United States

Draft

The problems with our water sources around the world and the United States are an ongoing issue, but right here in Texas we’re seeing the affects too. Only a year ago in Lake Jackson we were told to stop drinking water and taking showers due to a brain-eating amoeba in our water. If something like this can get into our water sources what else are we drinking and bathing in. There are too many factors that are destroying the water around us which I see every week. Being an avid hunter and fisherman, I see not only what is happening naturally, but also what is being caused by humans themselves. There isn’t a time I go out to fish or hunt that I don’t see litter, dead fish along with other dead creatures, and chemicals floating in areas that shouldn’t be in the water. Everywhere you turn you can see where people just don’t consider the damage, they are causing that lingers into our everyday lives. We are all being affected by these issues, and it doesn’t stop there.
Texas A&M Today released an article of how children are showing up with high blood lead levels. Lead poisoning is coming not only from the water, but also in the food as well. When you think about our water being contaminated do you think about how far this goes to affect everything around us? In the waters around Texas, we have seafood and freshwater fish of course, but these waters are running off into crops as well. If the contaminated water reaches crops it taking a toll on the foods, we eat daily as well. Whether it be canned, frozen, or fresh all of these contain something that has come from the earth, but if the water is poisoning everything then we are slowly being poisoned too.
We need to start looking at how we can make changes to our everyday lives to help protect ourselves and each other from health issues we haven’t even faced yet. If one person out of ten cared to say and do something about the water crisis then that alone would be a huge step in the right direction. Where will we be in just a few short years if we continuously poison our own water sources and the chemicals to filter these are not compatible to disinfect the water? I think we need to take a harder look at what is happening to the water around us before we all end up like come species growing extra limbs and having a shorter life expectancy.

⦁ Type of paper due
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⦁ Unit 3 Paper: Annotated Bibliography – Due
11:59 PM
For this assignment, you will compose an annotated bibliography that presents a well-researched position on an environmental or sustainability issue of your choice.

Your bibliography should aim to either gain the reader’s agreement about a certain environmental or sustainability concern or delineate a course of action for addressing that concern by establishing its preeminent importance among competing environmental and/or sustainability goals. Choose as a starting point a single article which presents a claim with which you will side either with or against. Establish your own claim—in agreement or disagreement with your chosen article—and support your position via research-based reasons and evidence as well as justification arguments (see “Writing a Classical Argument” and “Proposing a Solution,” respectively). Your initial article should not be one that we have read together for this class.

This assignment builds upon the skills of research, exposition, summary, analysis, and synthesis learned in previous units, but adds the task of developing a classical argument. The objectives of the Annotated Bibliography are to:
⦁ Choose an environmental or sustainability topic that will lead to productive scholarly work
⦁ Create MLA citations that will assist others in locating your sources
⦁ Effectively summarize each source to reflect its purpose, audience, and context
⦁ Critically evaluate each source to identify how useful it is to you, as well as to future scholars
In addition to your initial article, your bibliography must contain a minimum of seven secondary sources, at least three of which must be peer-reviewed scholarly articles and at least two of which must be reliable popular-press sources (newspapers, magazines, etc.). Whether you agree or disagree with the position of your initial article, you should include at least two sources that support your position, as well as one source representing an opposing perspective, which you will counter directly. You may use any relevant sources that you identified in Short Write #6 in your final bibliography.

Keep in mind that not all articles discussing your chosen topic will be relevant to your particular argumentative focus. Do not include every source you consult in your bibliography, especially ones that are overly tangential or don’t help to advance your argument.

You are welcome to use more than the minimum number of sources. The annotation for each source should be one to two paragraphs in length and include:
1. A citation in correct MLA format
2. A one-sentence summary of the source as a whole
3. A 2-4 sentence summary of the source’s content and argument
4. A 2-3 sentence evaluation and analysis of the source, including how it is useful in relation to your research question
The best annotated bibliographies will also include, for at least some entries, a discussion of how the source relates to other sources in the bibliography.

Your bibliography must also include a 500-700 word “Synthesis” section that discusses how you approached your research topic and what you expected to find, as well as an explanation (based on your findings and the connections you are able to draw between sources) of how you would proceed to construct a classical argument in a full-length paper. Be sure to include your intended thesis statement at the top of the bibliography.
Unit 3 Paper: Annotated Bibliography
Due December 10 at 11:59 PM

Starts Oct 19, 2021 12:00 AM

I will be talking about the amoeba in Lake Jackson that was found in our water sources. I will be persuading how water pollution is affecting our water sources. There is lead poising in children due to water sources which was published by Texas A&M. The Hill talks about the “Toxic Cocktail” linked to cancer found in our water sources as well. All an all, Texas water system is failing us and our health with this invisible death sentence.

Work cited:

Randall, Keith. “Texas A&M Geochemist Identifies Sources Of Lead Poisoning In Children.” Texas A&M Today, 19 Nov. 2021, today.tamu.edu/2021/11/19/texas-am-geochemist-identifies-sources-of-lead-poisoning-in-children.
Douglas, Erin. “‘People Have Already Died’: In Houston, Residents Demand Relief from Chronic Pollution during EPA Chief’s Visit.” The Texas Tribune, 19 Nov. 2021, www.texastribune.org/2021/11/19/texas-pollution-epa-regan-houston.
Udasin, Sharon. “Millions Consuming ‘invisible Toxic Cocktail’ of Cancer-Linked Chemicals: Study.” TheHill, 4 Nov. 2021, thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/579857-millions-consuming-invisible-toxic-cocktail-of-cancer.
Willey, Jessica, and Courtney Fischer. “Lake Jackson Water Crisis: Gov. Greg Abbott Visits City after Amoeba Found in Water Supply.” ABC13 Houston, 30 Sept. 2020, abc13.com/gov-greg-abbott-brain-eating-amoeba-bad-water-supply-warning/6649079