Narrative Paragraph

I woke up to my alarm. I pondered that I had gotten more sleep or slept for more consecutive hours than I did the past five nights. I checked the weather: cold enough to wear pants. I responded to two snapchats. After getting dressed, I got my backpack together with all the notebooks I needed, noting that today only required my laptop. In the kitchen, I started making my breakfast. I had planned to make a nice full meal for Friday morning so I did; I got out all the ingredients and went to work. The fire alarm promptly went off and I sprinted to stop it. My roommates probably woke up. I finished making my breakfast, left my apartment, locked the door, walked through the woods to my bus stop, got on the bus, started playing music in my headphones, and ignored the eye contact of a semi-friend semi-acquaintance so we wouldn’t have to deal with the small talk that came with it. I got off the bus and called my friend back who had called me while on the bus. We talked while I walked to my lab and then as I sat down in my low seat I ended the call to remain professional.

List of categories

-Traveling

-Social

-Tasks/Getting Ready

-Thinking

Social Exposition Paragraph

The social interactions I made in a day consisted of different forms of interacting with people: in person, over the phone, avoiding interaction, and shared experiences and cause and effect without direct contact either physical or verbal. I am the first to wake up in my apartment, and today I accidentally set off the fire alarm twice while preparing my breakfast. While my roommates remained in their rooms silently, I include this as an interaction because my activities impacted their day, likely waking them up earlier than they wanted, disturbing their sleep and effecting the rest of their day. Then I consider phone calls, text, and social media messages to be interacting too. I called my friend from highschool back on the phone after I had to decline her call on the bus. We conversed as I walked to my lab in the morning from the bus stop. I also avoided saying hello to a person on the bus whom I only know in glacing passes.

I woke up.

I showered.

I got dressed

I made two waffles and a banana for breakfast.

I brushed my teeth and put on deodorant.

I left my apartment to catch the bus.

I got on the bus.

I arrived on campus for my Physics class.

I worked on in-class problems the whole time.

Class ended so I went to sit in the ILC to do work until 11:15.

At 11:15, I went to Blue Wall to eat.

I left Blue Wall to go to class.

I arrived to my 12:20 pm class at noon.

I sat with my friend.

I took notes.

I left class when it was over to go to my lab class.

In lab, I dissected zebrafish brain.

I ate dinner after lab was over.

I went back to my apartment and did homework.

I watched TV.

I left for tryouts.

I evaluated players trying out.

Tryouts ended.

I went back to my apartment.

I showered.

I did more work and watched more TV.

I brushed my teeth.

I went to bed.

Category 1: Activities done at my apartment ~ 5 hours

Category 2: Activities done on campus ~ 12 hours

Narrative Paragraph:

    I woke up to the sound of my alarm. I quickly reached below my lofted bed to my desk and turned off the phone alarm, since my roomate was still sleeping. I got out of bed and turned on my coffee maker that I had prepped the night before. While the coffee maker was brewing, I showered and dressed, then sat down at my desk to review some last minute work before heading to class. I looked at the weather before I left, and put on a sweater since it appeared to be a bit cold out. I walked to my first class-history 264 in Herter Hall. After class, I ate breakfast at Worcester and returned to my room, and then worked on a paragraph for biology 312. 

Categories:

• Preperation
  • Shower
  • Dress
• Movement
  • Walk to Herter
  • Walk to breakfast
  • Return to room
• Work
  • Schoolwork before history
  • Paragraph before 312
• Nutrition
  • Coffee
  • Breakfast

Expository Paragraph:

    As a student at UMass Amherst, the sprawling campus and variety of buildings assigned per class requires a decent amount of travel. Just this morning, my day began walking from my dorm room in the northeast residential area to Herter Hall, about a 15 minute walk across campus. After this class had finished, I walked to Worcester dining commons, located fairly close to my dorm. After this, I walked from the dining common to my room. I remained in my room for several hours until it was time for my next class. From my dorm room I walked to Morrill III, where I am currently located. My life as a UMass Amherst student is full of walking on any given day, and I will be walking much more over the remaining year.

One longstanding debate in the field of biology is whether or not viruses should be considered living organisms.  Viruses are composed of a protien coat with genetic material contained on the inside.  The genetic material can vary from segments of RNA to DNA depending on the type of virus. Unlike all other species not debated as "living," viruses lack the ability to reproduce on their own because of their design.  Instead, viruses are only able to reproduce or replicate within a host.  By using the machinery present in their host cells, they are able replicate and spread the virus.  For those who believe viruses are not alive, this is one of the main points they cite: without a host cell, virsuses would not be able to survive therefore should not be considered alive.  The opposition believes viruses should be considered alive because of the success they have at infultrating their hosts and reproducing.  Like all other species considered to be living, success by a virus should be determined by their reproductive fitness.  Those who are not fit are removed from the population while those fit to survive pass on their ability to the next generation.  The niche that viruses find themselves in the ecosystem is one that they have remained in since long before their discovery.  Yes, viruses need a host but a host is their niche.  If they were not fit for this niche, they would not survive or exist in the living world but they do.

In Darwin's Theory of natural selection, there are three conditions that must be met for natural selection to occur.  First, there must be variation of the trait within the population.  Second, the trait must be hertiable therefore passed down to the offspring.  Finally, there must be an increase in reproductive sucess connected to having this trait.  One example of natural selection is the prevelence of lactose tolerance in humans.  First, there is variation in the trait because some humans are able to drink a glass of milk without any digestive complications while others are not.  Second, those who are able to drink milk are able to pass down this trait to their offspring.  Finally, having this trait leads to a greater reproductive sucess because there is access to a new food source and other dietary benefits.  As a result, there is a 5% fitness incease among the population who is able to digest lactose.  This adaptation has occured several times in populations from east Africa to Europe to the Middle East and India.  The sucess of the adaptation can also be seen in the gene flow that passes this trait around the world.  

The pharmaceutical industry is often vilified in today's society as greedy, cold, and evil. Of course, simply looking at prices of drugs can reinforce this thought. These are life-saving medications, after all, and clearly people aren't able to afford these outrageous costs. To properly understand this pricing absurdity, it is crucial to also understand the process of drug approval by the FDA. The FDA rightfully mandates that drugs go through stages of development-referred as the pipeline in the industry-to ensure efficacy, safety, and reproducibility. Throughout the journey of identification, R&D, and clinical trials, the cost to bring a drug successfully to market is around $2.6 billion. In addition to this, only ~12% of drugs that are presented to the FDA for clinical development are approved. Just this year, only 26 drugs have been approved. Considering the number of drug companies throughout the United States, this number is extremely low. It is only logical that with such a market that these drug companies are forced into, prices of drugs that are actually approved need to be as high as possible to ensure profitability. Instead of the rhetoric heard around the country today that vilifies big pharma, maybe the conversation should be shifted to the broken healthcare system that encourages this kind of behavior in the first place.

The Monophagous leaf‐mining larvae of Stigmella (Lepidoptera: Nepticulidae) on birch article is structured with a Level 2 title as it was bold with upper and lower case letters; centered on the left side. The other article was structured with a Level 1 title as it was centered and bold with upper and lowercase letters.  The structure of the sections play different roles in each article. In the Monophagous leaf‐mining larvae of Stigmella (Lepidoptera: Nepticulidae) on birch article, the sections are structured in a more ideal scientific writing pattern. The article starts with an introduction followed by methods, two specific subsections, results and discussion. It is very organized and easy to find sections. Each section starts with a topic sentence that introduces what the section will be written about. The points in the sections also flow concurrently. There is not really a topic sentence for the subsections. There is a bolded line above each subsection to describe what will be talked about. The second article, Smart behavior of true slime mold in a labyrinth, was organized in a different way. It was a shorter article that was organized by topics that showed the progress of the experiment. It was less structured than the initial article and seemed more of a reflection than a scientific article. The sections followed the basic structure of introduction, background info and results but each new point was just separated into its own subsection. Both articles had different ways of formatting their information but they both included the same information for the articles. 

Each section starts with a topic sentence that introduces what the section will be written about. The points in the sections also flow concurrently. There is not really a topic sentence for the subsections. There is a bolded line above each subsection to describe what will be talked about. The second article, Smart behavior of true slime mold in a labyrinth, was organized in a different way. It was a shorter article that was organized by topics that the progress of the experiment. It was less structured than the initial article and seemed more of a reflection than a scientific article. The sections followed the basic structure of introduction, background info and results but each new point was just separated into its own subsection. Both articles had different ways of formatting their information but they both included the same information for the articles.