Revising the Introduction Paragraph

Go back to the file you have for Project 2. Look at your Introduction: Revise it to follow these guidelines.

Introductory paragraphs should accomplish two tasks: 1. They should get the reader’s interest so that he or she will want to read more. 2. They should let the reader know what the writing is going to be about.

Task 1:

• To grab the reader’s attention, you need to start with a hook, or an attention grabber. The hook can be a question, a jarring statistic, a quote from someone famous on the subject, or a short, personal anecdote.
• Once you have hooked the reader, you want to provide the reader with background information on the topic at hand. Imagine that the reader has NOT read the articles you have read and does not know much about the topic, so explain the issue to the reader.

Task 2:

• The last part of the introduction is the thesis. The thesis should be the LAST sentence of the introduction, and it should be an opinion or what we can the claim of the essay. It tells the reader what your essay will be about and what your opinion on the topic is. So thesis is often topic+your opinion on the topic.
• Your thesis should not be simply a fact, and it should directly answer the question I have asked in the prompt.
• Even though the thesis is your opinion, it should not include statements like “I think/believe” or “In my opinion.”
• A thesis os your stance on the topic—a one or two sentence statement of opinion, or something that you will explore, prove, expand upon, develop and provide a through discussion of in your essay. Remember, a thesis must be arguable.

To complete this assignment, follow the steps below.

Step 1:

Copy and paste your introduction from Project 2’s timed writing in a new document. Then,

• In yellow, highlight the hook
• In blue, highlight the background information
• In pink, highlight the thesis
  • Don’t worry if you don’t have the three parts yet. That is why you are revising. If you cannot find what to highlight, it means you are missing that part and need to write one.

Step 2:

Start thinking about how you can make your introduction better. If you are missing any of the three parts above, add it! If you already have all three parts, look at each part individually and see how you can make it better. Do so by answering the following questions:

1. What kind of hook did I use (a question, a short story, a statistic)? Is my hook interesting? Does it grab the reader’s attention and make him or her want to read more? What can I do to grab the reader’s attention even better?
2. Do I have sufficient background information? If the reader did NOT read the articles I read, would he or she know what the issue is about? What else can I add to the background information to make my reader understand my topic better?
3. Is my thesis an opinion of my own? Is it free of “I believe/I think/In my opinion” statements? Does it name the topic and your opinion on it? Does it clearly and directly respond to the question my teacher asked in the prompt?

Step 3:

Based on the questions above and your answers to them, rewrite your introduction, making sure that there is an engaging hook, clear and detailed background information and a strong thesis.

**Please mark each step (Step 1, 2 and 3) on your document before submitting.

Project 2 Essay

Regulations of Smartphones in Classrooms

Advancements in the technological domain play an essential role in most of our lives; however, some of the advancements pose a significant threat to society. The inception of smartphones in the modern realm has played a beneficial role as it has virtually affected every aspect of the community from safety, security, society’s accessibility and coordination of businesses and social activities thus becoming a culture of the entire globe (Uko Jairus et al., 105). Frimpong et al. acclaim that the median number of texts among older teens rose from 60 in 2009 to 100 in 2011 and 64% of the teens that have smartphones during classes have texted (33). This points out despite the adoption of classroom software in smartphones; they are a distractive tool and professors cannot make smartphones useful in the classroom setting.

In the school setting, students are entitled of them to take their prescribed role as students with full concentration on their studies and free from distractions from the outside world. The inception of smartphones into the classroom settings blends the students’ roles with other roles, thus acting as a form of disturbance and disruption to the academic work of the student. Uko Jairus et al. acclaims that in the past, when fixed telephones were the norms of the school setting the distraction and disruptions were minimum (106). Wei et al. identified that higher texting behavior results in decreased chances of the student’s ability to self-regulate their behaviors in a manner that will favor their success in academic assessments (198). This indicates that smartphones have the capability of undermining school’s authority and weakening the control of the school administration over the students as well as impacting on their academic performance.

Information processing theory explores the distractive aspect of smartphone usage in the classroom. Based on the theory, information processing requires the need for attention, working memory, short-term memory, long term memory and metacognition as they formulate essential attributes when an individual learns new information (Frimpong et al., 36). This clearly points out that learning is a process and any diminished capacity within a single resource impact on other resources. Therefore, the usage of smartphones in the classroom setting brings about divided attention which impacts on the information processing resulting in inaccurate and insufficient storage of information in the long term memory.

The inception of smartphones into the classroom setting acts as a hindrance to communication. Over the ages, the development in the field of phones has seen it defy communication properties imposed by distance, thus easier maintenance of relationships across distances (Kuznekoff & Titsworth, 237). However, the relationship downplays the necessity of face to face communication diminishing its use and endangering its existence alongside the benefits that arise from non-verbal cues. In the classroom setting, face to face communication plays an essential role as non-verbal cues that arise aid in either confirmation or contradiction of verbal messages. Therefore, smartphones act as a hindrance to the development of interpersonal communication among student as it is a mediated form of communication.

In conclusion, recently there have been several nations that have seen the adoption of policies that ban the usage of cell phones in the school as in the case of France and consideration by other governments as in the case of the United States and United Kingdom (Hess). Banning is not the solution, but there is the need for regulations on the usage of smartphones among student as students are more likely to engage themselves in productive technological interactions outside the classroom setting (Kuznekoff & Titsworth, 237). This serves as a supplement to what has been taught in class. Educators and professors need to realize that the modern-day have these technologies and it is central to their life thus the best thing is the formulation of regulatory policies that result to the usage of mobile technologies in promotion of the student’s life.

Works Cited

Kuznekoff, Jeffrey H., and Scott Titsworth. “The impact of mobile phone usage on student learning.” Communication Education 62.3 (2013): 233-252.

Frimpong, Kojo Osei, Samuel Asare, and David Otoo-Arthur. “The Effects of Mobile Phone Usage on the Academic Performance of Ghanaian Students, a Case of Presbyterian University College Asante-Akyem Campus.”

Hess, Abigail. “Research Continually Shows How Distracting Cell Phones Are—So Some Schools Want To Ban Them”. CNBC, 2019, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/18/research-shows-that-cell-phones-distract-students–so-france-banned-them-in-school–.html.

Uko Jairus et al. “Impact of Mobile Phone Usage on Students’ Academic Performance Among Public Secondary Schools in Oju Local Government Area of Benue State.”

Wei, Fang-Yi Flora, Y. Ken Wang and Michael Klausner. “Rethinking college students’ self-regulation and sustained attention: Does text messaging during class influence cognitive learning?” Communication Education 61.3 (2012): 185-204.