Essay

"Why Trees Matter"
By Jim Robbins
nytimes.com

People may not realize how important some factors of our environment are to life. In the article Why Trees Matter, by Jim Robbins, there are many ways in which the author describes different reasons as to why trees matter.

One reason why trees are important is because they supply other animals with food. For example, something that not many people knew was that trees release an acid into the ocean that provides food for plankton. This leads to the whole food chain "thriving" more because all of the populations above the plankton are helped as well. Trees also give termites wood, and give all living things oxygen.

Another reason why trees are very important to the environment is because trees do things for our bodies. When you take a walk in the park where there are a lot of trees, the level of stress chemicals in your body decrease and the level of fighting cells in your immune system. Trees also release a lot of other chemical "clouds" that are good for you, chemicals that help the climate and our bodies. The main chemical in Apsrin comes from willow trees. Another chemical that comes from trees, taxane, has been a successful treatment of some cancers.

From this article, I've learned that we really should preserve our environment, because trees are very important to nature. People shouldn't be cutting down trees and building buildings, they should be thankful that we have such a reliable source to fix many of earths problems.

Plagiarism Questions

What did the student do wrong? What could he/she have done to include the source correctly?
The student plagiarized someone elses writing! They just copy and pasted someones work and called it their own without even citing any sources as to where they got it from. The student could have used the work they took from someone else as a quote, and then cited the website they got it from or who wrote it in the first place.

Write a sentence using the original source correctly; use a quotation or paraphrase.
"There is a peaceful essence flowing from the structures. Perhaps the cool dark colors and the fiery windows spark memories of our own warm childhood years filled with imagination of what exists in the night and dark starry skies. The center point of the town is the tall steeple of the church, reigning largely over the smaller buildings. This steeple casts down a sense of stability onto the town, and also creates a sense of size and seclusion.To the left of the painting there is a massive dark structure that develops an even greater sense of size and isolation." (A Breif Understanding of the Starry Night Paintings, unknown author).

What are at least three ways to avoid plagiarism?

1. Make sure you cite all sources if you took writing from someone else

2. Don't try to copy other people's work in the first place

3. Type what you wrote in a search box and check if it was used by someone else already

2 Favorite Blog Posts

My two favorite blog posts out of everyone on the list had to be Gabby's and Eliza's. In Gabby's post about social issues in Glass by Ellen Hopkins, I really enjoyed how she goes deeper into the story than what's just written in the book. She makes a lot of inferences and backs them up well with elaboration and textual evidence. Another thing I liked about Gabby's post was how she took different elements of her main idea and broke them up into different sections of the post, instead of just cramming them into one big paragraph. This made it a lot easier for a reader to follow and understand. In Eliza's post, I really like how she analyzes the two characters and compare-and-contrasts them. It really shows that she has a true understanding of each individual character. I also like how Eliza asks questions at the end of the post. I admire the fact that she really wants to make a connection with the reader.

In my future blog posts, I definitely will make some changes, and take pointers from these blogs. I'm going to make sure to have textual evidence at all times, and maybe even include some quotes, like Gabby. I'll elaborate with much detail but make sure to get to the point and not go off topic. To improve my blog posts I'll also try and take little pieces of the book that I'm reading (like two specific chraracters) and compare and contrast them, instead of just doing a review-like post on the whole book, like Eliza. I'll also maybe even ask questions at the end of the post about what the reader thinks.