can you proof read my essay and tell me what you think and if theres any punctuation i need to correct?

can you proof read my essay and tell me what you think and if theres any punctuation i need to correct? The Effects of a Mindfulness Manipulation on Adolescent Smoking Isn’t smoking great? It’s not like cigarettes kill so many people a year and it’s not like “second hand smoke” even harms non-smokers. Right, Wrong Smoking can cause trouble, Tobacco smoke is a human killer, and even if you don’t smoke you can be in harm. Evidence suggests that smoking cigarettes increases the likelihood of suffering from heart disease, emphysema, lung cancer, high blood pressure, and premature aging. The smoker is also at risk of many short-term health consequences such as chronic cough, yellow teeth, and unpleasant breath. The American Cancer Society estimates that cigarettes are responsible for about 431,000 deaths in the United States each year. Lung cancer accounts for about 30 percent of all cancer deaths in the United States, and smoking accounts for nearly 90 percent of lung cancer deaths. The smoking habit and addiction to nicotine usually begin at an early age. In the United States, more than 70 percent of adults who smoke began smoking before the age of 18. This fact has led to particular concern over smoking in teenagers and young adults. Tobacco industries direct 90% of recommendation their cigarette advertisements toward today's youth, hoping to hook another young adolescent into their money making scheme. Onset of smoking in children occurs at an early age due to a number of factors that include pro-social smoking advertisements, peer and even parents in certain circumstances. Primary prevention techniques that attempt to stop the behavior before it starts are effective because children are still young enough to be molded and influenced accordingly by the proper role-models. Preventative measures, such as informational campaigns are ineffective because they are unrealistic and fail to emphasize on the here and now. These measures focus on the future health risks that may occur 20 or 30 years down the line, which is much to long for a twelve-year-old to concern himself about. Adolescents also believe that they are invincible and therefore not subject to the health risks of all other smokers. For a young adolescent, life is still novel and carefree. The health risks of smoking are not part of a twelve-year-olds mindset-at least not until he or she is grandpa's age. A common habit difficult to resist when tempted. Fear manipulations lack preventative power because many of the health risks of smoking are long term, for a young teenager-what out of sight is out of mind. Fear manipulations are unrealistic simply because of the waiting period before the onset of disease. Early teens spend most of their time with peers, rather than parents. Mom and Dad play more of a secondary role during the teen years. It makes sense that young teens are easily persuaded by their peer group simply because the greater part of the day is spent interacting with them. Parents do not become the active roll model until dinner time for a few hours until lights out. If a youngster believes that smoking is common and normal, he or she may say if everyone else does it, so will I. Approximately 7 million tons of commercial tobaccos are grown each year, with a value of $39 billion. Leading tobacco-growing countries are China, the United States, India, Brazil, Turkey, and Zimbabwe. Tobacco is an economically important crop for many nations—about 2 million tons of unmanufactured tobacco leaves, at a value of about $6,500 per ton, are exported each year worldwide. Brazil leads in exports, with about 15 percent of the total, followed closely by the United States, with about 11 percent of the total. The United States exports the most cigarettes and other manufactured tobacco products. Of the approximately 635 billion cigarettes made in the United States in 1999, about one-fourth were exported. Despite all this there may still be faith for some who want to quit. Studies of ex-smokers show that their risk of dying from smoking-related disease decreases with each year of abstinence. Smokers who quit before the age of 50 reduce their risk of life-threatening disease by half compared with those who continue smoking. Since the surgeon general’s report in 1964, the proportion of males who smoke has decreased from more than 50 percent to about 28 percent while the percentage of women who smoke has fallen from about 34 percent to 23 percent. Today, about 44 million Americans have quit smoking cigarettes. The question to be addressed is what can be done to motivate healthy behavior. Hypocrisy manipulations have been used in the past to decrease the frequency of unwanted behaviors. Hypocrisy manipulations promote behavior change because they motivate a person to think about their inconsistencies. In light of the disease risks associated with tobacco products and their associated high health-care costs, many individuals and health organizations have lobbied for public policy changes that would change the way tobacco products are regulated, manufactured, marketed, and sold in the United States. In November 1998 the tobacco industry and the attorneys general of 46 states, along with representatives of the public health field and lawyers representing smokers, announced an agreement that bans outdoor cigarette advertising and the use of cartoon characters in advertising, a practice that may attract young people to smoking. The agreement also requires tobacco companies to pay $206 billion during the next 25 years to fund antismoking public education programs, smoking cessation programs, tobacco-related medical research, and reimbursement to states for some of the health-care costs associated with treating smokers. Last but not least finally, in late 1999 Philip Morris, the nation’s largest cigarette maker, publicly acknowledged that smoking is addictive and causes serious health problems. Homework Help - 3 Answers Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions : 1 : There are tons of mistakes in this essay. Unfortunately, it is way to long for me to retype it and correct it. I wish you luck. 2 : ''Tobacco industries direct 90% of recommendation their cigarette advertisements toward today's youth,'' This doesn't really make alot of sense, and ''Last but not least finally,'' should say ''Last but not least, finally''. (I moved the comma) Other than that this essay is really good!!! 3 : Hey, its a good attempt at an article but really, I have to say that there's quite a lot of flaws in it. Don't be disheartened though. Excellence comes with practice. Punctuation aside (I'm sure you're quite alright with puncation), there's some ideas you need to cut and then polish up on what's left. Basically your ideas are there but scattered about the place. I get the impression that you seemed to know where to pluck the answer from sources but not how to place them into your own words. What you need to do is to select some ideas that you have a stronger opinion about from your article and then build on them. A framework that you can follow is idea statement+ elaboration(1)+ maybe elaboration (2)+example+example elaboration(1)+summary statement. It's a not an idiot-proof method but it helps. And its just a guideline, so you shouldn't stick to it too religiously. Your article has too many paragraphs/long. I'm not sure how long your article has to be, if its around 1200 words, I'm thinking 5(min) to 8(max) paragraphs would do. 1 intro, 3 points and 1 conclusion. 1st paragraph: Words like "Isn’t" and "It's" are supposed to be separated into their own individual words like "is not" and "it is" when in return form. Joint words are only used when in speech bubbles or spoken english, not in reporting or proper word documents. Besides that, your first paragraph is too casual. Words like "right", minuses off the credibility of your argument or report due to the lack of professionalism and fomality. "It’s not like cigarettes kill so many people a year and it’s not like “second hand smoke” even harms non-smokers." You ought to change your phrasing. Phrases like "it's not..." makes it sound a teenager trying to reason his way around something. Your 2nd paragraph has a too many ideas. It's better to separate them out and focus on one idea so that it gives some depth to your essay. That goes for the rest of the paragraphs too. Anyway, did you copy and paste those statistics and sentences off the internet? The sentences doesn't flow well. It's not a crime to use those statistics but you need to have a better linkage between them. Demostrate some mental analysis that you have done yourself in between them. And probably some cause and effect kinda relationship. Usually statistics are used to prove your point, give it support, not to be the points themselves. Usually 5 statistics is more than enough for an essay. You oughta give some overview, such as "young adolescents are attractive targets for tobacca industries....", before you bring in the statistics. And the thing is, you should acknowledge where the statistics are from. E.g"According to the US Federal 2007 income survey...". One, it demostrates some level of academic intergrity, giving gd impression points, and therefore credibility. Two, if the source is a credible one, it helps to add credibility to your article. I think you should concentrate on answering the question too. You digress too much into the peripherals such as "Approximately 7 million tons of commercial tobaccos are grown each year, with a value of $39 billion". You need state directly, outright what is the effect and then be more focused on answering the question.Don't pluck the sentences straight out of the internet. I can't be sure whether you did that, but it sounds like you did. It doesn't matter if you didn't, because you won't get a chance to explain it to your teacher when she/he marks it. If you can't add in depth, it's best that at least you show breadth. Categorize your ideas such as "economy effects", "physical health effects", "environmental effects", etc. Your ideas are roughly there but you need to polish them. Don't end of the article with an effect. You need a conclusion that summaries all your points concisely. E.g "Not only has the attempt on mindful manipulation of adolescent smokeing resulted in social problems, it has also....Much as it is undesired, the situation will not be alleviated until the government decides to act on the problems." visiting Argentina, and traveling to Brazil? Obama giving Brazil 2 BILLION of OUR money? Why do lebanese people do good outside lebanon and... What is this about Obama funding Brazil to drill o...

can you proof read my essay and tell me what you think and if theres any punctuation i need to correct?

can you proof read my essay and tell me what you think and if theres any punctuation i need to correct? The Effects of a Mindfulness Manipulation on Adolescent Smoking Isn’t smoking great? It’s not like cigarettes kill so many people a year and it’s not like “second hand smoke” even harms non-smokers. Right, Wrong Smoking can cause trouble, Tobacco smoke is a human killer, and even if you don’t smoke you can be in harm. Evidence suggests that smoking cigarettes increases the likelihood of suffering from heart disease, emphysema, lung cancer, high blood pressure, and premature aging. The smoker is also at risk of many short-term health consequences such as chronic cough, yellow teeth, and unpleasant breath. The American Cancer Society estimates that cigarettes are responsible for about 431,000 deaths in the United States each year. Lung cancer accounts for about 30 percent of all cancer deaths in the United States, and smoking accounts for nearly 90 percent of lung cancer deaths. The smoking habit and addiction to nicotine usually begin at an early age. In the United States, more than 70 percent of adults who smoke began smoking before the age of 18. This fact has led to particular concern over smoking in teenagers and young adults. Tobacco industries direct 90% of recommendation their cigarette advertisements toward today's youth, hoping to hook another young adolescent into their money making scheme. Onset of smoking in children occurs at an early age due to a number of factors that include pro-social smoking advertisements, peer and even parents in certain circumstances. Primary prevention techniques that attempt to stop the behavior before it starts are effective because children are still young enough to be molded and influenced accordingly by the proper role-models. Preventative measures, such as informational campaigns are ineffective because they are unrealistic and fail to emphasize on the here and now. These measures focus on the future health risks that may occur 20 or 30 years down the line, which is much to long for a twelve-year-old to concern himself about. Adolescents also believe that they are invincible and therefore not subject to the health risks of all other smokers. For a young adolescent, life is still novel and carefree. The health risks of smoking are not part of a twelve-year-olds mindset-at least not until he or she is grandpa's age. A common habit difficult to resist when tempted. Fear manipulations lack preventative power because many of the health risks of smoking are long term, for a young teenager-what out of sight is out of mind. Fear manipulations are unrealistic simply because of the waiting period before the onset of disease. Early teens spend most of their time with peers, rather than parents. Mom and Dad play more of a secondary role during the teen years. It makes sense that young teens are easily persuaded by their peer group simply because the greater part of the day is spent interacting with them. Parents do not become the active roll model until dinner time for a few hours until lights out. If a youngster believes that smoking is common and normal, he or she may say if everyone else does it, so will I. Approximately 7 million tons of commercial tobaccos are grown each year, with a value of $39 billion. Leading tobacco-growing countries are China, the United States, India, Brazil, Turkey, and Zimbabwe. Tobacco is an economically important crop for many nations—about 2 million tons of unmanufactured tobacco leaves, at a value of about $6,500 per ton, are exported each year worldwide. Brazil leads in exports, with about 15 percent of the total, followed closely by the United States, with about 11 percent of the total. The United States exports the most cigarettes and other manufactured tobacco products. Of the approximately 635 billion cigarettes made in the United States in 1999, about one-fourth were exported. Despite all this there may still be faith for some who want to quit. Studies of ex-smokers show that their risk of dying from smoking-related disease decreases with each year of abstinence. Smokers who quit before the age of 50 reduce their risk of life-threatening disease by half compared with those who continue smoking. Since the surgeon general’s report in 1964, the proportion of males who smoke has decreased from more than 50 percent to about 28 percent while the percentage of women who smoke has fallen from about 34 percent to 23 percent. Today, about 44 million Americans have quit smoking cigarettes. The question to be addressed is what can be done to motivate healthy behavior. Hypocrisy manipulations have been used in the past to decrease the frequency of unwanted behaviors. Hypocrisy manipulations promote behavior change because they motivate a person to think about their inconsistencies. In light of the disease risks associated with tobacco products and their associated high health-care costs, many individuals and health organizations have lobbied for public policy changes that would change the way tobacco products are regulated, manufactured, marketed, and sold in the United States. In November 1998 the tobacco industry and the attorneys general of 46 states, along with representatives of the public health field and lawyers representing smokers, announced an agreement that bans outdoor cigarette advertising and the use of cartoon characters in advertising, a practice that may attract young people to smoking. The agreement also requires tobacco companies to pay $206 billion during the next 25 years to fund antismoking public education programs, smoking cessation programs, tobacco-related medical research, and reimbursement to states for some of the health-care costs associated with treating smokers. Last but not least finally, in late 1999 Philip Morris, the nation’s largest cigarette maker, publicly acknowledged that smoking is addictive and causes serious health problems. Homework Help - 3 Answers Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions : 1 : There are tons of mistakes in this essay. Unfortunately, it is way to long for me to retype it and correct it. I wish you luck. 2 : ''Tobacco industries direct 90% of recommendation their cigarette advertisements toward today's youth,'' This doesn't really make alot of sense, and ''Last but not least finally,'' should say ''Last but not least, finally''. (I moved the comma) Other than that this essay is really good!!! 3 : Hey, its a good attempt at an article but really, I have to say that there's quite a lot of flaws in it. Don't be disheartened though. Excellence comes with practice. Punctuation aside (I'm sure you're quite alright with puncation), there's some ideas you need to cut and then polish up on what's left. Basically your ideas are there but scattered about the place. I get the impression that you seemed to know where to pluck the answer from sources but not how to place them into your own words. What you need to do is to select some ideas that you have a stronger opinion about from your article and then build on them. A framework that you can follow is idea statement+ elaboration(1)+ maybe elaboration (2)+example+example elaboration(1)+summary statement. It's a not an idiot-proof method but it helps. And its just a guideline, so you shouldn't stick to it too religiously. Your article has too many paragraphs/long. I'm not sure how long your article has to be, if its around 1200 words, I'm thinking 5(min) to 8(max) paragraphs would do. 1 intro, 3 points and 1 conclusion. 1st paragraph: Words like "Isn’t" and "It's" are supposed to be separated into their own individual words like "is not" and "it is" when in return form. Joint words are only used when in speech bubbles or spoken english, not in reporting or proper word documents. Besides that, your first paragraph is too casual. Words like "right", minuses off the credibility of your argument or report due to the lack of professionalism and fomality. "It’s not like cigarettes kill so many people a year and it’s not like “second hand smoke” even harms non-smokers." You ought to change your phrasing. Phrases like "it's not..." makes it sound a teenager trying to reason his way around something. Your 2nd paragraph has a too many ideas. It's better to separate them out and focus on one idea so that it gives some depth to your essay. That goes for the rest of the paragraphs too. Anyway, did you copy and paste those statistics and sentences off the internet? The sentences doesn't flow well. It's not a crime to use those statistics but you need to have a better linkage between them. Demostrate some mental analysis that you have done yourself in between them. And probably some cause and effect kinda relationship. Usually statistics are used to prove your point, give it support, not to be the points themselves. Usually 5 statistics is more than enough for an essay. You oughta give some overview, such as "young adolescents are attractive targets for tobacca industries....", before you bring in the statistics. And the thing is, you should acknowledge where the statistics are from. E.g"According to the US Federal 2007 income survey...". One, it demostrates some level of academic intergrity, giving gd impression points, and therefore credibility. Two, if the source is a credible one, it helps to add credibility to your article. I think you should concentrate on answering the question too. You digress too much into the peripherals such as "Approximately 7 million tons of commercial tobaccos are grown each year, with a value of $39 billion". You need state directly, outright what is the effect and then be more focused on answering the question.Don't pluck the sentences straight out of the internet. I can't be sure whether you did that, but it sounds like you did. It doesn't matter if you didn't, because you won't get a chance to explain it to your teacher when she/he marks it. If you can't add in depth, it's best that at least you show breadth. Categorize your ideas such as "economy effects", "physical health effects", "environmental effects", etc. Your ideas are roughly there but you need to polish them. Don't end of the article with an effect. You need a conclusion that summaries all your points concisely. E.g "Not only has the attempt on mindful manipulation of adolescent smokeing resulted in social problems, it has also....Much as it is undesired, the situation will not be alleviated until the government decides to act on the problems." visiting Argentina, and traveling to Brazil? Obama giving Brazil 2 BILLION of OUR money? Why do lebanese people do good outside lebanon and... What is this about Obama funding Brazil to drill o...

Why do people complain about welfare so much?

Why do people complain about welfare so much? I have never in my life claimed welfare and hopefully I will never have to. That being said, if I get hurt and can't work anymore or whatever else, it's good to know there's a security net out there to keep me from living on the street, to the point of no return. Social welfare has helped my cousin who's a single mom get through school and keep her kids in school. It's helped my dad when he broke his leg and couldn't work. It helps many many people and I do not begrudge them for taking it. It serves a purpose, namely "keep people from sinking into poverty and then crime". Look at the countries with no / very little social welfare, there's Brazil, China, Honduras, Russia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, etc... I think we see the picture. Why do people hate the system that's only trying to help them? Do poor right wingers really think it's a good idea to do away with all social welfare because they make so much money and never get into accidents that they'll never need it? Well, we don't have food stamps in Canada so I don't know about that. Sounds a bit Stalinist. But in terms of people cheating the system, big deal! We might as well stop doing anything then. People use identity theft to live off others, lets ban ID! People screw insurance companies, let's ban insurance! Politics - 6 Answers Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions : 1 : yes I think that you are right 2 : I think it's only because dishonest people can take advantage of the system and basically make a living off of it. I know plenty that do. And food stamps are greatly abused by some people, such as on chips, pop, etc. And some people even dump out the pop in the states that offer return deposits, and return the cans at 5 or 10 cents a piece, and use that money to buy cigarettes or beer. I think we need welfare in our country, but maybe it should be monitored more closely to make sure that only the extremely needy people receive it so our country does not continue going into debt. 3 : you can only get welfare if you have kids. thats why you see these single mothers have 5 or 6 kids by different men. I know a lot of welfare dads who have never bothered to get a job give their drug dealers their foodstamp pin numbers for money so they can buy their drugs 4 : It doesn't work. It only keeps people as slaves to the government. If you think it works for society, you only have to examine the most cared for population on earth...the American Indian. They've gone no where. Sure, they blame it on all kinds of things. Doesn't everyone on welfare? 5 : I hate welfare because, the system is too easy to take advantage of and even easier to manipulate. Also, the only solution that Congress ever proposes is to throw more money at the problem. This increases my tax burden for people who do nothing but sit on their lazy azzes and collect money that I worked 2 jobs to earn. Sorry, but it's a bit difficult for me to have any compassion for people that do absolutely nothing and get paid for it. There are many government programs that I would love to see disappear....food stamps and welfare are at the top of the list. 6 : Persons on welfare & food stamps buy a better grade of every thing than I the tax payer can reasonably afford. The fraud can be dealt with but isn't. I believed it to be a compassionate gift sustenance not Extravagance. Now it is referred as an entitlement and said to be insufficient by way of demand. Here your father would have received Workman's compensation or disability. visiting Argentina, and traveling to Brazil? Obama giving Brazil 2 BILLION of OUR money? Why do lebanese people do good outside lebanon and... What is this about Obama funding Brazil to drill o...

Is this a good enough Grade 8 valedictorian speech? Stuff to add?

Is this a good enough Grade 8 valedictorian speech? Stuff to add? I know some of you may find that having a valedictorian in grade eight is a little over the top, but it wasn't my idea. Any suggestions on grammar, ideas to make it longer, or other ideas are greatly appreciated. Sorry if you don't understand some inside jokes, my class will. When you first turn 4 and you realise that you will soon be entering kindergarten, a lot of kids feel excited and rather eager to enter the fun and exciting world of sitting inside a classroom for 6 hours doing endless amounts of work. But I was different. I knew from the start what hard work it would be, and that the excitement would wear off within a few years when you really start preparing for your future. You see, I had been in school before. Occasionally I would poke into my sister’s kindergarten classroom and see her not just playing games and painting pictures, as I had expected, but also learning complicated things such as reading and writing. Now, I’m not saying that school is such a horrible place, but things don’t get a little dry once in a while, and the people I’ve spent the past 10 years with have made it just a little more interesting. There are the Natives, those who have been here since JK, such as I, as well as others such as Caitlyn Ramsay and Mitchell Willoughby, and who I’ve got to know pretty well. Others, such as Danielle Stewardson and Molly Kloss, came in the early grades, and more recently students such as Kevin Kim and Rebecca Hocke have joined us even from countries across the world! Overall, I’ve been able to spend my elementary school life with a good group of people; not a group of druggies or outlaws, but responsible people with good futures. But, of course, there are always some stupid, yet funny, mistakes that students make, such as Adam Schmidt shaving half his eyebrows off just in time for grad pictures (if you look really closely on the composite, you’ll see that Ms. Cha drew them in), Adam Schmidt missing the East Park field trip in grade seven because his siblings didn’t wake him up, and, well… Adam Schmidt’s alter ego Snowflake. And our class has had many students achieve a great deal of honours, such as Nathan Phelps beating out all the grade eights in the Gauss competition when he was only in Grade five, Brecken Spence making it all the way to the provincial track and field competition in ball throw this year, and although not everyone was recognised in such a way, there are many things our class has done as a whole, both locally, such as raking leaves in the fall, and globally, when we collected soccer jerseys for children in Brazil, and collected money for those in need in Haiti. And yet, all of these memories of the past ten years are just a small part of our lives, as little as just 8% of it. For the past year we have been preparing for high school, and this exact moment, which will prepare us for university, which will potentially prepare us for the rest of our lives. I haven’t really thought much about it until just recently when I realised that tomorrow isn’t just another last day of school, where I get 2 weeks of summer, and then it’s back to the comfortable and familiar surroundings of this place. No, tomorrow is the very last day of this comfortable and familiar experience, and then it’s off to a whole new world; the world of lockers, cafeterias, exams, and 70 minute periods. And after that we’ll all split up; some will go to college, others to university and some will go straight to working as a greeter at Walmart, but that’s still okay! And even this year some of us will be splitting up; most of us will be going to Oakridge, but many are going to STA and Central, and other schools. But even as we move away from each other in the coming months, we’ll always have at least one thing in common; that is, that we were a part of the Clara Brenton graduating class of 2010. Primary & Secondary Education - 1 Answers Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions : 1 : Very good and more than just adequate. If you make this last up to 5 minutes but no more, then you have succeeded in getting your message across and not boring anyone. Two thumbs up!!! visiting Argentina, and traveling to Brazil? Obama giving Brazil 2 BILLION of OUR money? Why do lebanese people do good outside lebanon and... What is this about Obama funding Brazil to drill o...