Asif Uddin

Professor Hunter

English 21003

15 December 2020

            This semester was a real challenge, especially ever since our learning environment changed from campus classrooms to our mere bedrooms. And with life becoming extremely difficult because of COVID-19, my experience this semester was not what I had hoped it to be. But despite all these setbacks, I still managed to learn quite a lot from this semester and accumulate it with what I’ve learned in my previous english courses. From the jump I got a better understanding of what Audience Profiles are, which is what an audience wants to see/read, needs to see/read, and expect to see/read, and how I can use this to amplify my writing. I learned about genre and medium, and how they are both connected and how they can greatly impact my writing. The impacts and importance of purpose was also analyzed and shown how to interpret it into my writing.

            One of the most important things I learned that added on to what I already knew, was utilizing the CUNY’s Database search. Even though I learned how to use CUNY’s Database search in my previous courses, there is always something new to learn about the Database. This semester the professor showed us numerous tips and tricks to help amplify and zero in our research to get numerous yet accurate articles, reports, journals, etc. And even how to better identify key points in these sources to better determine whether or not a source would be valuable to include in our papers. One of my favorite assignments to do from this semester was Major Assignment #2, because the topic I chose for this research paper “Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD)”, I have a personal connection to this, which is that my father is currently battling Chronic Kidney Disease, and it has been extremely difficult to have to watch him slowly deteriorate and become weak from all the medications and dialysis treatments he has been placed on. And being able to take the time to research and write on this topic gave me the opportunity to learn more about this disease, so I can better help my father, as well as be able to educate others on the causes and symptoms, and how they can help anyone they might know that is suffering from CKD. My second favorite assignment to do from this semester was Major Assignment #3, only because this so far has been the only assignment that was able to help squeeze out just a bit of my creativity, and implement it into this group assignment. Being able to utilize a part of my skills that has laid dormant for so long had a rather satisfying feeling of relief. But my all time assignment to do was from my Spring Semester english course, in this assignment we were tasked with writing a personal/research narrative that basically had a major impact on our lives, and essentially changed how we viewed most things in life. That assignment is included in the end for readers to enjoy at their leisure.

“Within the broad field of language and literacy, social exclusion is a major issue that goes highly unspoken within many individuals in various communities. With millions of victims, social exclusion has impacted their social lives and have disrupted their chance at having a normal life. Language barriers and the variance of literacy among others may cause a change in a social structure that causes isolation from others. Social exclusion is the means in which individuals are denied access to multiple rights, opportunities, and resources that are normally available to other individuals; most of which can be deemed essential to individuals who have been introduced to a new society. The introduction to a new society from another is also known as social integration. Social exclusion whether we’ve been a victim or not is important to know and understand because someone close to us or even someone we just met, could be a victim of social exclusion, and knowing how to handle better situations can prevent them from falling onto a path towards a negative lifestyle. Throughout my childhood, I have experienced instances of social exclusion as well. This may have been the case due to my race as being a South Asain with parents born in Bangladesh, I was seen as a minority and thus, treated like one. Stereotypes were often placed on me and being the small percentage of the minority, I felt excluded. Hence, which is why I grew up without many friends and was always left out by the other kids at family functions, and was always bullied in school by other students and even some teachers, up until high school, where I had an entirely new fresh start with people who had no idea who I was. While social exclusion can build independence, it more often has a negative impact on individual lives, because it can lead to a negative lifestyle, form a hatred for society, and victims can end up institutionalized. Through a variety of studies performed and analyzed, it can be shown thoroughly exactly how social exclusion impacts individuals in different societies and cultures using articles and experiments to test theories.

Social Exclusion in the workplace has impacted employees significantly and understanding how and when it occurs is vital to fully understand the expanse of social exclusion. An Associate Professor of Management and Organizations at Kellogg School of Management, Maryam Kouchaki, in her article, “Excluded and Behaving Unethically: Social Exclusion, Physiological Responses, and Unethical Behavior”, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, addresses the topic of Social Exclusion and argues that social exclusion can occur in any social setting including in workplaces. She supports this claim by giving examples of how social exclusion occurs in the workplace, then goes on to discuss how organizational scholars have addressed social exclusion, and finally connects social exclusion and negative behavior and questions how the two are always in connection. Kouchaki’s purpose is to provide a deeper understanding in order to show readers that there is a more complex understanding of how and why social exclusion occurs. She adopts a highly analytical tone for her audience, the readers of The Journal of Applied Psychology, and others interested in the topic of Social Exclusion. Make a connection to your argument.

An Associate Professor at the University of South Florida’s Department of Criminology, Joshua C. Cochran, in his article,“ Social Exclusion and Parental Incarceration Impacts on Adolescents’ Networks and School Engagement”, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family”, addresses the topic of Social Exclusion on Adolescents, and argues that incarcerated parents have limited unfavorable impact on a child’s growth and future. He supports this claim by discussing Parental Incarceration and its impact on children and Social Exclusion, then proceeds to break down different areas of impact that a child could face with social exclusion, and finally incites how besides parental incarceration, other forms of impact between parent and child. Cochran’s purpose is to inform that a multitude of negative parent to child connections can lead to social exclusion, in order to show his audience that social exclusion isn’t just from not being able to get along with others. He adopts a pragmatic tone for his audience, the readers of the Journal of Marriage and Family, and others interested in the topic of impact of parental incarceration and social exclusion among adolescents.

A Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Keita Masui, in his article, “Social Exclusion Mediates the Relationship between psychopathy and aggressive humor style in noninstitutionalized young adults”, published in Personality and Individual Differences; July 2013, addresses the topic of Social Exclusion and its connection with young adults with a mental illness or disorder, or have a negative humor style, and argues that the association between psychopathy and aggressive humor is completely explained by social exclusion. He supports this claim by discussing the association between psychopathy and social exclusion, then the association between social exclusion and humor styles, and finally analyzing how all three correlates with each other. Masui’s purpose is to show that social exclusion has associations to a broad list of issues found among individuals, in order to show social exclusion has impacts on challenged individuals. He adopts a solemn and interpretive tone for his audience, the readers of Personality and Individual Differences, and others interested in the topic of Social Exclusion.

A faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at the Uludag University in Bursa Turkey, Nuran Bayram, in her article, “ Social Exclusion and Quality of Life: An Empirical Study from Turkey”, published in Social Indicators Research, addresses the topic of social exclusion and argues that different forms of quality of life faced by social exclusion have seen a negative impact on environmental and social relationships quality of life. She supports this claim by going in-depth on what social exclusion is as well as what quality of life is, then goes in-depth on how they both correlate with each other, and finally discusses an experiment they performed and its results. Bayram’s purpose is to show that social exclusion impacts an individual’s willingness to partake in social participation, in order to show that social exclusion isn’t just when individuals feel left out or excluded by peers. She adopts an instructive tone for her audience, the readers of the Social Indicators Research, and others interested in the topic of social exclusion.

In an increasingly problematic world that continues to have recurring issues at hand whether it be on a personal level or a global scale, people need to be in communication more than ever. With the rise of the left wings and things that can or cannot be said to the general public, it is imperative to know your surroundings on what seems appropriate for the audience. An experiment was done in Personality and Individual Differences that conducted a procedure that tested the relationship between the occurrence of social exclusion of a person and its psychopathy of aggressive humored jokes among young adults. The results from the data concluded that “in particular, high psychopathic individuals receiving less social support showed greater levels of hostility to their partners during the point distribution game…” In short, the exclusion from other members of society caused an increase in aggressive behavior with negative connotations. A simple result from the data is minuscule until you look at when this experiment was conducted. In 2013 and years before that, there was a time where the lack of social media resulted in fewer ideas from the norm. People were not aware of what was happening around them unless you were extremely social, which fits only a very small percentage among the population. There was no set standard on what can or cannot be said to any general audience or to the public. However, the surge in social media made people more aware, and thus, the boundaries between light and dark joke became very apparent. The increasing awareness among a society makes it extremely difficult for introverts or even socially excluded members to fit in. The violence and aggressiveness of people will often cause more backlash among other people now that distance is no longer an issue when dealing with the internet. The cycle of despair from socially excluded people goes down even more as it becomes harder to interact with other people and more than often, closed circles are usually formed. Being in a closed space is due to problems in the future where one must interact with people whether it is for employment or interviews for a job. A socially excluded person is doomed to fail in society if there is no one to interact with to get insight into what is going on around them. These people will mistake isolation for independency in which they are not independent at all. Being independent does not mean you isolate yourself from others, it means you are able to support yourself in doing tasks comfortability. You are still able to get help or interact with others but you can still call yourself an independent because you are able to consider the people and environment around you without problems. This differs from isolation because you are restricting any interactions with people within a community. You are not aware of the people or environment around you and if all else fails, there is no support to hold you up and this can cause distress with will expose the violent behavior caused by social exclusion. You will be put in this spiral of isolation as you cannot interact with others because you have been isolated for so long that you do not fit into the appropriate culture in a society that will often leave you being rejected from society itself. It is like placing a dog into a pack of wolves; the dog will be devoured even though they are from the same family species because it was matured differently and no longer fits in with the hierarchy. You do not have to be very sociable and talk to everyone you meet, however, you can still have your privacy while maintaining a few connections to help keep you be in check emotionally and physically while staying independent.”