Survey by Hugo !!

(Hugo)

Survey

My hypothesis about this survey is “the effect of choosing the health way to reduce stress is better than choosing the harmful ways”. I am interested to know whether choosing the harmful ways really helps them to reduce stress or not, and also I am interested where their stress mainly comes from and how is their feeling after they chose these ways to reduce their stress. Our group members include Aki, Mo, Winnie, Hamdan, and myself. We required about this topic and gave a questionnaire to 51 SIUC students. 9 sophomore students, 13 junior students, 8 senior students and 6 graduate students. We asked 10 questions (7 questions were multiple questions and 3 Yes-No questions) face to face at the student center and library on the SIUC campus. Also I have some good experience about the fact that asking people to do a survey is not that hard, and also they would be open to help me answer the questions.

When analyzing the survey result, I found that about a third (31%) of the population says they would try some harmful ways to reduce stress while the majority would not; roughly they agree with my hypothesis and they believe the healthy ways are better. However, the result shows a different story. For the people who choose healthy ways such as talking to friends, exercising and listening music, their feelings are basically the same as choose harmful ways. This means on the basis of outcome, healthy and unhealthy ways both might help release the stress. In this survey, the most interesting thing about the American students is which they would be open to help me answer the questions for example one of the answers of the questions, which harmful choice will you choose?” is drugs. Drugs are illegal in Illinois; there are still 2 students who chose to use drugs. Maybe this is the American culture, and also it surprises me because drugs are not common in my country.

If I do this survey next time in the future, I would choose more than 200 people to answer my survey, they would not only be students, but also would include business men, teachers, lawyers, and doctors, because everyone would have stress. Also, this survey gave me experience how to ask people to do a survey; If I have other chances to research how to reduce stress again, I would not choose people who studied in a group or took lunch in a group to answer my survey together, because the people who are in a group always have the similar answers. Although, from the result of my survey. I found out the people who choose healthy ways, have the same feeling as those who choose the harmful ways, I still suggest that people use the healthy ways, and only the healthy ways really help people, because not matter the harmful ways can help reduce stress or not, it’s bad for out health.

Aki's Survery Report

Stress is common problem in college life. So how to choose the best way to reduce stress is very important, especially for students. Ways of reducing stress is our groups topic and our group’s members include Mo, Winnie, Hamdan, Hogo and me. Ours hypothesis is American students think that exercise is the main way for college students to reduce stress. We really are interested in this topic because we want to find the best way to reduce stress. We conducted a survey of 50 SIUC American students; the respondents included 25 males and 25 females. We went to the SIUC student center and Faner and asked students to do questionnaires. They were very friendly and we discussed many ways to reduce stress.

Nowadays a lot of information shows that exercise is a good way to reduce stress. That’s why we made the hypothesis that exercise is the main way for students to reduce stress, but in our survey some students didn’t agree with ours hypothesis. They thought exercise is time-consuming. In addition, according to our survey, most female respondents didn't choose exercise because they thought they don’t have partners to go with. They think listening to music is more effective because they can do it any time. Also, they like to choose “talk with friends” to reduce stress, because it not only reduces stress, because it not only reduces stress, but also includes social function. In this survey I learned many ways to reduce my stress, I really enjoyed this survey.

If I could do or make a survey next time, I would like my respondents to answer questionnaires by interviewing individually. After respondents answer the questionnaires, I will ask them the detail of why they chose the answers and take the notes behind the questionnaires. Then, we can get more respondents' opinions by interviewing one by one. I think this way can make my survey more clear. In addition, I like my topic because this topic provides a good way for students to reduce stress.

Atigah Karnaf



If smokers quit, who will our children have to look down to?


Summary:

According to this article, there are 20 percent of adults in a province of Canada who use tobacco. This number leads

to this: there are young children who also smoke. In the 1970s approximately 102 percent of Canadian adults smoke . The kids

believed that you had nothing to do in your free time if you did not smoke. An oddball person who did not get smoking could

do any thing to feel cool .For example, they used their shirt to smell the air in the car. The local rink is smoke free. That is

why some players are in such poor physical condition. Smoking causes people to die indirectly.


Reaction:

I disappointed by the news that comes in this article. I surprised when I read the number of smokers in one country in 1977. In

every country alarming people to avoid smoking is very important, for example, by using radio, TV or magazine. The cigarette

does not affect on the smokers but also effects people who sit behind the smoke .That called "Second-hand smoke". Most

people who smoke have problems on their life, for example, family problem, studying stress,losing job ,bad friends and alot of

free time I think most of these people are teenagers . The role of the family is very important to watch their children and their

children's friends.There are a link between tobacco and the dangers of diseases like cancer

What does it take to get us off the couch?

EAP1C
Aki

Reference

Lindell R. (2011, January 26). What does it take to get us off the couch? Retrieved
February 13, 2011, form http://www.vancouversun.com/

Vocabulary

• establish- to start a company or organization that will continue for a long time
• associate- to connect someone or something in your mind with someone or something else
• dramatic- very sudden or noticeable, or full of action and excitement
• elicited- to get or produce something, especially information or a reaction
• inactivity- doing nothing
• osteoporosis- a disease which causes the bones to become weaker and easily broken
• aspiration- something that you hope to achieve
• harsh- unpleasant, unkind, cruel or unnecessarily severe
• external- of, on, for or coming from the outside
• hinder- to limit the ability of someone to do something, or to limit the development of something
• chore- a job or piece of work which is often boring or unpleasant but needs to be done regularly
• barrier- a long pole, fence, wall or natural feature, such as a mountain or sea, that stops people from going somewhere
• interruption- when someone or something stops something from happening for a short period
• expunge- to rub off or remove information from a piece of writing

Summary

According to Rebecca Lindell, in her article, “What does it take to get us off the couch”, the author mentions the point of getting people off couch to exercise is to connect daily lives and values to their physical activity. According the article, some people don’t know what exercise is. They think they are not sportsmen and they don’t like to go to gym, so they don’t exercise. But there are many kinds of exercise people can do, even daily activities like walking to work. The writer thinks that the main cause of people doing exercise is motivation; consequently, finding a motivating aspiration relative to exercise in which people are really passionate makes exercise become one part of people’s daily life activity. For example, a divorced man might reach his goal- finding new friends by exercise. In short, the writer advises readers to find a motivation on exercise. This way, it is easier for them to work out regularly.

Reaction

First of all, I agree with the author who states that finding a motivation to exercise is easier for people to exercise regularly. I have a fundamental reason to support my opinion. People can keep working out regularly with great passion, because they are interested about it. For instance, I really like to dance salsa, so I go to gym to take salsa class every Wednesday. Though I have a lot of homework due on Thursday, I always finish earlier in order to go to salsa class on time. When I dance salsa, I feel interested and never tired. In summary, I think that people find a motivation about which they are passionate is easier to work out regularly because they enjoy it.

When I finish reading the article, I feel confused about this article. I have one reason to support my feeling. The writer mentioned many kinds of exercise, but she didn’t show the specific definition of exercise. For example, in the seventh paragraph of the article, it shows that researchers said about people don’t understand what exercise is, but it doesn’t tell readers what the correct meaning of exercise is. The field of exercise is so wide which needs to be defined specifically. Without clear definition readers might not get a standard of exercise to understand the article. In this article, she showed reader many researches relative to exercise, but she didn’t give reader the definition of exercise clearly. That might makes readers confused.

In summary, finding a motivation is every important for people who want to work out regularly, because they can enjoy exercising. In this article, it mentions many kinds of exercise that we can to we daily life. If the writer could talk more detail about field of exercise well make this article more clearly. Studying this article not only makes me more understand the benefits of exercise, but also makes me learn the skill how to write a good article.

Survey Report

Moatasem AL-Ridha

There are many reasons that can cause dangerous to our body; one of the most important reasons is stress. Stress can reduce the ability of the immune system to fight the diseases. The body becomes more susceptible to different diseases. For all these dangerous reasons, we decided to make this survey to looking for the Ways of reducing stress. My hypothesis is "American female talk to friends and listen to music more than American male" to reduces stress. The most important way to reduce stress that female use is talk to friends. If a woman suffers from a dangerous disease like breast cancer, she becomes more likely to recover from this disease if she expresses her anger outwardly by talking to her friends. This point was very interesting for me to know about these details, I work with a wonderful group to ask students; my group contains Hamdan, Aki, Hugo and Winnie. We asked students from Southern Illinois University - Carbondale (SIU-C) in different place inside the campus such as Fanner Hall, Student Center and Morris Library. The total number of the students, who participated in our survey, was 51 people. They were 26 females and 25 males. I got experience in how to ask students and also how to talk with strangers.

American students deal with me very nicely; all the students help me. . Only one student in the Morris library refused to fill the form he said "I am sorry, I have homework, and I do not have time". It was very interested to talk with these students. I expected, I would find a huge difference between the percent of females and males in talking to friend when they feel stress. I thought the female also more than male listen to music. After I collected the result I found there is a difference between female 65% and male 48%. My hypothesis is right, but there was no big difference between the results. Also, the percent of females who listen to music was 42%, and male 40%; it is very closest, but it still is different.

Finally, my advice to make this survey better is making the questions with more specific details without any generalization. Also, we should ask large numbers of people to get real results. One of the important points when you ask people in general; you should choose the good place and time to ask them, because these points affect the result

Report Survey

Hamdan alsulaimani
Report Survey

Our hypothesis is females who have stress from study talk with their friends to reduce stress more than males. The hypothesis was very interesting because what we expected is right. Moatasem, Aki, Hugo, Winnie, and I asked 51 students about the topic at the library and the student center. In general, it was easy to collect the survey.
I leaned many things with this survey. For example, Americans students were very friendly when they talked with international students. Actually, I recommended to my friends that do not ask students who are very busy, because some of them do not have time. However, the results were similar to what we expected. According to our survey females who got stress from study talk with friends to reduce stress more than males (females 65%, males 48%). Then, females are comfortable when they talk with their friends more than males.
Finally, if a person wants to do research about this topic, I recommend that he makes more yes-no questions than multiple-choice questions because yes-no questions give clear proportions. And also, I recommend that he asks the teachers in the university, Cesl, and schools.

Reading Reaction Journal #3

Haohui Lu (Hugo)
Reading Reaction Journal #3
Reference
Larry Gordon, Los Angeles Times (Jan, 27, 2011). More college freshmen feeling overwhelmed, survey finds. Retrieved Feb, 8th, 2011,
From latimes.com/health/la-me-college-freshmen-20110127,01593537.story

Summary
In this article, the author described a survey report about the college students’ stress. Many students have lots of stress when they have just been in the college, and this report also says the freshmen who have stress were more than their predecessors. Their stress often come from the emotional controlling and financial stress, also men have stronger emotional than the women, which are described by the report. And the students also think the recession always affect their choice of college, because the families’ financial problems and scholarships give them a lot of stress. About the students how to reduce the stress, some male would choose to watch TV and play games, and some female may choose to help with chores at home, and both of them also would choose the positive side to take part in the clubs and community service to reduce their stress and let themselves have more college experience.

Reaction
In this article, I was very interested in reading about the report describe where is the college students’ stress come from, and which is the positive ways to reduce the stress about the students. And I also agree John H. Pryor says, “When the students go into the college, they would feel overwhelmed and have lower emotional reserves to deal with their stress.” In my opinion, the reason of the freshmen has a lot of stress, base on two things, first before they go into the college, they didn’t have enough prepare, they didn’t know how is the college’s study, and what is the different between the college study and the high school study; second when they have stress, they don’t know how to solve the problems, and how to reduce their stress. So the best way to help the freshmen due with their stress is giving them some college studies’ experiment before they go into the college, and after they understand, they would know how to manage their stress.

Stress of First-Year College Students at Record High

Hamdan Alsulaimani

Reference:
Rumsey, M. (2011, February 2). Stress of first-year college students at record high. Retrieved 2, February 2011, from http://media.www.thebrownandwhite.com/media/storage/paper1233/news/2011/02/08/News/Stress.Of.FirstYear.College.Students.At.Record.High-3974285.shtml


Summary:
This article discusses the stress of freshmen who have more stress than sophomores, juniors, or seniors. Moreover, the factors that cause the stress for the freshmen are financial, psychological and emotional health of students, and the perception of the job market. There are examples of these factors respectively. The first is that the students did not receive the entire amount of money the aid from their college because they do not hand in the necessary papers on time. The second is they did not adapt to the college life quickly and their families were not with them to encourage them. The third is the chances were very weak to get a job after graduating. The students suffer a lot of stress through the first year at university.


Reaction:
This article talks about the stress with freshman in the first year at the university. I was interested when I read the article because it describes the difficulties that face the students who want to achieve their goal in the college life. Moreover, the author gave us the problem which is the stress that faces the freshman, but he did not give us the solution. He should suggest the solution about the students who did not hand in the necessary papers on time. For example "why did they not hand in the necessary papers on time? In this situation, he should give the ways that help the students to hand in the necessary papers on time. When I was reading the psychological problems that face the student, I was waiting for the way that reduces the stress such as the exercises. Unfortunately, he did not write this way. Also, the author mentions that the chances to get a job are very weak. When I was reading these sentences, I asked myself, "What are the reasons that make the chances to get a job poor?" If he were writing these reasons, the article would have been more interesting. By the way, some students do not have the stress when they study in the first year at the university. Finally, the article was interesting, but it will be best with the solution for these problems that face the students.

Friends and Bad Decisions

Moatasem AL-Ridha
Reference: Parker-Pope, T. (2011, February 3). Teenagers, Friends and Bad Decisions. New York Times blogs. Retrieved February 8, 2011, from

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/teenagers-friends-and-bad-decisions/?scp=1&sq=teenager,friends%20and%20bad%20decisions&st=cse

Summary:
In this article, the author shows the new study about the teenagers' behavior. This study focuses on the effect of the teenagers' friends on their decision and on their behavior when they become together. The researcher makes an experiment on three groups of people by examining their brains while playing a specific game. He checks the brain signals for all the participants while they are alone and when they are watching with their friends. After that, he compares the results in two situations; he found there is a big effect on the teenagers' decisions when they are watching with their friend; their decisions become more risky and stupid.


Reaction Before I read this study, I already had information about the effect of friends on the teenagers' decisions and behavior. But this study confirms this effect in a scientific way even when the adolescent not in the same room. It is very important information for the parents and all society. We should take care when we are dealing with teenagers especially when they become with their friends because they may be treated in a bad way by us. This study explains the bad behavior of the adolescents with their parents with them, particularly when the parents are trying to advise an adolescent in front of their friends. Although I was very excited when I read this article, there are many points in this study I want to discuss it. First, I think the number of people who participated in this study was very small. Also, the researcher analyze of one specific situation. If we are looking for a perfect result in this study, we should examine a very large number of people in different ages and in many situations. Finally, the presence of friends in the lives of adolescents is not always bad; there are many adolescents who become more innovative when they stay with their friends.

Seasonal Affective Disorder: The Birth of the Blues

Hamdan Alsulaimani

Reference:

Glenn, C. ( 2011, January 27 ) Seasonal Affective Disorder: The Birth of the Blues. Retrieved 27, January 2011, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-c-altschuler/the-birth-of-the-blues_b_813509.html

Summary:

This article discusses the relationship between seasons of the year and the moods of people. The author explains what kinds of disorder a person has when he faces different seasons of year or different events. Moreover, the person is affected by the time and special events. For example, the fall season makes the person feels hopeless. And another example, birthdays and holidays make the person be more hopeful. Finally, the parts of year and particular occasions make the human reacts to every situation in his life.

Reaction:

This article talks about the relationship between the season of year and humans. In fact, there is close correlation between the season of year and humans. I am happy with this article because when I read the heading of the article I expected that I would find a lot of scientific information in it. The author just showed what is happening with humans in the parts of the year and some occasions in his life. If the author wrote how it is happening, it would be great. The author should give the reader information about what is the thing that makes the person affected by the season of year is. On the other hand, the author should give the reader what is happening inside the body of humans ( psychological side). When I was reading the article, I was asking myself these questions; what is the main reason that makes the human change his current situation to another situation? Another question is, how is the immune system affected? And this question is cells inside the body of human harmed? In fact, I asked these questions because as we know the human has physical and psychological sides. I am satisfied with this article because it lets me know that there is a strong relationship between the season of year and the events of humans.

A Teen’s Personalized Guide to Managing Stress

Hugo

Reference

Kenneth R. Ginsburg, MD, MS Ed, FAAP, and Martha M. Jablow. Publish by the American Academy of Pediatrics. (2006). A Teen’s Personalized Guide to Managing Stress. Retrieved February 2^nd, 2011 from http: www.aap.org/stress/buildersstress-teen.htm

Summary

In this article, the author described everyone would have stress include adults and kids. Stress comes from our brain, and it can affect our moods and behaviors. The author also gave us an example which about Sam and Zalda escaping from a tiger, because their stress help them to change the hormone and nervous system in the emergency situation, so they can run faster than usual. In out life, we always have some stress, which is only a mild stress, or not real emergency, if we think this problem is very terrible, the stress would make we feel bad. Finally, the author also mentioned managing stress has many ways; don’t try the harmful choices, which is bad for us.

Reaction

In this article, I was very interested the author described about how the stress produced; how it affect our moods, body and life, and which is a good ways to manage our stress. And I was agree with the author’s opinion which “nobody can avoid all stress”.

But I was not agree with the author’s opinion about which must choose the good way, can not try the harmful choices which is bad for us. In my opinion, find a way to solve or manage stress is very hard, sometimes many ways which other people suggest me is not help, however waste my time and make me get more stress. Consequently, find out a way by yourself, whatever it is bad or good; the most important is which can real help you to solve the stress.

In the modern world, everyone is busy for his or her life everyday, so stress is very common for everybody. But we must realize where is the stress produced from; which stress is good for us, and which is bad for us. Finally, the most important thing is understood which is the best way for you to manage the stress.

Reading Reaction Journal #1

Hamdan Alsulaimani

Reference:
Singah, M. (2010, Sept 21). Math Is Not Hard?. Retrieved 30, January 2011,from
http://www.articlesbase.com/tutoring-articles/math-is-not-hard-3357928.html
Summary:
This article discusses the difficulties which face the students in Mathematicsclasses because they did not know the basic subjects of mathematics.Mathematics has very interrelated themes and if the student misses one ofthese themes he will face a problem to solve questions of mathematics. So thestudents always say mathematics is very difficult. Mathematics is very easy ifyou have the necessary information about mathematics.
Reaction:
My major is mathematics, so I was interested in this article. The main reasonthat makes me glad in reading this article is the encouragement that makesthe students change their bad opinion about mathematics. The author tries totreat the psychological side of students when he says,” Math Is Not Hard? “.Although the students have a scientific problem, I think the best way to solveany problem is that we should solve the psychological problems before wesolve scientific problems. Afterward , the author talked about the solution ofscientific problem, which is that we should study mathematics step by step. SoI was interested in this subject, but there is another problem, which is how canthe teacher reach information to students easily ?. The author did not explainthe relationship between the teacher and his process. The answer for abovequestion depends on the skills of the teacher. When I was a teacher inmathematics and when I received questions from my students, I was changingmy way to teach them. Finally, I was very happy because I found a personwho encourages the students to learn mathematics in smart way.

Record Level of Stress Found in College Freshmen

Aki Huang

Reference

Lewin T. (2011, January 26). Record Level of Stress Found in College Freshmen. NY Times, Retrieved February 1, 2011, from http://www.nytimes.com

Summary

This news discuss freshmen’s stress in their college life. In depression period, some parents lost their job and they do not have enough money for their children to go to college. The financial aid becomes an important factor for students when they choose a school. Students worry about their living expense and college debt which exerts students extra pressure on their life. According to the survey, this situation influences students' mental health. Researchers point out that there are many gender gaps in this research because of human being's natural instincts. For example, men are prone to spend more free time for fun and find activities that help them relieve pressure, such as exercise; women are inclined to bear more responsibilities, such as volunteer work when they are free, which does not help them reduce stress.

Reaction

When I finish reading this news, I find that men and women reduce their pressure in different ways. If school can open some courses to teach students right attitudes to face pressure, student’s mental health will be improved greatly. Under financial depression period, if schools can cooperate with companies, providing students some part-time job opportunities, students can not only reduce their economic pressure, but also increase their competitiveness in getting a good job in the future.

What does it take to get us off the couch?

Moatasem AL-Ridha


Reference:Lindell R. (2011, January 26). What does it take to get us off the couch? For Postmedia News Retrieved January 27, 2011, from

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/What+does+take+couch/4172026/story.html


Summary:

In this article, the author focuses on a study which shows the importance of exercise and how it affects our health. The researcher encourages people to do sport activity continually to prevent suffering from different diseases. Furthermore, she tries to explain the true meaning of exercises and to make connection between the exercises and with what people are doing in their life. She mentioned many examples in this study to support her idea. Finally, the author put two schedules to show how people are able to arrange their responsibilities and do exercise.







Reaction

Before I started to read this article, I thought it might be boring because it was not short. However, I began to read it and the first thing that got my attention was the title. There were many points that raised my admiration for this article. The first point was success of the author in choosing the title that makes me read this article to see what is the ways to make us far away from the medical treatment are. The other point, the author said there were not ages to stop or to start doing the sport activities to stay in a healthy body even if you are not athletic. While reading this article, I remembered when I had a backache and I was not able to sleep; so, I went to the doctor and he said you should do some exercises to reduce your pain; I executed the doctor's advice and I felt better. But I stopped doing the exercises because I felt it was an order, not like advice. I felt happy when I read "I think the word `should' should be expunged from the English language". You cannot do anything if you do not like to do it. Furthermore, the author mentioned a very important point when he talked about the time. It is a real problem which faces any person who wants to do the exercise. I got new information about the benefit of the exercises from this article and from the reading in our core book. Finally, he also said we should rearrange our life schedule to do these exercises. Therefore, I will try to manage my time to do some exercises and to protect myself from different diseases

Reading Reaction Journal #2

from:Winnie

Reference

Lewin, T. (2011, January 26). Record Level of Stress Found in College Freshmen. The New York Times. Retrieved January 27, 2011, from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/education/27colleges.html

Summary

According to this article, men think the emotion health is more important than women. Students’ stress is from the loan, the fact that they can’t find an ideal job, and the economy. Young students think they have to get a higher degree in order to make their wages above the basic wages. Because of the worse economy, the scholarship has become a reason that students choose their college. The stress is not only affecting college students, it’s also affecting the high school student. Different genders have different feelings about stress. In having a good mood, the percentage of women is lower than that of men. Women reduce the stress by talking. Men reduce their stress by exercising more.

Reaction

Our topic for our survey is Ways of Reducing Stress; in this article I got some information. Women will talk about what they feel about making stress easier. I agree with that, because in our culture, we think men should be stronger in any section. They should be brave. For example, we women cry because being condemned for falsehoods is natural, but if men cry in the crowd, we will think he is not brave enough. Therefore men will hide their deeply thinking and be trained to bear more bad things. For the same reason, men will not easily tell people about their stress except his close friend.
Students in different grades have different stress. Basically we have to finish our homework, think about the exam and worry about the relationship with classmates. For freshmen or pre-freshmen, they have to worry about if they can catch up with the courses. In senior year we have to worry about the career that we will have; we have to prepare our autobiography and get ready for an interview for the job. Almost every moment we have stress except the moment that we are thinking about nothing. That is really relaxing.
As I know, Americans are more independent, so their own economy might be one of the stresses in their lives, so it can be proven in our survey that is the economy street he a main part of the stress?

directions

This blog is for EAP1 students posting articles on ways of reducing stress. To post, log on is cesl06@yahoo.com...password is a familiar building we all know, all one word...