Research Question

I think I want to write something about how cancer affects people.  I've become very interested in this topic because my mom has been diagnosed with cancer recently.

How does cancer mentally affect people?
With this topic, I could write about the two main paths that cancer patients usually go down (mentally):  the path where they have a more positive outlook on life and the path where they are very depressed.

How does chemotherapy affect patients?
I would write about the psychological and physical effects that chemotherapy has on cancer patients, the success rate that chemotherapy has, different types of chemotherapy, the drugs that are used in chemotherapy, etc.

How does having cancer positively change a person's outlook on life?
If my first topic question is too long, I would choose this topic.  I'd like to write on only the positive effects, but I'm afraid my paper won't be long enough.  Also, I could use personal examples because my mom has a more positive outlook now that she has gone through this process.

Something Borrowed

In "Something Borrowed," Gladwell supports the claim that plagiarism is copying someone's work for purposes other than to use "old words in the service of a new idea" (73).  By this, Gladwell gets the points across that through plagiarism, society has expanded upon many more ideas, has generally acquired more information, and has attained better results.  For example, many songs have very similar resemblances to pieces of music that were recorded before them; some of these later songs have helped establish a particular genre, such as "Smells Like Team Spirit" (thought to be originally derived from "More Than a Feeling") (70).  Gladwell goes on to say that plagiarism can be considered a compliment in some cases.  However, most people who's work has been plagiarized are very cold about it because they feel like the plagiarizer stole their creativity and won't give them credit for it.  Another form of plagiarism that is examined in this piece is essentially stealing someone's identity.

I thought that this piece was boring and I found myself becoming distracted while reading it.  I thought that the part about how plagiarized music is often dismissed by the court system to be a little interesting but the rest of it was really dull.