Aalia Harris
English
May 17, 2018
Professor Ellis
Portfolio Reflection
I believe that I have do some very great work within this work, but also some of my worse. This class has helped me fix and reevaluate what steps I need to take when writing certain essays, especially analytical ones. My best work within this class has been my literacy narrative. When I’m writing, not worrying about structure or evidence, I’m able to write my best work. You can hear my voice through the words of the paper. My worse paper had to be my Research Critical Analysis. Writing papers with strict structure has always been a problem for me, especially when I must pick my topic. The topic I chose was the worst part, I chose a topic that is challenging to write about and you can’t just choose one side easily.
This class has been challenging for me due to how self-critical I am to my writing. I always nitpick at the smallest details, but most of the time this is a bad thing because I keep changing the essays around which makes me submit things late because I don’t feel as if I’m giving in my best work. I feel as I haven’t grown on this or improved on this problem since taking this class in the begging of the school year. Hopefully, I will be able to change this problem in the near future. This class has helped me know what topics I should choose, and topics I should avoid, mainly ones that are not really talks about, or ones that has too many factors to taken account of. I will be able to take what I have learned from this class and use it in future papers. I feel this class has helped shown me my problems within writing and helped get rid of those problems.

Aalia Harris

Professor C. Ellis

Freshman Composition

March 15, 2019

Draft 1

             If you were bored 50 years ago, your parents would tell you to go outside and play or read a book, now a child can just turn on the television or gaming system and be entertained for hours.  Children are now spending so much time watching different things, they can easily slip in violent and graphic content that their parents don’t catch. These graphic images can affect young influential minds in many negative ways. I believe that there should be censorship within television and video games but to an extent.

Aalia Harris
English
Professor C. Ellis
April 29, 2019
Censorship: The Killer of Information Draft 2
Just a few minutes ago, you probably did something that would put you in jail in other countries. Many people don’t realize what privileges they have, that other countries do not. That privilege is the access to free internet. Many countries still do not have uncensored access to the internet, such as Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Iran, and China. The government in these are censoring everything they see and checking to see if the information goes against what they want you to know or see. I believe that countries should have access to free media.
Censorship is suppressing words, images, and ideas from people due to being unsuitable to the public eye. The act of censorship is usually done by a group in power. Censorship has been around since the mass spread of information, around 1440, when the printing press was created. Many groups in power throughout history have censored others, such as The Roman Catholic Church, Hitler and the Nazis, and many modern countries. This is quite shocking because we live in a world that information is spread quickly like fire in a dry forest. Yet many countries are still blocked from this information.
Censorship causes many problems, such as preventing the spread of information. If a country can control what is seen on the internet, then they may block anything they deem unsuitable. The country may choose to block important information, that is vital to the citizens from around the world. Countries can cover up problems within the country by limiting the access to that information. This can lead to propaganda within the country, which allows the government to manipulate their citizens and they don’t have access to information that can debunk these rumors. Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman states, “Repression is not necessary if mass beliefs can be manipulated sufficiently by means of censorship, co-optation, and propaganda.” This demonstrates that the government in the countries that are using censorship could block their citizens from information from the outside world, and then strengthen their power over their people by manipulating them with propaganda.
Censorship can hurt businesses as well. When a country censors what a business is selling, the company loses millions of customers. Since the government is not allowing the product or service in the country, this causes the citizens of the country to not be able to buy the service or product. Therefore, company is losing money, which hurts the business. Simon Denyer states, “Apple was an early victim, announcing in April that its iTunes Movies and iBooks services were no longer available in China, six months after their launch here (though shortly after it announced a $1 billion investment in a Chinese car service).” This illustrates a problem that is happening to many companies in many countries. Since these countries are preventing these companies to sell their services and/or products, the companies are losing millions of customers, which hurt the business.
Some believe that there should be censorship. They believe that there should be censorship due to the growing violence within media and the effect that it could have on adolescents and being violent. Massachusetts General Hospital has debunked this and has stated, “There has been extensive research and writing on the impact of violent movies and videos on behavior in kids. But research is clearly lacking on a direct causal relationship between violent video games and youth violence.” This illustrates that there is no link between media violence and violence within adolescents. So that claim is invalid. Massachusetts General Hospital has said that if a child is exposed to violent media and is showing violent behavior then you must look at other factors first. Also, if parents do not want their child being exposed to violent media then they use monitor what they are seeing. Its not the governments jobs to censor anything that the parent deems unsuitable for their child to see.
When a country has an internet shutdown, this a form of censorship because the government is preventing the citizens from having access it. Many countries such as Saudi Arabia, India, and Morocco, have internet and services shutdowns to censor their people. But doing this hurts these countries economically. It costs a lot of money to services and the internet down. Darrel West states, “Economic losses include $968 million in India, $465 million in Saudi Arabia, $320 million in Morocco, $209 million in Iraq, $116 million in Brazil, $72 million in the Republic of the Congo, $69 million in Pakistan, $69 million in Bangladesh, $48 million in Syria, $35 million in Turkey, and $20 million in Algeria, among other places.” The amount of money that countries spend on censoring their citizens are astounding. These countries could be using this money on other things, that their country needs. Using that excessive amount of money on censorship seems like a waste, and the cost for these censorships are rising.

Aalia Harris
English
Professor C. Ellis
April 29, 2019
Censorship: The Killer of Information
Just a few minutes ago, you probably did something that would put you in jail in other countries. Many people don’t realize what privileges they have, that other countries do not. That privilege is the access to free internet. Many countries still do not have uncensored access to the internet, such as Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Iran, and China. The government in these are censoring everything they see and checking to see if the information goes against what they want you to know or see. I believe that countries should have access to free media.
Censorship is suppressing words, images, and ideas from people due to being unsuitable to the public eye. The act of censorship is usually done by a group in power. Censorship has been around since the mass spread of information, around 1440, when the printing press was created. Many groups in power throughout history have censored others, such as The Roman Catholic Church, Hitler and the Nazis, and many modern countries. This is quite shocking because we live in a world that information is spread quickly like fire in a dry forest. Yet many countries are still blocked from this information.
Censorship causes many problems, such as preventing the spread of information. If a country can control what is seen on the internet, then they may block anything they deem unsuitable. The country may choose to block important information, that is vital to the citizens from around the world. Countries can cover up problems within the country by limiting the access to that information. This can lead to propaganda within the country, which allows the government to manipulate their citizens and they don’t have access to information that can debunk these rumors. Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman states, “Repression is not necessary if mass beliefs can be manipulated sufficiently by means of censorship, co-optation, and propaganda.” This demonstrates that the government in the countries that are using censorship could block their citizens from information from the outside world, and then strengthen their power over their people by manipulating them with propaganda.
Censorship can hurt businesses as well. When a country censors what a business is selling, the company loses millions of customers. Since the government is not allowing the product or service in the country, this causes the citizens of the country to not be able to buy the service or product. Therefore, company is losing money, which hurts the business. Simon Denyer states, “Apple was an early victim, announcing in April that its iTunes Movies and iBooks services were no longer available in China, six months after their launch here (though shortly after it announced a $1 billion investment in a Chinese car service).” This illustrates a problem that is happening to many companies in many countries. Since these countries are preventing these companies to sell their services and/or products, the companies are losing millions of customers, which hurt the business.
Some believe that there should be censorship. They believe that there should be censorship due to the growing violence within media and the effect that it could have on adolescents and being violent. Massachusetts General Hospital has debunked this and has stated, “There has been extensive research and writing on the impact of violent movies and videos on behavior in kids. But research is clearly lacking on a direct causal relationship between violent video games and youth violence.” This illustrates that there is no link between media violence and violence within adolescents. So that claim is invalid. Massachusetts General Hospital has said that if a child is exposed to violent media and is showing violent behavior then you must look at other factors first. Also, if parents do not want their child being exposed to violent media then they use monitor what they are seeing. Its not the governments jobs to censor anything that the parent deems unsuitable for their child to see.
When a country has an internet shutdown, this a form of censorship because the government is preventing the citizens from having access it. Many countries such as Saudi Arabia, India, and Morocco, have internet and services shutdowns to censor their people. But doing this hurts these countries economically. It costs a lot of money to services and the internet down. Darrel West states, “Economic losses include $968 million in India, $465 million in Saudi Arabia, $320 million in Morocco, $209 million in Iraq, $116 million in Brazil, $72 million in the Republic of the Congo, $69 million in Pakistan, $69 million in Bangladesh, $48 million in Syria, $35 million in Turkey, and $20 million in Algeria, among other places.” The amount of money that countries spend on censoring their citizens are astounding. These countries could be using this money on other things, that their country needs. Using that excessive amount of money on censorship seems like a waste, and the cost for these censorships are rising.
Allowing Censorship in countries strips citizens, in these countries from having freedom of speech and expression. If people are posting and sharing content that the country does not find suitable then they will block it, this is striping these people of their right to freedom of expression. Some people believe that there should be censorship, to block media from showing what people find unsuitable to media, which some countries do. Miles Kenyon states, “. In five of those countries, we found instances of LGBTQ-related content being blocked. The list of blocked pages is extensive and includes LGBT news and culture sites, HIV/AIDS organizations, and advocacy organizations like the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA).” This demonstrates countries censoring what they find unsuitable to public eye. This is negative because the government should not decide what is suitable for the public, it should be the public that decides.
The government should not dictate what you see within the media, yet so many countries are doing this. Censorship prevents people from expressing themselves and learning perinate information. Censorship can also hurt the countries economy and cause businesses to lose money. Censorship only benefits the government, and barely the people. That is why there should be not media censorship.

Aalia Harris

May 13, 2018

Research Critical Analysis Reflection

            This essay has been very stressful for me due to the topic I chose. I chose a topic that had too many factors to just puck one side. Censorship has too many factors that you have to investigate before picking a side as well. I did not do this when picking censorship as my topic, I just choose whichever side I could support and back with evidence better. This essay taught me to research your topics and see if you can support them with evidence. The research critical analysis was the first essay that I have ever been able to topic to support and analysis, now I know the topic you are research is important because you may not know if the topic you choose and whether it’s a good topic to analyze.

            The mistakes I have made in this essay was very avoidable, and I will make sure I will bring the knowledge I have learned from the mistakes I’ve made in the RCA to make my writing better in the future. This has been my least strongest Essay and I hope to be able to improve on my abilities to write these essays in the future.

Bloomberg, Bloomberg News |. “The Great Firewall of China.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 5 Nov. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-great-firewall-of-china/2018/11/05/5dc0f85a-e16d-11e8-ba30-a7ded04d8fac_story.html?utm_term=.68705a044178. . This article begins with stating most of the websites that westerner use in their everyday life but, people in China that are restricted in using. Bloomberg states that china has one of the strictest censorships in the world and have gotten even stricter in recent years. Many Chinese citizens are jailed for what seems like silly reasons like, posting a negative comment. The Chinese government has especially restricted foreign companies and websites. Bloomberg states that this censorship is preventing Chinese citizens from get vital global information. This article has given me a lot of useful information and evidence to use.

Kenyon, Miles, Senft, Adam, and Deibert, Ronald “Identities in the crosshairs—censoring LGBTQ internet content around the world” Open Global Rights 27, November 2018 https://www.openglobalrights.org/identities-in-the-crosshairs-censoring-LGBTQ-internet-content-around-the-world/This article states that if you lived in certain countries, LGBT terms like ‘gay or ‘lesbian’ are censored. These censorships are being blocked by a filtering technology made a Canadian company. It’s not a Canada filtering other countries, it’s other countries buying these technology to filter there citizen from ideas, that they feel that their citizens should not see. Some of these ideas being LGBT culture websites, HIV/AIDS organizations, and advocacy organizations.

 “Research Shows Violent Media Do Not Cause Violent Behavior.” Massachusetts General Hospital, 26 Dec. 2012, www.massgeneral.org/News/newsarticle.aspx?id=3929. This article speaks about how many people say that violent media leads to violent behavior, but research differs. They describe an experiment that was done to see if violent media cause violent behavior. They saw that even if a child had violent behavior after playing a violent video game it was merely correlation, so in other words it could be due to other reasons.

West, Darrell M. “Internet Shutdowns Cost Countries $2.4 Billion Last Year.” Brookings, Brookings, 15 Dec. 2016, www.brookings.edu/research/internet-shutdowns-cost-countries-2-4-billion-last-year/. This article talks about global cost it takes for internet shutdowns and censorship. West points out certain countries cost to have an internet shutdown. He also includes the amount internet interruption over the years and how the trend has been increasing. West includes the economic loss of internet shutdowns. This article gave me a lot of evidence to help back up my claims.

Denyer, Simon. “China’s Scary Lesson to the World: Censoring the Internet Works.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 23 May 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinas-scary-lesson-to-the-world-censoring-the-internet-works/2016/05/23/413afe78-fff3-11e5-8bb1-f124a43f84dc_story.html. In the beginning of this article, Denyer states that information cannot be held back forever, but China is doing everything in its power from letting that happen. As this time continues, China’s power in blocking censorship is getting stronger and they’re fixing the bugs and cracks. This is hurting companies because China is blocking their people from being able to access what thes companies are selling online. This means companies are losing over 1 billion customers.

Guriev, Sergei, and Daniel Treisman. “How Modern Dictators Survive: An Informational Theory of the New Authoritarianism.” 2015, doi:10.3386/w21136. This Journal talks about the use of information can keep dictators in power. The ‘information’ is mainly propaganda. The government censor’s worldwide information from their people and feed them information and lies that they want them to know. This leads to a mass of people lacking vital information, this propaganda puts the dictators in good light and keeps them in power, even if their reign in built on lies

Aalia Harris

ENGL 11000 CN3

Professor C. Ellis

February 9, 2019

                            Should Children’s Cartoon and Games be Censored? Draft 1

Children today are surrounded by technology of all sorts, from Televisions, to Gaming systems, to phones, to computers. Kids almost always has a source of entertainment in the form of technology. With this technology, more and more games and shows are being made to catch the attention of kids and get them hooked. With kids to spending so much time watching and playing these shows and games, should there be more censorship to protect these impressionable minds, and if so, what should the limitations on this censorship be?

 Since television was created there was always a debate on how much can be censored and whether that’s an infringement on the First Amendment, the law that people are entitled to their freedom of speech. If censorship is allowed, then the government can censor anything they deem not suitable for television. Just like how other countries censored LGBT moments within a children’s show Steven Universe. Erin Thurman from The Guardian states “That might be a question best addressed to Cartoon Network UK, which censored one of the show’s more explicitly gay moment.  The network edited the episode We Need to Talk to remove an intense moment when Pearl, one of the gems aggressively embraces Rose Quartz (Steven’s Mom) playing up their closeness as a way of making Greg (Steven’s Dad) jealous.” The government was able to censor what they deemed ‘not suitable for television’. This prevents people from expressing their opinions which infringes on their right to freedom of speech.

February 18, 2019

Should Children’s Cartoon and Games be Censored? Draft 2

Children today are surrounded by technology of all sorts, from Televisions, to Gaming systems, to phones, to computers. Kids almost always has a source of entertainment in the form of technology. With this technology, more and more games and shows are being made to catch the attention of kids and get them hooked. With kids to spending so much time watching and playing these shows and games, should there be more censorship to protect these impressionable minds, and if so, what should the limitations on this censorship be?

 Since television was created there was always a debate on how much can be censored and whether that’s an infringement on the First Amendment, the law that people are entitled to their freedom of speech. If censorship is allowed, then the government can censor anything they deem not suitable for television. Just like how other countries censored LGBT moments within a children’s show Steven Universe. Erin Thurman from The Guardian states “That might be a question best addressed to Cartoon Network UK, which censored one of the show’s more explicitly gay moment.  The network edited the episode We Need to Talk to remove an intense moment when Pearl, one of the gems aggressively embraces Rose Quartz (Steven’s Mom) playing up their closeness as a way of making Greg (Steven’s Dad) jealous.” The government was able to censor what they deemed ‘not suitable for television’. This prevents people from expressing their opinions which infringes on their right to freedom of speech.

The Government has even censored positive influences on television and pulled whole episodes from television due to the people within the episodes. Such as an episode in Arthur which contained Lance Armstrong, a profession road racer cyclist. Within this episode It included section in which Armstrong explained that he had been diagnosed with Cancer. The episode wasn’t pulled for talking about Cancer but instead because of Louis Armstrong’s doping scandal. They pulled a very informative episode due to a scandal revolving around the actor. The episode being pulled gave audiences a mixed opinion. Some people thought the episode shouldn’t have been pulled due to the information it gave but at the same time others thought it was good that it was being pulled due to the bad influence that the athlete gave. People did believe that the episode shouldn’t have been pulled since most kids would not even know what the episode was about.

Censorship also has its positives such as preventing children being exposed to graphic images. Children are young and impressionable, so exposing them at a young age to such graphic thing can have an impact psychologically. Dartmouth University stated in Science daily “The study builds on the research teams growing body of work that investigates the impact of video games on children’s behavior, including the link between mature-rated, risk-glorifying video games and deviant behavior (e.g., smoking, drinking, and risky sex). These messages showing bad habits can make them more likely to do so in the future, due to them being showed the main character do these things which are glorified in such games like Grand Theft Auto. These young Impressionable minds can also be shown violent images, that glorify violence, such Halo, Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, and other games along these lines, which can lead these kids to believe that violence is okay and cause more violent behavior. According to Psychology Today its states “In fact, there was enough research leading to this conclusion that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) published a policy statement in 2015 concluding that playing violent video games leads to more aggressive moods and behaviors and detracts from the players’ feeling of empathy and sensitivity to aggression.” This demonstrates that since children are being shown violence in a glorified manner, and a way to solve their problems than that they too can solve their problems with violence as well. Exposure to such images from drinking, smoking, and intercourse to killing, beating up people, and a lack of anger control can really leave a mark on kids’ psychology especially since their minds are young and vulnerable.

Suicide jokes have been in many well-loved cartoons, like Looney Tunes, and Tom and Jerry. Even though these cartoons are well-loved, it is not okay to expose children to suicide and normalize it. In an episode of Tom and Jerry called “Downhearted Duck” a duckling believes he is hideous and has suicidal thoughts and actions. This Duckling proceeds to try to kill himself in multiple ways such as killing himself with an axe and when that doesn’t work he asks Tom the cat to eat him. Another example of suicide within kids shows is in multiple episodes of Looney Tunes in which beloved characters enter a state of hopelessness and proceeds to blow their brains out because they feel as if they cannot do anything else to solve that problem that they are having or that what they saw was horrifying. Showing children such violent images can impact a developing child’s mind. Suicide within children’s cartoons can influence children into think that suicide is normal, that you can merely kill yourself if something goes wrong in life. This is not okay to show children and normalize. It can lead to many psychological problems and lead to violent behavior due to being shown guns. Being shown gun can impact a child mind and normalize guns.  In the article “Children influenced by gun violence in TV” Laura Kelly states “Researchers at Ohio State University showed one group of children a video with gun violence and a second group a video without images of guns or people using them. They then observed the children in a room where a real but disabled pistol was stored in a cabinet. Those who had watched the violent film held the gun longer and pulled the trigger more times than children who had watched the video without guns.” This shows how more how presenting guns to children at a young age can affect them to normalize guns and leading to children finding them more appealing. Kids who find guns more appealing are more likely to have violent tendencies. This is not good for the youth and the future of America due to the gun violence occurring now in America.

February 23, 2019

Should Children’s Cartoon and Games be Censored? Final

Children today are surrounded by technology of all sorts, from Televisions, to Gaming systems, to phones, to computers. Kids almost always has a source of entertainment in the form of technology. With this technology, more and more games and shows are being made to catch the attention of kids and get them hooked. With kids to spending so much time watching and playing these shows and games, should there be more censorship to protect these impressionable minds, and if so, what should the limitations on this censorship be?

 Since television was created there was always a debate on how much can be censored and whether that’s an infringement on the First Amendment, the law that people are entitled to their freedom of speech. If censorship is allowed, then the government can censor anything they deem not suitable for television. Just like how other countries censored LGBT moments within a children’s show Steven Universe. Erin Thurman from The Guardian states “That might be a question best addressed to Cartoon Network UK, which censored one of the show’s more explicitly gay moment.  The network edited the episode We Need to Talk to remove an intense moment when Pearl, one of the gems aggressively embraces Rose Quartz (Steven’s Mom) playing up their closeness as a way of making Greg (Steven’s Dad) jealous.” The government was able to censor what they deemed ‘not suitable for television’. This prevents people from expressing their opinions which infringes on their right to freedom of speech.

The Government has even censored positive influences on television and pulled whole episodes from television due to the people within the episodes. Such as an episode in Arthur which contained Lance Armstrong, a profession road racer cyclist. Within this episode It included section in which Armstrong explained that he had been diagnosed with Cancer. The episode wasn’t pulled for talking about Cancer but instead because of Louis Armstrong’s doping scandal. They pulled a very informative episode due to a scandal revolving around the actor. The episode being pulled gave audiences a mixed opinion. Some people thought the episode shouldn’t have been pulled due to the information it gave but at the same time others thought it was good that it was being pulled due to the bad influence that the athlete gave. People did believe that the episode shouldn’t have been pulled since most kids would not even know what the episode was about.

Censorship also has its positives such as preventing children being exposed to graphic images. Children are young and impressionable, so exposing them at a young age to such graphic thing can have an impact psychologically. Dartmouth University stated in Science daily “The study builds on the research teams growing body of work that investigates the impact of video games on children’s behavior, including the link between mature-rated, risk-glorifying video games and deviant behavior (e.g., smoking, drinking, and risky sex). These messages showing bad habits can make them more likely to do so in the future, due to them being showed the main character do these things which are glorified in such games like Grand Theft Auto. These young Impressionable minds can also be shown violent images, that glorify violence, such Halo, Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, and other games along these lines, which can lead these kids to believe that violence is okay and cause more violent behavior. According to Psychology Today its states “In fact, there was enough research leading to this conclusion that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) published a policy statement in 2015 concluding that playing violent video games leads to more aggressive moods and behaviors and detracts from the players’ feeling of empathy and sensitivity to aggression.” This demonstrates that since children are being shown violence in a glorified manner, and a way to solve their problems than that they too can solve their problems with violence as well. Exposure to such images from drinking, smoking, and intercourse to killing, beating up people, and a lack of anger control can really leave a mark on kids’ psychology especially since their minds are young and vulnerable.

Suicide jokes have been in many well-loved cartoons, like Looney Tunes, and Tom and Jerry. Even though these cartoons are well-loved, it is not okay to expose children to suicide and normalize it. In an episode of Tom and Jerry called “Downhearted Duck” a duckling believes he is hideous and has suicidal thoughts and actions. This Duckling proceeds to try to kill himself in multiple ways such as killing himself with an axe and when that doesn’t work he asks Tom the cat to eat him. Another example of suicide within kids shows is in multiple episodes of Looney Tunes in which beloved characters enter a state of hopelessness and proceeds to blow their brains out because they feel as if they cannot do anything else to solve that problem that they are having or that what they saw was horrifying. Showing children such violent images can impact a developing child’s mind. Suicide within children’s cartoons can influence children into think that suicide is normal, that you can merely kill yourself if something goes wrong in life. This is not okay to show children and normalize. It can lead to many psychological problems and lead to violent behavior due to being shown guns. Being shown gun can impact a child mind and normalize guns.  In the article “Children influenced by gun violence in TV” Laura Kelly states “Researchers at Ohio State University showed one group of children a video with gun violence and a second group a video without images of guns or people using them. They then observed the children in a room where a real but disabled pistol was stored in a cabinet. Those who had watched the violent film held the gun longer and pulled the trigger more times than children who had watched the video without guns.” This shows how more how presenting guns to children at a young age can affect them to normalize guns and leading to children finding them more appealing. Kids who find guns more appealing are more likely to have violent tendencies. This is not good for the youth and the future of America due to the gun violence occurring now in America.

            Most people believe that it’s the governments job to protect the youth of this world’s impressionable minds, when its not. It is the parent’s job to ensure that their child is not watching nor playing anything that can leave a harmful impact to the child’s mind.  The government can’t monitor whether a child has picked up a rated R game to play, It the parent’s job to ensure prevent this does not happen.  You can’t blame the government if your child switched to a rated R movie on television that’s the parent responsibility to educate their child to not watch nor play these types of games and movies till an appropriate age. Educating children and yourself on the risks of exposing themselves to such graphic images can help prevent the need for censorship.

            Censorship is what some people call a double-edged sword. It causes many positives like preventing the expose of graphic images to young impressionable minds but does infringe on the first amendment, which allows people the right to freedom of expression. Censorship has been apart of the world since books has been created from religious censorship, moved to cartoon drawing censorship to censorship with music, to censorship within television to video games, and now censorship within the internet. Censorship is a debate that has been around for centuries and will probably still be debated far into the future.

Exploratory Essay Reflection

            This essay has been a challenge for me due to the amount of research that is needed. I have always hated information-based essays due to research. I quite tedious for me to have to find an article relating to my topic, then make sure the source is credible and then find how to fit it perfectly into my essay with a smooth transition. I always run into the trouble of either having too much evidence yet not enough analysis of the evidence or too little evidence but way too much analysis. I need to work on having a solid balance of both to make my essay and thesis stronger. Another problem that I ran into with writing this essay was closing the essay up. I have always been taught that for your conclusion are supposed to sum up all your points, but in a college essay it seems lack luster to do so. It feels like a cop out conclusion. So, I spend a lot of this essay just revising my conclusion repeatedly.

            This essay was especially hard due to me trying to keep my opinion out of it but failing a lot. I am a very opinionated person who enjoys expressing this opinion, so to try to hold my opinions back was a challenge. I do not believe this essay was my strongest and I’m honestly disappointed in it. I know my standard and what I can do but this is not it. Next essay I will make sure to do better in the areas that I struggle with.