Fluent Essays

Write an annotate bibliography entry for the article Major in Happiness by Michael Edmondson (refer to the last two slides in the above power point). annotated_bibliography_ppt.pptx major_in_happiness.pdf Unformatted Attachment Preview ❖ ❖ The Annotated Bibliography follows the Works Cited page. Each entry of the AB includes two parts: 1) a works cited entry 2) a four-sentence annotation Create these four sentences for each AB entry: Sentence 1: Introduce the author by providing credentials that give credibility and by stating the thesis. ❖ Sentence 2: Identify the medium and genre of the text. Is this a book, a scholarly article, a government website, a video, a lecture, an interview, or a newspaper article? ❖ Sentence 3: List the types of evidence used in the text and explain how this evidence supports the main point. Does the author cite experts, use data, or refer to observations? ❖ Sentence 4: Identify the audience and purpose of the text. ❖ Introduce the author by providing credentials that give credibility and by stating the writer’s thesis or main point. Identify the medium and genre of the text. Ex: Is this a book, a scholarly article, a government website, a video, a lecture, an interview, or a newspaper article? List the types of evidence used in the text and explain how it supports the main point. Does the author cite experts, use data, or refer to personal observations? Identify the audience and purpose of the original text. Kotz, Deborah. “Women Sell Their Eggs, So Why Not a Kidney?” Perspectives on Contemporary Issues: Readings Across the Disciplines. 5th ed. Ed. Katherine Anne Ackley. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage. 2009. 429-430. Print. Deborah Kotz, a senior writer in the Health section of U.S. News & World Report addresses the issue of compensating living organ donors, arguing that donating a kidney is not that much different from women donating their eggs, an act which is often compensated. This article was published in the July 28, 2009 issue of U.S. News & World Report. Kotz supports her claim by referring to experts in the field of psychiatry and bioethics. She is targeting educated readers in an effort to make them aware of the need to improve the current transplant system. ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ Start with the last name, first name. After the first line, indent the rest. Use quotation marks and italics correctly. Refer to Purdue OWL for details. ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ Sentence 1: Credentials + Thesis Sentence 2: Medium + Genre Sentence 3: Evidence + Support Sentence 4: Audience + Purpose MAJOR IN HAPPINESS: Debunking the College Major Fallacies By Michael Edmondson The major is often viewed as the stepping-stone for a career that can repay loans instead of as the first step to a meaningful life based on leadership, purpose, and services. T he preconceptions and suspicions about how things operate i n tod ay’s challenging global marketplace often compel people to forge correlations with causations without any substantial evidence. Unfortunately, this f lawed thinking is the foundation upon which many students declare their undergraduate majors. With the repayment of college loans as a paramount issue for students and their families, the major is often viewed as the stepping-stone for a career that can repay those loans instead of as the first step to a meaningful life based FEBRUARY 2016 on leadership, purpose, and service. Students should declare a major that makes them happy. Doing so substantially increases their chances of pursuing career paths that ignite their passion, identify with their purpose, and spark a commitment to lifelong learning. All too often, however, students are exposed to the myopic “valuable v. useless” paradigm of the decision-making process when it comes to declaring a major. According to this paradigm, a “valuable” major is useful, can teach a specific skill, and provides one with a lifetime of employment and riches. Accounting, marketing, engineering, and computer science are just a few examples. A “useless” major, on the other hand, is more intellectual and, therefore, has little, or no, practical application for employment purposes. Majors that generally fall into this category include history, English, philosophy, and sociology among others. This dichotomy between the valuable and useless majors is based on flawed mental models and ingrained assumptions about how the world works that lead to a series of fallacies surrounding the college major. By def inition, a fallacy is an JOURNAL/37 argument in which the premises fail to provide adequate logical support for the conclusion. Most arguments start with a premise (X) that is either a fact or an assumption forming the foundation of the argument. Some logical principle (Y) is then applied to arrive at a conclusion (Z). Originating from the Latin meaning “deception, deceit, or trick,” fallacies are useful analytical tools when assessing the validity of an argument or statement. When dissecting an argument or statement, individuals need to recognize the existence of uncertainties in measurement, errors in sampling, and biases in research. These uncertainties, errors, and biases are especially prevalent when discussing the relationship between academic majors and career potential. For example, in his remarks to a General Electric plant in 2014, President Barack Obama declared, “Folks can make a lot more potentially with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree.”1 The Fallacies This example of flawed logic is just one of many examples of how politicians from both major political parties in the United States have labeled certain majors like art history useless and an intellectual luxury, limiting in employment opportunities and unworthy of public funding. Choose a useful major and you will always have a job, a successful career, and become rich compared with those individuals who choose a useless major and, in turn, end up unemployed, without a career, and become poor. This dichotomy between useful and useless majors lacks substantiation and is too often THESE FALLACIES SURROUNDING THE COLLEGE MAJOR EXIST BECAUSE OF THE MENTAL MODELS OR THINKING ALGORITHMS THAT ARE FORMED FROM INGRAINED ASSUMPTIONS AND THEORIES ABOUT THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS. used to simply make a nuanced connection between major and career. As professor Peter Cappelli of The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania observed, “It seems that what a person studies in college should relate to his or her planned career path, but it turns out that it’s very hard to predict how those two things will interact with each other.”2 This unpredictability has resulted in five common college major fallacies: 1. Confusing association with causation fallacy (also known as cum hoc, ergo propter hoc, “with this, therefore because of this”)— “Correlation does not imply causation” is a phrase used in science and statistics to emphasize that a correlation between two variables does not necessarily imply that one causes the other. What does this mean? A brief explanation is that correlation is a measure of how closely related two things are; and just because two things correlate does not necessarily mean that one causes the other. When a visual representation of data illustrates two or more Michael Edmondson, Ph.D. is the associate vice president of career development at Augustana College (IL) and author of Marketing Your Value: 9 Steps to Navigate Your Career (Business Experts Press, February, 2015) and Major in Happiness: Debunking the College Major Fallacies (Business Experts Press, December 2015). He received a bachelor’s degree in history from from Cabrini College, a master’s degree in history from Villanova University, and a Ph.D. in history from Temple University. 38/JOURNAL lines sloping or bars rising, “The data practically begs us to assign a reason. We want to believe one exists. Statistically, we can’t make that leap, however. Charts that show a close correlation are often relying on a visual parlor trick to imply a relationship.”3 Correlations between two things can be caused by three or more factors, and often are. “Our preconceptions and suspicions about the way things work tempt us to make the leap from correlation to causation without any hard evidence.”4 This happens quite frequently within higher education and the discussion between the selection of a college major and the potential for lifetime earnings. Example: You need to major in business because employers value students with that major over all other disciplines. 2. Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy (“after this, therefore because of this”)—“Since event Y followed event X, event Y must have been caused by event X.” The fallacy lies in coming to a conclusion based solely on the order of events, rather than taking into account other factors that might rule out the connection. This is the second fallacy many individuals fall into when discussing the selection of an academic major. Example: Shelly had an offer of full-time employment prior to graduation and it’s because she majored in economics. 3. Single-cause fallacy—It occurs when it is assumed that there is a single, simple cause of an outcome, when, in reality, it may have been caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes. This fallacy often demonstrates a lack of awareness about the specific topic examined and can disclose one’s bias to demonstrate contempt prior to investigation. Judgments are made quickly instead of analyzing the multiple causes of a situation. Example: Employers only care about your grade point average; the higher it is, the better your chances of being hired. FEBRUARY 2016 4. Anecdotal fallacy—This stems from using a personal experience or an isolated example instead of sound reasoning or compelling evidence. This is a common fallacy committed by parents, relatives, or friends of undergraduates. There is a tendency to persuade students, intentionally or unintentionally, into a major based on one’s experience with that specific academic program. Example: My sorority sisters and I majored in business, economics, or finance and we all have extraordinary careers, so major in one of those subjects and you will be just as successful as we are. 5. Sweeping generalization fallacy—This assumes that what is true of the whole will also be true of the part, or that what is true in most instances will be true in all instances. Sweeping generalizations also tend to correspond with other fallacies, such as the single cause or anecdotal. Example: Recent college graduates with a history degree are all unemployed. These fallacies surrounding the college major exist because of the mental models or thinking algorithms that are formed from ingrained assumptions and theories about the way the world works. To help you recognize the existence of uncertainties in FEBRUARY 2016 measurement, errors in sampling, and biases in research, below are 10 important factors that can help you debunk the college major fallacies. These are just 10 factors, however, as there are dozens of others that impact long-term earnings potential and the ability to achieve a long and productive career. The 10 factors are arranged in no particular order. 10 Factors 1. Understand the impact of geography—Where one lives plays an important role in one’s ability to have a sustained career. For example, current research strongly suggests that looking for work in large urban areas can give workers a better chance to find a job that fits their skills. Additionally, in terms of salary and long-term career earnings, where you live often matters more than what you have on your resume. Upon analyzing two decades of data from more than 200 cities, Rebecca Diamond, an assistant professor of economics at Stanford Graduate School of Business, found that college graduates are increasingly clustering in more expensive cities that offer more amenities such as restaurants and cultural attractions, better parks, less crime, and less pollution. To help recent college graduates identify key geographical locations, top 10 lists of cities in which to launch a career are now commonplace.5 2. Realize the power of grit—It would be extremely difficult to have a long and successful career without the ability to persevere in difficult situations. Numerous researchers have concluded that getting to the corner office, having long-term earnings potential, and climbing up the corporate ladder all have more to do with grit than graduating with a specific degree. Living a life of leadership, purpose, and service also requires grit. Grit is by far the most important characteristic one needs to demonstrate time and again in order to translate the vision they have for their life into reality. MacArthur Fellow Angela Duckworth, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, defines grit as the tendency to sustain interest in and effort toward very longterm goals and equips individuals to pursue especially challenging aims over years and even decades. Duckworth noted that people who “accomplished great things often combined a passion for a single mission with an unswerving dedication to achieve that mission, whatever the obstacles and however long it might take.”6 3. Market your value—In my book Marketing Your Value: 9 Steps to Navigate Your Career, I explained JOURNAL/39 that college students and even more experienced professionals need to work hard at helping employers understand their value. Doing so requires substantial work if the individual wants to stand out among other job candidates. It is also important to understand that “being average just won’t earn you what it used to. It can’t when so many more employers have so much more access to so much more above average cheap foreign labor, cheap robotics, cheap software, cheap automation, and cheap genius.”7 The student needs to define him- or herself and what he or she is looking for in terms of employment. The student needs to give people a reason to pay attention to him/her. This is important to do in person as well as online. The only people who stand out are those who want to. 4. Demonstrate your level of preparedness—All too often, recent college graduates make the mistake of assuming that their degree is synonymous with career preparedness. The research suggests otherwise. In one study, nearly 70 percent of corporate recruiters said that their company has a hard time managing its younger generation of workers who were perceived as lacking in work ethic, unwilling to pay their dues, and simply being harder to retain.8 More than one-third of business leaders and recruiters give recent grads a “C” or lower for job preparedness.9 A recent survey of U.K. companies found that only one in three employers (23 percent) believe that academic institutions are adequately preparing students for vacant roles in their organizations. 5. Recognize the dynamics of compensation—Focusing solely on salary in and of itself demonstrates a severe lack of professional maturity. In his 1967 publication The Motivation to Work, Frederick Herzberg identified two different categories of factors affecting the motivation to work: hygiene and motivation. Hygiene factors include extrinsic factors like technical supervision, interpersonal relations, physical working conditions, 40/JOURNAL ONE STUDY SAYS..... 70\% of corporate recruiters say that their company has a hard time managing its younger generation of workers salary, company policies and administrative practices, benefits, and job security. In comparison, motivation factors include intrinsic factors such as achievement, recognition and status, responsibility, challenging work, and advancement in the organization. Herzbergs theory postulates that only motivation factors have the potential to increase job satisfaction. The results indicate that the association between salary and job satisfaction is very weak. When employees are focused on external rewards, the effects of intrinsic motives on engagement are significantly diminished. This means that employees who are intrinsically motivated are three times more engaged than employees who are extrinsically motivated by money. 6. Appreciate the journey— Demanding that college students figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives is a flawed mental trap that contributes to depression, loneliness, and anxiety. It is also completely unnecessary and a fool’s errand. Such thinking exposes logic that believes a successful career can be determined by an exact formula and is neatly quantifiable. This is simply untrue. Achievement on either the personal or professional levels seldom follows a simple formula. “Life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination.”10 As John Gardner said in his famous 1990 speech, “Life is…an endless process of self-discovery, an endless and unpredictable dialogue between our own capacities for learning and the life situations in which we find ourselves.” Your dream job today may not exist tomorrow, let alone 5, 10, or 20 years from now. You’ve got to be open to whatever industry change comes your way. 7. Grow personally to develop professionally—In today’s challenging global economy, “individuals are under unprecedented pressure to develop their own abilities more highly than ever before, apart from anything their employers may or may not do to develop them.”11 Personal discipline, growth, and a commitment to lifelong development are critical elements that factor into one’s ability to achieve and sustain growth over a long career. In The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career, authors Reid Hoffman (co-founder of LinkedIn) and Ben Casnocha realize that great people, like great organizations, are in a state of perpetual growth: “They’re never finished and never fully developed.” Each day presents an opportunity to learn more, do more, and grow more. This state of “permanent beta is a lifelong commitment to continuous personal growth” is a necessity for everyone, regardless of what major you declared. 8. You continue to evolve in your 20s—In Emerging Adults in America: Coming of Age in the 21st Century, Jeffrey Jensen Arnett and Jennifer Lynn Tanner declare that the decade after college graduation is a time for selfdiscovery. Many parents fail to realize that it takes time for their children to discover the right career path, get married, or become financially independent. New research suggests that people are better equipped to make major life decisions in their late 20s than earlier in the decade. The brain, once thought to be fully grown after puberty, is still evolving into its adult shape well into a person’s third decade, FEBRUARY 2016 pruning away unused connections and strengthening those that remain. Postponing those decisions makes sense biologically. “It’s a good thing that the 20s are becoming a time for selfdiscovery. It should be reassuring for parents to know that it’s very typical in the 20s not to know what you’re going to do and change your mind and seem very unstable in your life.”12 9. Know that the reality is that people change jobs—The student’s first job after graduation is unlikely to be his or her last. Layoffs, quitting, and a host of other reasons explain why people move from one job to another. In 2011,48,242,000 people changed jobs in the United States. Of those who changed jobs, 20 million were from layoffs and discharges, 23 million workers quit, and 4 million were classified as other separations.13 With 131 million total workers, the 48 million people who changed jobs represented 36.7 percent of the total working population. Also, it is impossible for students at the age of 22 to know what they want to do with the rest of their lives when they have no idea what new jobs will exist in a decade or two. Today’s graduates will have jobs not yet created using technology not yet invented to solve problems not yet ident ... Purchase answer to see full attachment