You decide, one Sunday, to take a random drive in the country to enjoy the fresh air and lush scenery of fields lit bright with glowing trees swaying in the afternoon sun. After exploring the countless, sand and dirt covered roads that pave the rolling landscape, you turn down one a little more remote than the others. To the right is a field of beautiful sunflowers, to the left you find an illegal dump site full of rusty old cars, appliances, and tin cans. You are appalled by the sight of such negligence by those who do not take the same pride in the environment as you do. How did this happen? Surely this was not the act of one person.
You are probably right. This was not the act of one person but instead started by one and grew too many until the entire side of the road was littered with trash that could have otherwise found its way to a salvage yard or landfill. A single act by one person granted others the permission to do the same. The old dryer lying in the ditch somehow suggested to everyone that drove by, this was now accepted as a dumpsite for the items they didn’t want anymore although the law strongly states otherwise. It did not happen in one swift moment rather that as the pile grew larger, the power of suggestion did as well until people were dumping there at an exponential rate. Why would one add to the problem rather than correct it?
Human behavior can often be a puzzling thing to explain. Many people in various areas of expertise have attempted to show cause to the human condition with general statements such as tipping point, bandwagon effect, cascading and the like. All have their own specific examples, but few are comprehensive enough to call earth shattering discoveries. There is however, a common correlation...
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... affect other humans and at what rate this happens. The subject, having been studied for centuries, has produced nothing as of late that could even be considered enlightening. The only enlightening point made is everyone tends to agree on the same basic understanding; emulation of human behavior and the progression thereof.
Works Cited
Gladwell, Malcolm. “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference” Inquirey to Academic Writing: A Text and Reader. Eds. Leasa Burton and Stephen A. Scipione. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2008. 277-293. Print.
Hirshleifer, David. “The Blind Leading the Blind: Social Influence, Fads, and Informational Cascades” The New Economics of Human Behaviour. Eds. Ierulli, K. and Tommasi M.. California: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Randall, J. Herman. The Power of Suggestion. 1909. Washington: Health Research. Print.
“Tom Hanks: I Owe It All to Community College” does not fit into the category of academic writing. The article by Tom Hanks uses informal writing to convey his ideas, fails to document sources using a specific citation style, and does not present his ideas as a response to others. In contrast to Hanks’ article, academic writing is described as “standard edited English, using clear and recognizable patterns of organization, marking logical relationships between ideas, presenting ideas to others, and using appropriate citation styles” (Lunsford et al. 45).
Graff, Gerald. “Hidden Intellectualism”. They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. Comp. Graff, Gerald, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russell Durst. New York W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.
Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say I Say The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010. Print.
Zastrow, C. H., & Krist-Ashman, K. K. (2013). Understanding Human Behavior and the Social Environment (9 ed.). Belmont:
Ungar, Sanford J. “The New Liberal Arts.” They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter In Academic Writing. Ed. Gerald Graff. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 190-197. Print.
“This Course prepares students for reading, research, and writing in college classes by teaching students to consider the rhetorical situation of any piece of writing while integrating reading, research, and writing in the academic genres of analysis and argument. This course is said to teach students to develop analyses and arguments using research-based content with effective organization, and appropriate expression and mechanics”. (1)
Matter in Academic Writing with Readings. 2nd ed. Ed. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst. New York: Norton 2012. 211-214. Print.
Graff, Gerald, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel K. Durst. "They Say/I Say": The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing: With Readings. Vol. 2e. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2012. Print.
Zastrow, C., & Kirst-Ashman, K. K. (2007). Understanding human behavior and the social environment. Australia; U.S.A.: Thomson Brooks/Cole.
Conformity, or going along with the crowd, is a unique phenomenon that manifests itself in our thoughts and behaviors. It’s quite simple to identify countless examples of the power of conformity in virtually all aspects of social life. Conformity influences our opinions and relationships with others, often to a higher extent than we realize. It is posited that people generally conform to the group in order to fit in and avoid rejection or because they truly believe the group is more knowledgeable than they are. After analyzing numerous studies and experiments on the nature of conformity, one will find that the motive of social acceptance is the greatest driver of conformity.
In her article “The Needless Complexity of Academic Writing” published on October 26, 2015, Victoria Clayton argues that academics should not write to such a high level that they are not able to be understood by those who are not
Meyer, Michael, ed. Thinking and Writing About Literature. Second Edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001.
Imagine yourself in the middle of a rainforest, listen to the sounds around you, smell the fresh air, hear the wildlife; take that image and get rid of the trees around you, the sounds of wildlife, and the smell of fresh air. Instead of a rainforest you are now in the middle of a seemingly endless sea of trash and waste. The fresh scent in the air gone, the sprawling land of greenery and trees gone, and the sounds of the forest is reduced to the sound of heavy machinery trying vainly to reduce trash into smaller more compact waste.
...n. Many American shares a common image of not living in a finite world and are used to exponential growth in almost all aspects of that a developed country would attempt to obtain positively. Though when comparing the United States to other countries around the world with the amount of garbage produced annually, we top the scales around two hundred and thirty-six million tons. Even japan, ranked third and half the size of America, has less then fifty-five million tons of garbage annually. (Forbes) As we continue to diminish our sources at alarming rate, people often forget the treatment and infrastructure required to manage all our garbage. The sad but inevitable process of wiping out forests and preserved land for more space for urban living hugely hurts not only American population but foreign companies who wish to do future international business in our country.
While walking through the park last Sunday, I observed a shocking scene. There are two cans: one for recycling and one for trash. The recycling receptacle had only an empty Dr. Pepper can and a few used Ozarka water bottles. On the other hand, the trash can had a plethora of half eaten meals, wrappers, banana peels and disgustingly even bottles, cans, newspapers and plastics that could have been recycled. Because people do not understand or do not care to understand about conserving our resources, many reusable items are being put in landfills when recycling these items could help save the environment.