Why Italy should remain an EU member state

Sandra Lang, Vanessa Steingkogler, Lisa Marie Vido

Group text

Academic Paper - My progress so far

My academic paper is currently in its second stage of development: Research. I have already found a decent structure for my text and have (luckily!) already started searching for helpful sources a few weeks ago. I found most of the information on EU websites and the official “MEDIA 2007 website. Also, I came across two papers closely related to my topic which might be very useful.  Still, there are a few topics that are not yet covered. For that reason I have started doing some more research  in order to find academic texts that might be of assistance while writing this paper.

As my topic is EU funding for audiovisual data, the paper will focus on the different funding programmes but also on the change Europe underwent due to funding. This particular section of the text is the one that will probably cause the most difficulties. I am a little worried that I won’t be able to find enough sources for this subtopic. So far, I haven’t found a good paper, statistics or texts that could give me enough information to formulate a couple of paragraphs. This problem  is generally the thing I am most afraid of when it comes to writing this academic text: Finding too little information to write a decent paper. 

Group Work Analysis - EU Citizenship

Group Work Analysis

EU individual paragraph

Paragraph Brainstorming

Original Paragraph:

A topic I would gladly look into is food safety in the EU.  The European Union is known to have rather strict and environmental friendly laws but barely anyone can really pinpoint what exactly these are. What are the rules concerning the use of pesticides or herbicides? Is the disposal of genetically modified food allowed? Does the meat that we eat come from animals that were fed with natural feed or with concentrated feed? All these questions come to my mind when thinking of food and I must admit that I am not able to answer them. What I do know though, is that food safety and health should be more important and that is why I would like to find out more about it. The people aware and interested in how healthy or unhealthy our nutrition is are a dying species. Being aware of what decision the EU makes when it comes to health-related issues should be more important. After all, it is true to say that “you are what you eat”.


Feedback Summary One:

Altogether my paragraph has received quite positive reviews. Still, there were a few flaws that Katrin and Orsolya uncovered and they gave me advice as to how to correct them and how to improve the paragraph. The first things they corrected were two mistakes concerning grammar. They reminded me that in the second line, where it says “to have rather strict and environmental friendly laws”, it is necessary to use “environmentally”, thus the adverb.  They added a missing comma to another sentence which was very difficult to understand without it and also condensed a clause that included too many prepositions. According to them, the topic sentence was okay but not really strong. I completely agree because it does introduce the topic but to I think it would be beneficial to rewrite it. Lastly, they took a look at the register of my text and came to the conclusion that it is formal enough. I personally feel like it is not as formal as it should be and that is why I consider it best to add “register” to the list of things that need revision.

Revised Paragraph Nr.1:
 
Food safety regulations in the European Union are a topic that the majority of European citizens are unaware of.  The EU is known to have rather strict and environmentally friendly laws but barely anyone can really pinpoint what exactly these are. What are the rules concerning the use of pesticides or herbicides? Is the disposal of genetically modified food allowed? Does the meat we consume come from animals that were fed with natural or concentrated feed? All these questions come to my mind when thinking of food and I must admit that I am unable to answer them. What I do know though, is that food safety and health should be more important and that is why I would like to find out more about it. The people aware and interested in how healthy or unhealthy our nutrition is, are a dying species. Being aware of what decision the EU makes when it comes to health-related issues should be more important. After all, it is true to say that “you are what you eat”.

Final Paragraph Nr.1:

Food safety regulations in the European Union are a topic that the majority of European citizens are unaware of.  The EU is known to have rather strict and environmentally friendly laws but barely anyone can really pinpoint what exactly these are. What are the rules concerning the use of pesticides or herbicides? Is the disposal of genetically modified food allowed? Does the meat we consume come from animals that were fed with natural or concentrated feed? All these questions come to my mind when thinking of food and I have to admit that I am unable to answer them. What I do know though, is that food safety and health should be more important and for that reason I would gladly inform myself on the matter. The people conscious of and interested in how healthy or unhealthy our nutrition is, are a dying species. Being aware of what decision the EU makes when it comes to health-related issues should be more significant to us citizens. After all, it is true to say that “you are what you eat”.

Final Paragraph Nr.2:

Food safety regulations in the European Union are a topic that the majority of European citizens are unaware of.  While the EU is known to have rather strict and environmentally friendly laws, hardly anyone can really pinpoint what exactly these are. What are the rules concerning the use of pesticides or herbicides? Is the sale of genetically modified products allowed? Does the meat we consume come from animals that were fed natural or concentrated feed? All of these questions come to mind when thinking of food and I have to admit that I am unable to answer them. What I do know, though, is that food safety and health should be more important and for that reason I would gladly research the matter. The people conscious of and interested in how healthy or unhealthy our food is, are a dying breed. Being aware of what decisions the EU makes when it comes to health-related issues should be more significant to us citizens. After all, “you are what you eat”.  

Possible topics for my English paper

Hey guys! I haven’t been on blogger in what feels like aaaaages. And the first thing I am going to post about is the upcoming English paper my class has to write. It can be about anything we like, as long as it is centred in or has to do with the EU. These are the five topics that ended up on my shortlist. Let me know what you think!

 
Influence of European artists on international film score and trailer music
This topic was the first and only topic that came to my mind quite immediately. That is because after taking a single look into my phone’s music library you’ll come across at least a dozen songs taken from movies or movie trailers.For me, there is nothing cooler than listenting to a movie's soundtrack. I am just mesmerized by the effect of such music and even more fascinated by the people composing it. There are a lot of great European artists, both well known and not well-known, that can easily live up to the music composed by American artists.

Europe’s contribution on famous international literature
Not only American books can enthrall you: There are loads of page-turners out there that have its origin in Europe. Hardly any of them are known at all and spreading the word about them would be the best way to make them popular. So this second topic idea would be my way of doing that, hoping that people might pay more attention to literature from other countries in the future.

Different kinds of contemporary music all over Europe
I am very passionate about music and I love listening to everything from Rock and Indie to Reaggae and Folk. But not all of the bands I like come from outside of Europe. TTL, Agnes Obel and Seeed are european bands, just to name a few. For me, all the different styles and countries represent music and its diversity. It shows how versatile music really is and that every country considers another type of music to be popular or contemporary at the present time.

  Hollywood-worthy: Europe’s most famous movie successes
Everywhere you look, there are famous little movie masterpieces created like e.g. in France, Italy, Great Britain or Germany. I think these films, some highly acclaimed and others not, should get more attention. Independent movies or blockbusters – all of them should be receiving the same amount of attention. It should not be about how big and action-filled the movie is, but about the story that is told.

Euthanasia in Europe:
I consider this topic to be very interesting because it deals with what seems to be a very controversial issue. Is it murder or isn't it ? Should it be allowed or rahter forbidden and punishable ? People are quite torn when they're asked about their attitude towards euthanasia. Getting to know other countries' point of view on that topic would really be interesting and maybe even help me to understand the situation better.