Aaron Peat

Matthew Stockett
English 1010
29 April 2016

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Self Assessment
English 1010 is my first attempt at an online course, and it had a sharp learning curve for
me. Not having a hands-on personal experience with learning concepts was difficult, and
managing the online navigation was intimidating. After the first two weeks I caught on to the
format, and was able to clearly keep up with due dates and discussions. I really enjoyed the
lessons taught in this class. Being able to see an advertisement and effectively see what the
creators of it were trying to sell was a great lesson. It was obvious that they were using
stereotypes to promote their product, but really getting into it and examining them thoroughly
was eye opening. My writing is usually about myself, or situations that I am giving my
perspective on. Taking this class that was a huge hurdle to get past with talking in the first
person, instead of speaking on something from a general point of view. This class helped me
break bad habits like that as well as make me more critical of advertisements and persuasive
essays. I really enjoyed our lesson on citing sources, even though I feel I have not perfected it, I
definitely feel better about the different ways I can quote somebody. Setting up a quote is
something I didnt put much thought into, but after reading papers and really focusing on how
they have done them it showed me how effective they can be. Properly setting up a quotation, or
summarizing a quote was super interesting and made me get out of my comfort zone of the usual

things I resort to. Learning about Pathos and Ethos was something that I think is common
knowledge, but going in-depth about it really made me break it down and understand what the
author was trying to get out of the reader. I found that I like articles that are based in fact, and
not so much articles that try to appeal to the emotions of the reader. I have a hard time getting
onboard with something when they are talking about it from a moral standpoint, because that
really comes to personal opinion on almost every subject. But arguing for something backed with
factual information is my favorite. I chose a topic for my exploration project that I am genuinely
interested in, and knew almost nothing about. My roommate smokes a vaporizer constantly, and
that led me to want to research it and form an opinion. I started the paper with the mindset that I
would argue for vaporizing, stating how much healthier of an option it is than smoking
cigarettes, but after all the articles I read I felt that was too easy of a standpoint, and something I
think most people knew. Getting the facts about the recent laws and restrictions on e-cigarettes
was a huge insight. From a distance, speaking with friends that vape they gave me a very onesided argument that tobacco companies were trying to slow down e-cigarettes because they were
stealing business from them. Which made total sense, and I kind of just took their word for it.
After reading the articles and seeing how little is known about what actually goes into these
products it shifted my view on them. I really liked my subject, and had a good time writing
about it. It is such a new subject though that there arent many physical printed books or articles
on the subject, which left me with mostly online website data. Credible sources were kind of
tricky to find, and tying all the different opinions together was challenging. Overall I learned a
lot from all the assignments we were given in this class, and I can apply all of the concepts to my
writings from here on out.

Aaron Peat
Matthew Stockett
English 1010
19 April 2016
Audience: Parents of teen children
Vaporizers: A better solution to smoking. Not safe for youth.
Warning your children about the harmful effects of smoking should be a priority.
Vaporizers have been introduced as a healthy alternative to smoking cigarettes, but they are still
harmful to the lungs. Vaporizers are very new to the market, and they are very new to health
studies and research in general. Nicotine exposure at adolescents, a critical window for brain
development, might have lasting adverse consequences for brain development (1), causes
addiction. (3) and might lead to sustained tobacco use. For this reason comprehensive and
sustained strategies are needed to prevent and reduce the use of all tobacco products among
youths in the United States. Wrote Rene A. Arrazola, a Medical Doctor with a PhD, for
CDC.Gov. This information is crucial for restricting access to E-Cigarettes and monitoring their
products more thorough.
There has been a lot of misconception with E-Cigarettes in the media. An article was
posted showing a harmful chemical was being ingested while smoking from a vaporizer. Though
this information and health statistic is accurate, an article written by Joe Nocera (NYTimes)
shows that to achieve that you would have to vape at a high voltage because it causes a burning
taste from overheating the liquid. This ignores the other sides of a complex issue regarding
restricting E-Cigarettes for minors. One of those issues being that they are not monitored like

cigarettes for content. Because they are so new to the market, vaporizers are still having a large
debate over their restrictions, and what they are legally classified and taxed as. A report from
USA.Today states that There are 466 brands, and more than 7,700 flavors on the market. Also
stating that there have been an average of 10 new brands entering the market every month for the
last two years. A market this large with so many brands and flavors being produced must have
difficulty inspecting the quality of the product and the content. It has been found multiple times
that the content of vaporizer juice has not been matching up with what the labels indicate. With
so much discrepancy happening, it seems to be a logical step that a more thorough inspection and
production of this product should be achieved. Tobacco is still a harmful ingredient to be
ingesting as well as Nicotine. E-Cigarettes offer these to consumers and though there has been a
decrease in traditional tobacco products consumption such as cigarettes, hookahs, and Pipes.
Vaporizers are the most commonly used methods of smoking for Jr. High and High School
students. (CDC.gov)
Vaporizing is especially appealing to youth. Being able to blow O rings, and modifying
vaporizers to give large amounts of smoke is very attractive to teenagers. Proper education of
vaping and its effect on your lungs and body must be taught in the teenage years. You could
kind of throw your hands up in the air and say, Well if (teens) are going to do something, it
might as well be this, because it is less harmful (than other
drugs), probably,. says Sasha Keenan. She is a writer for the Huffington Post Teen. This is the
mindset of many of her peers, and she goes on to support this statement by saying that teens are
drawn to vaping because it is experimental and edgy. Vaporizing is a huge market, and with its
constant updating of flavors and modifications it is something that could definitely draw in a

young consumer who otherwise would not have tried smoking traditional cigarettes. Cigarettes
have disclaimers on them about the harms of using the product. Though vaporizers have similar
warnings, it is still not knowledge that is well known by everyone. The anti-tobacco campaigns
have targeted cigarettes with harsh realities but vaporizers are yet to be the target of their ads
because of how little information collected on them.
Vaporizers are an amazing alternative to smoking traditional cigarettes. They are less
harmful across the board, and have had significant results in reducing those addicted to tobacco.
The problem is not that vaping is a dangerous alternative, but rather that it is so unknown and not
a lot of solid information is being given to parents to make efforts to educate their children. It is
not so simple to lump them into the same category as cigarettes, but they are definitely still
something that can harm the growing mind. Letting parents have all the info necessary to speak
with their children about the dangers of vaping is crucial. It is such a new product that it is easy
to have a generation gap where kids believe their parents do not understand. Almost the same
way as computers were to the generations before us. We need to know all the facts about them,
and not have them glorified as a healthy solution and also not have misleading articles stating
that they are as dangerous as cigarettes. Education is vital to combatting this epidemic of youth
taking up vaping. Regulations are being put in place to verify the contents of the liquids, and
more research is being posted about the effects of smoking.
Parents should speak with their children about the side effects of vaping. It should be as
important of a conversation as sex education. In the same way abstinence is the best solution for
STDs, not smoking anything is the healthiest choice you can make. Vaping is a great substitute
for smoking, but should not be treated as if it does not still harm the body and lungs in some way.

Knowing the consequences for vaporizing will effect teenagers choices in trying it, and could
prevent some health issues from arising in certain individuals. Educate your children to give
them a better future.

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Works Cited
Rene A. Arrazola. Tobacco use amongst middle and high school students 2011-2014.
CDC.gov Website. Print.
Joe Nocera. Is vaping worse than smoking?
NYTimes.com. Business and regulation. Website. Print
Sasha Keenan. Vape culture attracts teens, poses harmful risks.
Huffingtonpost.com. Teen section. Website. Opinion article
Paul Janes, Jessica Durando. E-Cigarettes and vaping: everything you need to know.
USAToday.com Website.

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Annotated Bibliography
Tobacco use amongst middle and high school students 2011-2014
This source was written by: Rene A. Arrazola. She is a medical doctor with a PhD which gives
me a credible person to back up the information being presentd. It was from CDC.gov. Its
agenda was to give facts only, and let the viewer decide for themselves given information from
tests.
CDC.gov They are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They are experts in their
subject matter. The quote I am using is very long, but all the information is very useful for my
paper. It reads:
To determine the prevalence and trends of current (past 30-day) use of nine tobacco products
(cigarettes, cigars, smokeless tobacco, e-cigarettes, hookahs, tobacco pipes, snus, dissolvable
tobacco, and bidis) among U.S. middle (grades 68) and high school (grades 912) students,
CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) analyzed data from the 20112014 National
Youth Tobacco Surveys (NYTS). In 2014, e-cigarettes were the most commonly used tobacco
product among middle (3.9%) and high (13.4%) school students. Between 2011 and 2014,
statistically significant increases were observed among these students for current use of both ecigarettes and hookahs (p<0.05), while decreases were observed for current use of more
traditional products, such as cigarettes and cigars, resulting in no change in overall tobacco use.

Consequently, 4.6 million middle and high school students continue to be exposed to harmful
tobacco product constituents, including nicotine. Nicotine exposure during adolescence, a critical
window for brain development, might have lasting adverse consequences for brain development
(1), causes addiction (3), and might lead to sustained tobacco use. For this reason,
comprehensive and sustained strategies are needed to prevent and reduce the use of all tobacco
products among youths in the United States.
This is a very useful website source. It stands out in my list of sources because it is from
a more well known and prestige site. It is known for giving out facts and setting the bar. It is very
objective, and gives very reliable information. This source will collide with other sources
opinions. But these are facts only, they do not appeal to situations but an overall statistic. This
source feels like an easy A or B dilemma, where other opinion articles show complexity in the
situations.
Is vaping worse than smoking?
But this conclusion is highly misleading. People dont vape at a high voltage because it causes a
horrible taste a burning taste that occurs from overheating the liquid, Says Joe Nocera. He
writes opinion articles for the NYTimes for Business and Regulation. NYTimes.com I plan to
use this piece to show other factors that arent shown through the numbers. This is a website
source that is extremely useful. The source is not biased, but does have an objective to show the
differences compared to only reading negative effects on E-Cigarettes. This shows that it is a
more complex issue, and the numbers can be misleading. It conflicts with other sources, and
gives credible history and why the numbers are misleading in other biased articles.
Vape culture attracts teens, poses harmful risks

Sasha Keenan is a writer for the Huffington Post Teen. She distributes the paper among high
schools. Her paper reads: You could kind of throw your hands up in the air and say, Well if
(teens) are going to do something, it might as well be this, because it is less harmful (than other
drugs), probably, she said. Its all appealing to the things teens want to do. Be creative and
experiment and be a bit edgy.. This is a great article because it shows that E-Cigarettes are very
appealing to kids, and that some that may have never tried smoking before, have tried ECigarettes. This reminds the reader that no smoking is better than smoking of any kind. This is a
opinion article, and the source is semi-credible. Huffington Post is a great name, and I think they
put out reliable articles. Having this one be the Teen edition makes me not as confident. I do
love this source because it gives statement from the teenagers that it is talking about. It is an
opinion piece, but still gives great insight.

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E-Cigarettes and Vaping: Everything you need to know
There are 466 brands and more than 7,700 flavors on the market, according to the policy report.
There have been an average of 10 new brands entering the market every month for the last two
years, a recent Internet survey found. reads this article written by: Paul Janes & Jessica
Durando. They are journalists for USAToday. This source is reliable to me, and they reference
their statistics well throughout it. This shows how many brands and products there are out on the
market, and how there is no restrictions on them. There have been incidents of the product not
having what the label says it has in it. This could be very dangerous for consumers. This helps a

lot of my articles out, and really gives the option for a middle ground. Not banning E-Cigarettes,
but making sure their quality is in check.
Heart group calls on FDA to quickly regulate e-cigs
"We are fiercely committed to preventing the tobacco industry from addicting another generation
of smokers," said Nancy Brown, CEO of the heart association, in a statement. says Liz Szabo.
She is a medical reporter covering heart disease, and cancer for USAToday.com. This is a very
one sided article. It is opinion based and gives great views on how far over to the negative side
people are. Will be great to give that view and tie it in with the opposing view that there
shouldnt be regulation.

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