Research+Journal

Journal #1- For your first journal, summarize what loss of innocence is. Then, consider someone ** you know locally ** who has endured a tragic or life-changing event that led to his or her loss of innocence. Who is this person, what did he or she experience, and how did it change that person? You may write about a personal experience of your own. You do not have to know the individual personally; perhaps you have heard of this person in the news or from friends. If you do not know the person's name or you think the person would not like his or her name to be known at this time, you may leave out the name of the individual. Write as much about this person and his or her experience as possible.

The loss of innocence is when someone either grows up or losses their innocence. Something like being able to drive could be consider losing your innocence because you have never drove before. There is many ways that you can lose your innocence I have chosen a girl named Taylor. Taylor was diagnosed with brain cancer at the age of 7. They didn't think that she was going to make it, but she did. When she was diagnosed she couldn't believe it. They told her that she might never be able to talk again or function the way that she was on a normal day. They didn't know what top do but they immediatly had her coming in for doctor's appointments and check ups. They had her on pills, patches, and anything you could think of. She had to lost her innocence by having to grow up faster than she ever thought before. She had to do and not do many of the things that kids her age did/ She couldn't play sports, she couldn't eat certin things, and she had to take 20 more pills than anyone who did. Taylor lost her hair, and started to degress in progress time after time. When she was 8 she had went into a comma and immediatly they thought she was dead. When they rushed her in they got her to wake up and then went in and tried to get the cancer out of her body. There was an 18 hour sugary plus time to wake her up. They thought she was a goner, and she wasn't. She had woke up and was cancer free. She has now been cancer free for 19 years and lives like a normal human. She still has to take medication to receive some of the nutrients that she lost during her kemo, but now she lives like we all do today and is a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader. I am very proud to call Taylor a dear friend of mine.

Journal #2- Draft 10 questions you will use to interview your subject for your research. These should be questions that you should have answered by the end of your research. The questions should outline the fine details of the person, their experience, the background of the event, and how they have changed.

1. Do you remember how you acted when you heard you were diagnosed? If so, how did that emotion change the way you thought about the future?

2. How did your process of trying to get rid of the cancer effect both you and your family? Did this change the way you lived at home?

3. What were you feeling while going through all of this? Do you remember how your family members felt about your suffering?

4. You were a fighter, had to you get to the mindset to say, hey, I am going to get better and I am not going to give up?

5. What was it like being in sugary for 18 hours?!

6. While you were battling cancer, what kind of obsticles did you face in your everyday life?

7. Did you understand that you had caner or how dangerous and deadly it was at that young of an age? How did you feel about it?

8. Did the doctors and people around you try to help you understand what you have to do in order to get back to living your everyday normal life? Did you respond to that well of not? Why?

9. Since you have been cancer free for 19 years, how does it feel to be living your normal life again?

10. Did you impact anyone elses life after you were cancer free? If so how did that make you feel knowing that you are making a difference?

11. How did you find having cancer as a learning experience, or didn't you? Why?

Journal #3- What factual information will you need to describe your person's loss of innocence beside from the direct questions you have for their change from before to after the event? Next, do a simple search on those topics and consider terminology and statistics. For the simple search, use Google, dictionary, and encyclopedia websites. Make a list of the terms that you researched, and briefly explain your examples and where you could locate that information.

To describe Taylor's loss of innocence I am going to have to research her type of cancer which was brain cancer. I am going to have to learn all of the things hat happen after you realize that you have cancer. What would be the sideafects to having cancer like hair loss and etc. I want to know how brain cancer can effect the way you function on an everyday basis. Brain cancer seems to be one of the worse types of cancer and I just want to know a lot more about it. I need to research how she can get brain cancer whether it would be from family or just recieve it. I am going to use Google, Gale Database, SIRS Database, and the dictionary. I can use them to research different articles that doctors have wrote so that I know it is coming from a reliable source. I can get all the factual information that I need. I am going to figure out how the kemo happens and how they get the cancer out of the brain without damaging any other part of her body. I think there are many things that could go wrong but I want to know how the prosedure went and I think that maybe if I researched it hard enough I could come up with an answer. I think that if I could find other people's stories I could compare them to Taylor's and figure out exactly what the moments of getting the cancer out is like. Luckily, I get to interview Taylor this coming week.

Journal #4- How will you interview the individual? Will the interview take place face-to-face? Will they respond to the questions verbally or in writing? For some of the questions you ask your subjects(s), you will paraphrase what they say. In some cases you will summarize their responses. You might even quote them directly. Define paraphrasing, summarizing, and quoting as these pertain directly to research and writing. Finally, share any worries or concerns you have with this assignment. These can include concerns you have about the interview or about the project overall.

I will interview her by talking on the phone and through emails. I feel that since she lives all the way in Dallas that it’s very hard to communicate her. She will both respond in writing and verbally because I feel that having two different types of communication are important because of the fact that I can specifically get all of the information. PARAPHRASING: Putting their words into your own and making sure that your words are expressing how they portrayed something. SUMMARIZING: Taking the broad idea and putting it into a brief description that explains exactly what happened but shorter. QUOTING: You using the person’s original words and putting “” around it so that the other people know that it is coming from that one person.

I do worry that the paper is not going to be everything that I want it to be. I feel that Taylor is such an amazing person and I don’t want to disappoint her when her story is so amazing. I also worry that I am not going to get the same feeling from talking to her on the phone and reading emails that I would if I was interviewing her face to face. I really want this to be the best that i can make it, and I think that if it was face to face I would have a better feeling to how much pain she suffered. The things is, she lives in Dallas and I can’t go and visit her and she can’t leave the Dallas Cowboy cheerleading practices to come visit me. It is just upsetting to me, but I am going to try to make it my best.

Journal #5-

For any research project that is created, it is important to not only gather the information needed but to also effectively scale down the information to bolster the most essential points. With your most recent interview, you have already begun to gather information on your topic. Now, you should begin to take a look at what you can already discard from what you have gained.

In this journal, you need to create three parts. Each part is designed to get your information into a directed focus. Take the information and/or direct quotes from your interview and divide them into these three sections: Quotes/Information I definitely want to incorporate, Quotes/Information I possibly want to use, and Quotes/Information I will most likely not utilize.

After you have sorted your interview into three parts, devise a correct MLA formatted citation for the interview you composed. See the formatting guide below.

*Note- I cannot stop you from using citation generators; however, be extremely cautious when using them. CHECK for accuracy before you post your citation. Many generators do not use updated formatting. Remember, you are smarter than a computer! :)

I want to incorporate- -It was the worst pain I have ever felt in my life -I was so shocked, I didn't know what to think at that point in time -My lfie was ruined I was the only girl in my grade who has ever experienced something as serious as this. The problem is that everyone made fun of me, and I didn't understand why. -Being where I am today I think it makes a big impact on my ways of thinking, you can do anything that you set your mind to. -The experience has made me a stronger person and I don't take anything for granted.

Things I may incorporate- -I needed to make a change in how I veiwed things, I couldn't keep looking at the negative, I had to look at the positive. -The ways that I needed to become stronger was tough. I honestly thought I was a goner. -I'll tell ya, that surgary was one of the longest things that I have ever experienced even though it felt like 2 seconds. - I love my family, but it seemed like they didn't want to get near me, I never understood why until I grew older. I guess when your hurt you push away from the things that is hurting you the most. -I felt like I was letting everyone down.

Things I won't incorporate- -That doctor was really hot, that's all I could think of at the point. -I didn't get why everyone was staring at me like I was from a different planet. -Why did everyone think I was going to give it to them? You can't give cancer to someone by touching them? I don't get it.