellent source of funds for all sorts of government expenditures, usually education.

i)      LIFE scholarships in South Carolina are funded by the lottery.

c)     Thesis: The lottery may have positive impacts on society as a whole, but on a personal level it is negative.

2)    Paragraph 1- How the modern lottery system works

a)     A description of what the lottery actually is, how it works, who it benefits, laws regarding it, and how much it costs to play.

b)   

3)    Paragraph 2- Realistic odds of the lottery system

a)     Realistically, it is more likely to be struck by a meteor than to win the jackpot.

b)   

4)    Paragraph 3- Common demographics of lottery ticket buyers and why it is economically irresponsible to buy lottery tickets

a)     People in a lower socio-economic bracket are the common demographic of buyers of lottery tickets

b)    Poor people spend, on average, three percent of their annual earnings. This is wasteful because that money could be used to pay off other debts or improve their economic situation.

5)    Paragraph 4- The Curse of the Lottery

a)     It seems like most of the people who actually win the lottery end up losing all their money within a year

b)    Winners are harassed and become distrustful of family and friends’ intentions

c)     Abraham Shakespeare was murdered after winning the lottery

d)   

e)     Many winners end up needing therapies they did not need previously

6)    Paragraph 5- Why do people still buy lottery tickets if they know their chances of winning are so low, and there are so many negative side effects?

a)     The pleasure receptors in the brain release serotonin and other “feel-good chemicals” when it thinks there is a possibility of financial profit. These chemicals are the same as those sent out for any basic rewards, like food, sex, shelter, and safety.

b)    Financial security is so important that people are willing to hurt themselves through the lottery system, on the off chance that they may actually win.

c)    

7)    Conclusion

a)     The lottery has an overwhelming number of negative effects on all participants involved.

Bibiliography

Sarah Pim

19 October 2011

English 103, Section 30

Mr. Stowe

Annotated Bibliography

1.              "Curse of the Lottery Winners." ABC Good Morning America. ABCNews.com,                                  11 Mar. 2007. Web. 19 Oct. 2011.

Winning the lottery may seem like a positive experience, but it seems that in many cases, peoples’ lives have crumbled. Psychologist Steve Danish of Virginia Commonwealth University has studied this phenomenon. He believes that the problem with winning the lottery is that winners lose a sense of purpose, or life goal. Most people are productive to earn money, and since winning the lottery negates that purpose, winners become unproductive members of society, which seems to often lead to their downfall.

2.              Foley, June. "Psychology of the Lottery." Clinton Community College. N.p.,                                  2009. Web. 19 Oct. 2011.                       

Many people who regularly play the lottery are unaware of the actual odds of winning.  In New York, the odds of winning the Take Five Jackpot are similar to being killed by an earth-impacting asteroid. Yet people still buy tickets regularly. Foley hypothesizes 4 possible reasons for this. She claims that people play the lottery because of the psychological phenomenon of Operant Conditioning, the Gambler’s Fallacy, memories tricking players if the information does not fit their schema, and the Availability Heuristic.

3.              Friedman, Russel. "Winning the Lottery: Instant Millionaire or Instant Griever."                                  Broken Hearts. Psychology Today, 17 Aug. 2009. Web. 19 Oct. 2011.           

Most winners of the lottery end up spending all of their money within three years. Large percentages also need new therapies that were previously unnecessary. Winners of the lottery actually often feel similar emotions as those experiencing grief. Since “grief is the conflicting feelings caused by a change or end in a familiar pattern of behavior,” it makes sense that those who unexpectedly come into a large sum of money can feel similar emotions. Winning the lottery forces a change in the winner’s perception of their self-worth, leading to feelings of grief and depression.

4.              Gallo, Eileen. "The Psychological Impact of Sudden Wealth." Journal of                                             Financial Planning 14.1 (2001): 48-50. Microsoft Word file.

Coming into a sudden increase in wealth can have many different effects on different socio-economic groups. In general, those who are used to having money, and are well aware of how to spend and save their money are less concerned by a sudden increase in wealth. In fact, they view it as a positive change. People who are inexperienced with money found the sudden increase of wealth to be a negative experience. They felt helpless and unable to make sound financial decisions.

5.              Griffiths, Mark D., and Richard T.A. Woods. Lottery Gambling and Addiction:                                  An Overview of European Research. Nottingham. PDF file.

The lottery should be considered a “gateway to gambling,” since it is based on odds. It therefore has a great influence of addiction and other social impacts. European countries have a well-established and popular lottery system, which has become increasingly accepted in society. This is concerning because of the clear relationship the lottery has with gambling and addiction. There are several possibilities behind the rise of the lottery, including advertising, entrapment, unclear probabilities, and heuristics.

6.              Haley, Jen. "Seduced into Spending Thousands on Lottery Tickets." CNN Living.                                  Turner Broadcasting System, 4 Jan. 2010. Web. 19 Oct. 2011.           

Even if someone buys a lottery tickets every day, they are never guaranteed to win anything. Buying those tickets though, will always have a price. When one woman added up all the money she had spent on lottery tickets over the years she has been consistently playing, she found she had spent over $10,000. She has never won any prize in the decade she has been playing. Frank Farley, psychology professor at Temple University, blames this on the low entry fee to play. People spend a dollar a day, not realizing how that money can add up.

7.              Landau, Elizabeth. "Winning the Lottery: Does it Guarantee Happiness?" CNN                                  Health. Turner Broadcasting Systems, 7 Jan. 2011. Web. 19 Oct. 2011.

Many people who play the lottery believe that winning will guarantee their happiness. However, that is often not the case. There are several cases where, as names of winners were made public, people             quickly violated their privacy and demanded favors. In the case of Abraham Shakespeare, he was murdered after winning $31 million. Research has shown that monetary wealth does bring happiness, but only to the point of financial security. Beyond that, extra cash can bring stress and complications to peoples lives.

8.              Lehrer, Jonah. "The Psychology of Lotteries." The Frontal Cortex. Wired.com, 3                                  Feb. 2011. Web. 19  Oct. 2011.

The demographics of people who commonly play the lottery seems concentrated in households which make less than $12,400 a year. In fact, people in that tax bracket spend on average 5% of their income on lottery tickets. This is not rational, since the odds make spending money on lottery tickets a waste of money that could be used towards necessary things. People use the lottery as an easy way out, but end up simply wasting money that could be put to better use.

9.              "lottery." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic                                  Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 18 Oct. 2011.           

The official definition of a lottery is a procedure for distributing something among a group of people by chance. In modern times, lotteries are commonly referred to as a form of gambling, where the price of all tickets sold pay for the winning ticket. Historically, the lottery system has been referenced throughout the Bible as form of census. The first European lotteries in the modern sense appeared in France in the 15^th century. Now, lotteries can be government-sponsored, and proceeds may benefit public endeavors.

10.           News Staff. "Psychology of Poverty: Why Poor People Buy Lottery Tickets."                                  Scientific Blogging. Science 2.0, 24 July 2008. Web. 19 Oct. 2011.

People pour thousands of dollars into the lottery system, with little hope for return. A study by Carnegie Mellon University has looked into the reasons behind this waste of money. It was found that participants in the study who were made to feel poor were twice as likely to buy lottery tickets. This is explained by the inaccurate feelings of participants that winning the lottery will get people out of poverty. Unfortunately, the act of buying the lottery tickets actually exacerbates the poverty lottery ticket buyers are hoping to escape form.

11.           Rogers, Paul. "The Cognitive Psychology of Lottery Gambling: A Theoretical                                  Review." Journal of Gambling Studies 14.2 (1998): 111-134. PDF file.

Psychology of lottery is an often-neglected field, which is unusual considering its popularity. There are many various biases and irrational thinking patterns typically found in lottery gambling. A huge part of this is misunderstanding of lottery odds, the idea and belief of personal luck, and the illusion of control. These thinking patterns are often found in the typical lottery player, which is a person from lower income, lower social status and poorer education backgrounds.

12.           THS Investigates: Curse of the Lottery. E! Entertainment Television. 24 Sept.                                  2006.            Television.

This documentary follows the lives of ten real-life lottery winners. These winners all seem to inevitably end up in a worse position than they were in before. Winners experience drug addiction, bankruptcy, and even death. Friends, family, and experts are interviewed.

Free Writing

            The topic of my research paper is the psychology behind buyers of the lottery. More specifically, it will focus on the mindsets of winners and losers, as well as the common types of buyers. This will include social and economic classes, and the behaviors of participants in the lottery system.

            There are several sources I have already acquired for my research project. This includes the encyclopedia description of what a lottery is. This may be helpful in the introduction of my paper who are unfamiliar, or who may not quite understand much about the lottery. There are also two articles, which describe the demographics of common lottery ticket buyers, and the altered mindsets of lottery winners. Both of these articles will be helpful in describing social classes and behaviors of participants. I also included a documentary called the “Curse of the Lottery,” which while not supported by a scientific sponsor, does have many interesting true life examples of lottery winners, which could be useful. Lastly, I found a report from the Psychology department of Nottingham Trent University, which researches the idea that lottery tickets are a “gateway to gambling.” It also identifies and describes the mindsets of different types of gamblers. This would be used in my paper as a description of the behaviors of winners and losers of the lottery system. For more sources, I will probably need more articles and scientific documentaries that focus on the behaviors of lottery ticket buyers.

            Some problems or obstacles I will probably encounter will be creating a narrow enough topic that I can form a true thesis, as well as a struggle to find pertinent sources. Since it is an unusual topic, I will need to search very carefully for sources, as well as potentially find seemingly unrelated sources I can use to prove my thesis, whatever it may be.

Research Paper Sources

Psychology of the Lottery Sources:

1.   http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/348555/lottery
I chose this source because it gives a good overview of what a lottery is, for those who may be unfamiliar. The encyclopedia article goes over how the lottery system works, as well as the history of the lottery system.

2.   http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0889149/
I chose this source because it is a video source, which I thought would be interesting. It gives a lot of personal experiences of the negative side effects of the lottery.

3. http://www.science20.com/news_releases/psychology_of_poverty_why_poor_people_buy_lottery_tickets

This source talks about why poor people specifically seem to buy more lottery tickets than other social groups. This specifically relates to the aspect of my research topic that has to do with the rise of people buying lottery tickets during an economic downturn.

4.   http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/broken-hearts/200908/winning-the-lottery-instant-millionaire-or-instant-griever
I chose this article because it explores the negative effects winning the lottery could have on a winner. Apparently there are many psychological effects that come from winning the lottery, which could be because even though so many people spend money on lottery tickets, they never actually expect to win.

5.   https://www.european-lotteries.org/data/info_130/Wood.pdf
This article explores if the lottery is “gateway gambling.” It explores different kinds of gamblers, and the mindsets of each.

Research Paper Topics

1. How media effects self-image
2. Psychology behind the Lottery-- during economic downturn