D#9, HW#5 - Ch 8 Activities

Addressing Your Audience’s Wants and Needs

1. My audience has narrowed to the politicians of Arizona. However, my research will also affect teachers, parents and teenagers.
2. My audience will value the articles referenced because they are written by unbiased person(s). It will be important to include statistical data showing how lowering the voting age will improve their teenager lives and strengthen the communities.
3. My audience will expect credible and reliable resources. However, I still need to locate further data regarding statistics.
4. Several politicians have already expressed their opinion in lowering the voting age. I think that politicians who are against lowering the voting age, may change their minds after reading this research. Politicians opinions on this topic vary with some agreeing to lowering the voting age and some disagreeing with lowering the voting age.

Developing Evaluation Criteria

1. My audience will be politicians of Arizona. They will be the ones I can impact the most with my research. They need to know how youths feel and reacting to this issue. They also need to know by allowing teens to vote it would create a tremendous and positive impact on the communities of Arizona.
2. The purpose of my research is to inform and enlist the politicians of Arizona to interact with teenagers in a more direct and positive way. I’ll be able to accomplish this with providing facts about what has and is happening across the nation and world.
3. My research will be covering information mainly within the last six years. However, some information provided will also be considered historical – the bill of rights for example.
4. The focus of my research was narrowed further as feedback received from my peers and instructor showed that I was focusing too wide on my audience and topic.
5. Further research is needed on how lowering the voting age in other countries has helped or hindered. A few countries I need to further research are Austria, Germany, Brazil, Iran, Israel, England, Canada, and New Zealand. I also need further information on education opportunities from KVUSA.
6. A topic I will not be addressing in depth is teenager’s maturity and intelligence level to vote without causing mayhem. Specifically whether teenagers would just vote for whoever is the most popular. I’m hoping that by covering educational opportunities and stronger communities will lead my readers to believe teenagers are mature and intelligent valid through their own recent actions.

Clustering

I really like the idea of clustering. It helps lay things out just like an outline. Also, I get to dabble with artistic features such as cool shapes and pretty colors.
Cluster Map Draft

Finding Additional Resources

I feel there are two areas of concerns for my research due to lack of credible sources. These are early voting habit subtopic and voter turn out subtopic.

1. I would like to collect the following information to lend support with stronger and credible resources. I'd also like to collect statistics regarding 18-24 age groups and their voting habits.
2. I shared my cluster map and outline with a family member and he thought I was right on target with my topic and research. We also discussed the possibility of combining my second and third argument. He felt that I should keep them separate. I think I should combine them to make them a stronger subtopic.
3. I shared my cluster map and outline with another family member and one friend. These two opinions reaffirmed what I already felt I needed to do. I will combine my second and third arguments as one argument to make them a stronger argument.
4. See my outline listed in my next blog & my cluster map listed in the link above.