As the class went on, the object of the assignments moves step by step to write the final portfolio. I spent so much time finding a topic for the research paper. But nothing came across my mind for a long time. For the first topic, I wanted to talk about why the medical cost of the United States is so expensive. I did not come up with any other topic, but only this one. The reason I chose this topic is because a thought arose from my friend’s experience. My friend’s story starts from drinking alcohol. He was drunk further than a normal weekend. He was blacked out and fell down in the bathroom of his room. As soon as his roommate found him fell down in the bathroom, his roommate asked help to his RA (Resistance Assistance). The RA just called the ambulance and took him to a hospital. In hospital, the doctor just asked him basic information, such as age, which school he is going to, and whether he has insurance or not, etc. How in earth the drunk could answer those questions properly. A few days later, bill from the hospital charged him $2000. As a student studying in United States away from my country, his story in the hospital which cost him $2,000 for a single night with nothing cured and treated inappropriately, made me surprised. That was too different from the services in Korea. It could not be the reason to take him to the hospital, or would cost nothing in Korea. Therefore, I wanted to study more about the medical cost in the United States in detail.
I started to research and collect plenty of data about how expensive the medical costs of the United States. Many tables and charts were available for the research. While searching, it was interesting to study more about United States. Because before I came to here, I only knew that United States is one of the best developed countries and had a fantasy that it may be perfect in all aspect. It was exciting when I saw a data that Americans are avoiding attending to medical conditions or symptoms because they could not afford treatment or were worried about potential costs, even if they had insurance. The most impressing data was a research paper that compared the medical cost of United States and other OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries about specific treatment or surgery.
I started to write the introduction with my friend’s experience so that the introduction may attract the reader’s interest. In the first peer review, I brought the paper which was written only the introduction and some of the body. Two classmates praised that my introduction part was interesting and good enough to catch the reader’s attention. So, I kept the writing with confidence. When I finished writing the introduction of my research paper, and researching sources, I suddenly realized that my research paper is not aiming at a particular area, and it was quite hard to narrow my topic to specific area, also it was hard to create critical research question. “Medical cost of the United States of America is so expensive.” It’s just what it is. I could not put any critical thinking. I tried to finish the paper by suggesting solutions, but when I do that, this research paper would be too professional. Then, I gave up on this. I decided to re-write the whole thing from choosing the topic.
I did not know what to do next, I really needed help choosing topic. So I went to the professor’s office hour and talked him to get help. He suggested me to see the list of topics and pick something that sounds interesting to me. Actually, there was nothing sounds interesting to me. But I had to pick something, I picked analyzing death. He suggested me to write about death related with the ritual in Korea and the mummy in Egypt, for the reason that they both have common that the people wanted a dead person to have good time after death. I think it was pretty interesting, because I could write about my country and something that I am familiar with. He gave me the directions that I should go for the new research paper, with various sources including a few scholarly text and a National Geographic documentary in YouTube. Through the short conversation with the professor, I was relaxed because he suggested me good sources. I searched the Egyptian ritual and mummies on the internet for other sources for a couple of hours.
As I searched more and more, I got bored more and more. I felt like I do not have any interest on it. While searching for the sources about death, death penalty appeared on the related search, and it got my attention. I felt more interest to it and thought it would have more sources than analyzing death. Although, changing the topic so many times does not have any advantages for my paper, but I felt frustrated. So I decided to change the research topic to death penalty.
Death penalty reminded me of the prison break that I used to watch when I was free. I was so absorbed in it that I watched the whole series three times. Prison break is a story about two brothers. Lincoln Burrows, the older brother, was sentenced to death penalty in three months for the guilty of killing the vice president’s brother. When Michael Scofield, the younger brother, knew that his older brother was set up by a black company and overall innocent, he commits crime on purpose and tries to get himself in the same prison with Lincoln, and finally break him out of the prison. I started to Comment by 나: Needs to be fixed Comment by 나: Necessary in reflective?
It was not hard to search for arguments between the pros and cons. The opinions of the two were clear. But I was not sure how to arrange those opinions in my paper. I should figure that out. Comment by 나: More about current paper
Through this class, working on the paper, I gained searching skill to seek for the proper sources, as well as writing skill. Comment by 나: grammar
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