Research, I Guess!

In the past, I have never found research papers difficult, until I found myself in this English class. I think it is because in the past I have always had the topic giving to me. And now that that we have to come up with our own topic and relate it back to San Jose. I am having a hard time and know that my research paper will suck and I will do poorly. The fact is I'm not confident or comfortable is going to play a major role in writing this paper. In Chapter 6, the most important idea that stuck out to me, “The best research papers are the papers in which writers make absolutely clear what they are arguing –to themselves as well as to their readers” located on page 150. Most first year college students really don’t care about what they writing about, as long as they get the paper done. They don’t take the time to really think about a topic before they start to write about it, they do the minimum work possible. I think most writers when they start to write a research paper they only have an idea that they writing about but it may not be clear on what they writing about. And I think as a writer that is why we go through so many drafts until we get the perfect idea to write about and we fell confident enough to write about that idea.

How Many Sex Offenders Live Near You?

I read this article in the San Jose Mercury News called, “Mountain View soccer volunteer jailed for alleged sexual assault.” The article was about a man named Pedro Carbajal, who was arrested on charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child, lewd or lascivious acts on a child by force, violence, duress, menace and fear, and two counts of lewd or lascivious acts on a child under 14. These charges date back as far as 1996. His bail is set at two million dollars. During this time from 1996, Pedro has been running his own soccer league and Mountain View and the same police unit has been sponsoring his soccer team for a few years now. Since the arrest, the police station has fired and terminated Pedro’s soccer league. They also have been contacting the parents who children were in the league. Pedro will appear in court March 11.

I do not know if this is a good topic to talk about because there might not be any follow up articles in the near future. But the article caught my attention because it may me think about how the police says that sex offenders must register (Megan's Law) on a website when they move to a new neighborhood. And that they cannot live a certain number of feet from a school or playground. But how do the neighbors know when a sex offender moves in. Is there a newsletter that is put into your mailbox, which reads: In the daily neighborhood news 36 years old Bobby Lumkins, an ex-sex offender who likes to molest 5-year-old girls and videotape lewd acts against teenagers. No, no newsletter like this exists. So how can parents find out about these sick people? I mean the police had Pedro right under their nose. He was working side by side with the cops for years. Probably attending barbeque events, fundraisers, and along with his soccer games. It took the cops a little over a decade to pull up his file to find something wrong with him. I know there are probably websites to look up information on your friendly, neighbor sex offender. But who has time to look them up these days.