Issues Final Paper

I enjoyed working with my group and felt each meeting ran smoothly and everyone did their part to make the presentation a success.  The first time we met was during class time and we discussed all the choices for the presentation and chose a controversial topic. We brainstormed and came to a consensus that the group would produce a presentation on euthanasia.  We exchanged phone numbers and then spent time together just getting to know one another.   I began doing general research on the topic of euthanasia because the group had not assigned any member of the group a specific area of the presentation.

      I included sources from The New York Times and The New England Journal of Medicine which are well established, reputable, and reliable sources. I eliminated sources if they did not cite an author or were in a blog.  I needed to stay focused and narrow my research area to the section of the presentation that I was responsible for and then create a summary from each source chronologically.  Sources that did not have an author could be from a questionable source of information and I wanted my portion of the presentation to be accurate and factual. I was not too concerned about how current the sources were because I was doing a historical review, however I became more concerned as the years in the timeline drew closer to current times.  I cross referenced all information in each source, but really concentrated in the time frame of 1990’s to present day. I wanted a variety of sources so I included sources from a newspaper, websites, a book and periodicals. After selecting the articles, I compiled a list with a short summary of each source into a titled Microsoft Word document and included the cited information for easier reference later.

     My group met again and decided who was going to do what section of the presentation.  Emma would research the true definition of euthanasia and the punishment if a person does participate, Stephanie would research the people who had committed the crime, Karli would research of pros and cons about euthanasia and I would research the historical perspectives. I chose to do the history because I love history and was curious about how euthanasia has evolved over time. Shortly after the second meeting I searched the internet for information regarding the history and was excited to begin researching this specific topic.

      Next, I organized the information according to a timeline, sifted through all the history based on the most relevant and important facts about the history, and complied the PowerPoint. Then I just kept revising it and revising it until I was satisfied. There was a large amount of history and information so I reduced the quantity of information considerably. Each of us in the group worked on our specific parts. The group decided to do a PowerPoint presentation and when we met we started working on the PowerPoint and compared notes to see how the project was progressing. Then we met one last time and combined all of our information into one presentation.  

     When my group selected euthanasia I was not sure that I would enjoy working on this type of subject. However, I found the project to be interesting and educational. I enjoyed being a member of my group and felt that we worked cooperatively together.