Reflective Essay

Reflective Essay

            The main purpose of writing a research paper, even if it’s not done in an obvious way is to use a central idea to hopefully support a thesis statement about a certain topic. In my case, when writing my first draft, the use of a rather general research question without an opinion or viewpoint toward my topic turned out to be a setback. My original research question was “How is rap music portrayed in America?” My thinking when choosing a neutral question as so was that my paper then wouldn’t become too opinionated and I wouldn’t start assuming things (forcing me to cite statements). This did turn out to be true, because in my first draft I was able to incorporate articles with different perspectives of rap music into my paper. Also, I wouldn’t be as likely to write a persuasive essay, instead of a research essay. However, after my first draft was done, I realized that I needed to connect the different parts of my paper together so that it all flowed well. The easiest way to do this seemed to be by incorporating a little more personal emotion into the essay, which goes back to the main research question that provides the theme of the whole paper.

The biggest problems with using such a general question was that I felt my feelings toward the topic weren’t being expressed enough in the paper and it was too hard to focus on just a few aspects of the topic, instead of many. I ended up changing my research question to “Why is rap music generally portrayed as negative in America, especially in the older generation of today?” With a more opinionated question, I found it much easier to focus on the central idea that I wanted to get across in my essay.

As an avid rap music listener myself, I feel there is a problem with the way rap music is viewed in America, especially among adults, which is the main reason I chose to write about this topic. I wanted to expose both the good and bad aspects of rap music, but at the same time convince that there is more “good” in rap without straight-up saying that was what I was doing. Using rap music in comparison to other genres, and showing the similarities between them, is very effective in showing it shouldn’t be seen as so “bad.” I think the main problem with people’s negative views of rap is they usually have very little knowledge of the genre. Like anything else, it’s pretty easy to form negative opinions about something when you know little about the topic.  A majority of today’s adult population didn’t grow up listening to rap music which could be the main reason as to why many are quick to make decisions about rap, without knowing much about it. By providing information that supports rap music and gives reasoning for its content in my essay I hope to influence perception some adult’s perceptions, at least a little.

The hardest part of researching for me was narrowing down my searching and the topics in my paper to just a few, instead of many. Being so interested in rap really made it hard for me to stay on track and stick to my research question/ central idea. I always found myself researching things about rap that didn’t actually relate to my question. This resulted in a paper that had good ideas without significance, or at least proven significance. However, after changing up my research question, I found it much easier to research only things that could help answer my question, instead of random information about rap music that had no significance to my paper and overall idea.

A majority of the sources I ended up using were scholarly sources, which I think is very important for a topic like this, because trustworthy data is needed to show that rap is in fact portrayed negatively. If I couldn’t prove this, there would be no way to use my research question, considering it’s just an assumption otherwise. One of the most important sources for my paper was "Rap Music and Its Violent Progeny: America's Culture of Violence in Context," by Jeanita Richardson and Kim Scott. The article's intention was to take a different look at rap music/industry from a positive outlook. Its main purpose- to show why rap music shouldn't be seen as just deviant behavior put into words. The belief being that making a negative impression about rap, without understanding its meaning and how it came about is unfair. Richardson and Scott seemed to believe that too many negative attitudes nationwide are directed at rap music, when many other forms of music and media could also be seen as having negative messages. They feel that if put into a rap artist's shoes, many people would better understand the intended theme of the songs. This source was very useful, because its theme was very similar to what I intended my paper’s theme to be.

Another source that was rather useful in my essay was "The Words Have Changed but the Ideology Remains the Same: Misogynistic Lyrics in Rap Music," by Terri Adams and Douglas Fuller. The goal of their article was to show the relationship between misogynistic views in rap music and the overall view of African American women throughout history. They claim that since misogyny emerged in rap music during the 1980s, it has remained a large component of rap in many different ways. Even songs with a title that doesn't relate to women at all sometimes fit misogynistic comments in their songs somewhere. Adams and Fuller claimed that the use of misogyny in rap is what causes 1, many people to have a negative view of rap music, and 2, those who like rap to develop racist or sexist views. This article was very important when writing my own essay, because it provided an opposite viewpoint to balance out my opinion and articles that backed it up. Also, by having a lot of content about misogyny in rap, the article was helpful, because the misogyny topic was very important throughout my essay as well.

A third significant source for my essay was “Controversial Rap Themes, Gender Portrayals and Skin Tone Distortion: A Content Analysis of Rap Music Videos," by Kate Conrad, Travis Dixon, and Yuanyuan Zhang. Its main purpose was to analyze rap music videos and show how they affect people's overall portrayal of rap music. They provided both negative and positive themes found within rap music and use them to figure out the relation of music video content to listener's perception. By using rap music videos to analyze the portrayal of rap, this article provided me with a whole new topic I probably wouldn’t have otherwise considered. I think it added a lot to my paper, by looking at songs from a perspective besides the lyrics. You know what they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

The sources I chose to use and the feedback I received through the drafting process were really what ended up shaping my paper. Without sources to back up my research question, there isn’t really anyway to write about the question. Luckily, it wasn’t too difficult to find sources that related to my question. By using my peer’s feedback, I was able to determine what it was that most readers wanted to hear when reading a paper with my topic. Knowing what a reader wants to read about when writing a paper makes it much easier to decide what and what not to write.

Working with First Draft

Part 1:
In my first draft, I had three problems citation wise:

1. To cite sources with 2 or more authors in my paper, I can just write the first author's last name and then "et al," instead of all the names. For example, instead of (Adams, Fuller 939), I'd write (Adams et al, 939).
2. In areas I used blocked quotes, I need to write what source and/or who wrote it before the quote. 
3. On the works cited page, I need to italicize the journals or other larger texts that my articles came from.

Part 2:

Adams, Terri, and Douglas Fuller. "The Words Have Changed but the Ideology Remains the Same: Misogynistic Lyrics in Rap Music."Journal of Black Studies, 36.6 (2006): 938-957.

• 1.
• Perspective: Music as Misogynistic
• Their quotes in my paper exploit the various ways misogyny is used in not only rap music, but many genres. It provides data that shows why some people view rap negatively and proves rap isn't the only genre with misogyny.

Conrad, Kate, Travis Dixon, and Yuanyuan Zhang. "Controversial Rap Themes, Gender Portrayals and Skin Tone Distortion: A Content Analysis of Rap Music Videos." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 53.1 (2009): 134-156.

• 2.
• Perspective: Rap music videos
• Analyzes rap music in relation to their music videos, showing the connection between sound and image. This shows how people's portrayal of rap is affected by music videos.  

Fried, Carrie. "Who's Afraid of Rap: Differential Reactions to Music Lyrics." Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29.4 (1999): 705-721.

• 3.
• Perspective: women/ rap in relation to other genres
• The article provided a lot of comparison between rap and other music genres, allowing me to prove that rap isn't the only genre with negative themes and content. 

Herd, Denise. "Changing Images of Violence in Rap Music Lyrics: 1979-1997." Journal of Public Health Policy, 30.4 (2009): 395-406.

• 4.
• Perspective: women/ changing image of rap over time
• Using this source, I could to break rap into decades (up through the 90s at least), then allowing me to show the change that occurred in its portrayal.

Richardson, Jeanita, and Kim Scott. "Rap Music and Its Violent Progeny: America's Culture of Violence in Context." The Journal of Negro Education, 71.3 (2002): 175-192.

• 5.
• Perspective: violence
• By raising the issues that America itself promotes a culture of violence and violence in media can effect youth's actions, I was able to make conclusions about music and media as a whole in relation to public violence.

Sullivan, Rachel. "Rap and Race: It's Got a Nice Beat, but What About the Message?." Journal of Black Studies, 33.5 (2003): 605-622.

• 6.
• Perspective: rap as negative
• Showed the reasoning as to why some people view rap negatively, mostly using lyrical content.

Trapp, Erin. "The Push and Pull of Hip-Hop: A Social Movement Analysis." American Behavioral Scientist, 48.11 (2005): 1482-1495.

• 7.
• Perspective: specific/ theoretical 
• I mostly used this source compare Tupac and Queen Latifah, and show how two similar artists with similar messages were portrayed differently.

Tyson, Edgar. "Rap-music Attitude and Perception Scale: A Validation Study." Research on Social Work Practice, 16.2 (2006): 211-223.

• 8.
• Perspective: theoretical 
• Used in relation to rap being produced for entertainment and a source of money. 

  Sources 1,3, and 5/ 2,8 seemed to support each other. Source 6 contradicted 1 and 3. 4 seemed to fill in gaps with 2. I can use these relationships to provide balanced, but factual information about the same topics within my paper.

Analyzing Feedback and Revision Plan

A majority of the recommended revisions for my paper had to deal with expanding more on some ideas and quotes within paragraphs, in order to relate them back to my research question. The readers were sometimes left with questions after reading certain sections of my paper, so I think it is important for me to provide a little more analysis in those areas. For example, some excerpts from the revisions included: "make the connection now," "expand more on this paragraph," and "give an example." At the points these comments were made, it seems that I only scratched the surface when analyzing the topics, while the reader felt I could go further.
My use of sources and quotes to provide topics for analysis was probably my strong point, it was just a matter of going more in-depth when analyzing them. Considering these points, my main goal when revising my first draft becomes using more analysis in certain areas to lead to more inquiry throughout the paper. This will lead to more suggested answers to my research question, that is ultimately backed up by facts to prove them correct or false.

• The main idea of my paper is essentially to analyze the portrayal of rap music in the U.S., hence the research question: "How is rap music portrayed in America?" My main claim, basically being that rap music is many times judged too quickly by many people, and that there is a lot of "good" in rap music. To do so, it is essential to provide examples of how rap is "good" and compare its content to other musical genres and forms of media. It is important to provide specific examples, in that it then backs up claims made by me or other sources. Making a strong claim in a paper really adds purpose to writing the paper.
• All of the sources I used were scholarly articles or excerpts from a book. It was important to use scholarly sources, so that I could be confident the information I was putting into my paper was actually true. Popular sources really cannot be used for much more than opinion, hence the fact that factual information is essential in backing-up strong claims in a research paper.
• I intend to use other sources such as personal bios of rap artists and lyrics of certain songs in my next draft. Personal bios of rap artists will provide information about them growing up and the environments they grew up in. I think this information will be very useful in showing the effect a rap artist's childhood can have on the lyrics of their songs when they grow up. This will provide me with more information about the truth being portrayed in rap music. Actual lyrics of songs will allow me to back-up claims I make about violence and misogyny in rap. After reading suggested revisions, I realized it is essential for me to provide plenty of specific examples. What could be better than lyrics?
• I haven't necessarily arranged my sources in anyway in the paper. Instead, I arranged the topics of my paper in sequential order, relating each to the next, then using the sources with content relating to respective topics, in order to offer perspectives about them. In other words, I first arranged topics and then dispersed the quotes from sources throughout. To better address the perspectives of sources, I plan to elaborate more on their  claims, with my own opinions,  as I stated in the first paragraph.

Assignment 10, Part 1

Tyler Diedrick

English 102

10-20-2011

Assignment 10 Part 1

·         …rap music shouldn't be seen as just deviant behavior put into words.

o   This passage is how I personally feel about the overall portrayal of rap music and is a good shortened version of why I chose this topic. Working off this statement without incorporating too much bias will be helpful in creating the overall structure of the paper.

·         "It has been argued that rap serves as a voice of protest for those left out of the “American dream”

o   A possible origin of rap music; though many of today’s rap songs are based solely on having a good time and straight-up rhythmic balance, some artists still use an old-school style as described in this quote. I think this quote creates a good argument as to the general theme(s) within rap music as a whole. Backing this quote up with balanced evidence trying to prove rap is either “garbage,” or a talented expression of thoughts will create a good argument in my own paper.

·          "...exposure to violent rap videos leads to a greater acceptance of violence and lowered academic aspirations among young African Americans”

o   What about the effect of rap on academic aspirations of young whites and other races? Can I find information to back this quote up, or even info that disproves it? This quote contrasts well with the previous one, contrasting quotes like this backed up with specific details are good content for a research paper.

·         -Materialism: Expression of one's wealth

-Misogyny: portrayal of men's dominance over women (in rap music videos)

-Colorism: prejudice based on skin tone/color

o   These three key terms are very important in both understanding the basis and content of rap, along with different viewpoints towards rap. Materialism and misogyny both are terms expressed avidly in many rap songs, whether good or bad. Colorism is referring to part of the population that forms negative opinions of rap music based on the artists’ skin color. The three of these terms could each create a section heading within my paper to separately focus on different ideas?

·         …thematic content, Afrocentric features, and gender differences.

o   How does each of these affect portrayal of rap music? Express this in my paper!

·         …misogyny emerged in rap music during the 1980s; it has remained a large component of rap in many different ways. Even songs with a title that doesn't relate to women at all sometimes fit misogynistic comments in their songs somewhere

·         negative view of rap/ positive outlook on rap music/ neutral standpoint

o   I was able to find various articles that had different perspectives of rap, this is important in order for me not to write a biased paper. Factual information was very prevalent and important in each, which is something to think about when writing my paper.

·         -new social movement theory

-political opportunity theory

-Rap-music Attitude and Perception Scale (RAP)

o   The two theories or the “push” and “pull” effects are attempts to determine the goals of rap artists when writing songs. If there are deeper lyrical meanings than what are initially seen, what are they? I’ll provide examples in my paper. I am still not sure how much I will use the RAP scale for information.

·         …rap music has changed tremendously in many ways since its beginning in the 1970s.

o   Obviously the content within rap has changed drastically since its origin in the ‘70s and has become much more explicit. How has this affected peoples’ portrayal of rap? Has it changed much, or stayed similar to what it was?

·         Violence has gradually become associated with power, wealth, glamour, etc., which has also increased acceptance of rap. Changing social conditions and increased teenage violent behavior is seen as a cause of such a change.

o   This is a very negative way in which wealth and glamour is to be achieved and is a huge cause of negative portrayals of rap. However, is this statement true? If so, should it be considered ok for artists to produce songs with content similar to this?

Grouping similar subject matter together and ordering them in a logical sense to achieve an overall goal (in my case answering the research question) is the best way to go about writing an initial draft. For example, with the content above, theoretical information will be separate from opinionated comments, etc. As the drafting and revising process continues, I’ll make the information flow better and better to make a final copy.

The focus of my paper is obviously the research question, but beyond that it seems best to focus on race, gender, age, and lyrical content and how they relate to rap music portrayal. I was able to find plenty of articles and information about each of those four things and I think they will each help answer my research question well and lead to good inquiry.

Assignment 8, Part 2

Passage: 
"However, just as other music forms are not homogeneous , neither is rap music. It is far too simplistic to portray rap artists as perpetrators of behavior deemed socially deviant without placing the artists and their life experiences in context" (176).


Richardson, Jeanita, and Kim Scott. "Rap Music and Its Violent Progeny: America's Culture of Violence in Context." The Journal of Negro Education, 71.3 (2002): 175-192.

Summarize:
There are many other forms of music besides rap that have examples of violence, sexual content, and other socially "unacceptable phrases".  People who dislike rap music and rap artists should learn more about the artist's lifestyle and the meaning behind lyrics before being quick to make conclusions.

Interpreting:
Richardson and Scott have a very legitimate point in this passage. After reading it, I immediately started forming my own opinion of rap being portrayed unfairly in the overall population. Country, rock, and other genres all contain explicit material, however, rap takes the majority of the negative stereotypical opinions, for whatever reason(s). People don't need to necessarily like rap music, but it shouldn't be criticized just based on lyrical content. Lyrics, especially in rap, many times have metaphorical and other meaningful phrases that won't be understood by the average person, unless the song is broken down and diagnosed deeper.

Analyze/ Critique:
I think this passage is the main point of the article and is backed up well throughout the article. Putting it toward the beginning was a good choice, in that it provided an overview of what is to come. It is easy to tell from the two sentences that the authors have a problem with the way that rap music is viewed in the general population. Numerous times I myself have heard people criticize rap, and usually their only reason is that it's lyrically bad or inappropriate. Ironically, those people have little understanding of rap and live in a completely different environment than many rap artists. I also wonder why many adults will instantly turn off a rap song when they hear one explicit comment or word, however if basically the same comment is said in say a country song it's all good. It seems as though many people categorize rap music into one large group and cannot appreciate the musical talent that goes into songs' lyrical composition.

Annotated Bibliography Assignment (all ten sources)

Research Question: What is America's general portrayal of rap music and is it fair?

Richardson, Jeanita, and Kim Scott. "Rap Music and Its Violent Progeny: America's Culture of Violence in Context." The Journal of Negro Education, 71.3 (2002): 175-192.

This article's intention is to take a different look at rap music/industry from a positive outlook. Its main purpose is to show why rap music shouldn't be seen as just deviant behavior put into words. The belief being that making a negative impression about rap, without understanding its meaning and how it came about is unfair. The statement "Rap music, is rooted in the African tradition of speaking rhythmically to a beat generally supplied by background music" (Richardson 176) really sets the stage for the rest of the article, as a beginning to show the truth behind rap music.

Richardson and Scott truly seem to believe that too many negative attitudes nationwide are directed at rap music, when many other forms of music and media could also be seen as having negative messages. They realize that rap does give off negative messages about drugs, alcohol, prostitution, etc, however they think that if put into a rap artist's shoes, many people would better understand the intended theme of the songs.

This article seems to be perfect to provide information to write my paper. It not only gives the an opinion on America's portrayal, but also a personal opinion about rap music. The use of both personal opinion and outside sources/facts really increases the functionality of the article. What seems logical is to use this source as information for one point of view on the topic and find another article with a mostly negative outlook on rap.

Fried, Carrie. "Who's Afraid of Rap: Differential Reactions to Music Lyrics." Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29.4 (1999): 705-721.

The use of experiments and polls is very prevalent in Fried's "Who's Afraid of Rap: Differential Reactions to Music Lyrics." The idea of the article is not necessarily to persuade or convince, but to let the reader form their own opinion based on informational studies and statistics. By stating both positive and negative results of rap music, the article becomes a very balanced, straight-forward article. The two following quotes provide this balanced reporting: "It has been argued that rap serves as a voice of protest for those left out of the “American dream” (Fried 706)," and "...exposure to violent rap videos leads to a greater acceptance of violence and lowered academic aspirations among young African Americans (Fried 706)." The article also makes many comparisons between rap and other genres of music, especially country and heavy metal in order to show the difference in perceptions of similar quotes in music.

Fried purposely takes no apparent opinion on the topic in the article. She solely is providing information for the reader to form their own perspective about rap music. This is good for my paper, in that a neutral viewpoint gives non-biased, factual information about rap and its effects on Americans. The various graphs and charts will provide me with proven numbers to work with, if needed, to persuade the reader in my own paper.

Iwamoto, Derek. "Tupac Shakur: Understanding the Identity Formation of Hyper-Masculinity of a Popular Hip-Hop Artist." Black Scholar, 33.2 (2003): 44-49.

This Tupac Shakur article is the first one i read that focused on a specific rapper, compared to the rap industry as a whole. It basically differentiated Shakur's "masks" in the wide variety of songs he produced and showed how they influenced the media and public perception of not only him, but rap music as a whole. For example, many of his songs did reference violence, so Iwamoto showed the difference in the effect this had on followers of rap and non-followers. Now, because he was a major artist within the rap scene, many people associated the rest of rap with him as well. The article did provide two sides of information throughout.

Though the author's perspective wasn't shown too much in the article, his perspective seems to be critical of the public's general negative quick interpretation of rap, especially those with little knowledge of it. He seems to think that rap has both positive and negative effects, but also appreciates the creativity that goes into creating rap songs. Overall, I'd classify his position as neutral or slightly a positive outlook on rap.

A micro-research paper like this provides specific examples of the ideas that other articles just touch on. It will be good to incorporate both general and specific material into my paper to create a balance of information. I can use the information in this article to explain the broad topics within my paper.

Conrad, Kate, Travis Dixon, and Yuanyuan Zhang. "Controversial Rap Themes, Gender Portrayals and Skin Tone Distortion: A Content Analysis of Rap Music Videos." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 53.1 (2009): 134-156.

Key terms:
Materialism: Expression of one's wealth
Misogyny: portrayal of men's dominance over women (in rap music videos)
Colorism: prejudice based on skin tone/color

The content of this article is laid out almost perfectly in the title of the article. Its main purpose is to analyze rap music videos and show how they affect people's overall portrayal of rap music. The authors use various research and experiments to analyze three main issues with rap music: thematic content, Afrocentric features, and gender differences. They provide both negative and positive themes found within rap music and use them to figure out the relation of music video content to listener's perception. Also, the article not only focused on skin color, it got specific enough to examine skin tone of blacks and how darkness effects perception.

Since there are three different authors for this article, it is hard to tell what perspectives they each have. However, it seems as though they are trying to write a neutral article that focuses on research to provide answers to their questions. They use very little personal bias and focus mostly on facts found in experiments of rap music videos.

I like that this article showed the relation of the actual rap songs and the videos that go with them. It provides me with information from a whole new viewpoint that I previously wasn't planning on going into.

Adams, Terri, and Douglas Fuller. "The Words Have Changed but the Ideology Remains the Same: Misogynistic Lyrics in Rap Music."Journal of Black Studies, 36.6 (2006): 938-957.

Keyword: Misogyny- hatred or disdain toward women (939)

Adams and Fullers' article has one large goal in mind: to show the relationship between misogynistic views in rap music and the overall view of African American women throughout history. They claim that since misogyny emerged in rap music during the 1980s, it has remained a large component of rap in many different ways. Even songs with a title that doesn't relate to women at all sometimes fit misogynistic comments in their songs somewhere. Adams and Fuller claim that the use of misogyny in rap is what causes 1, many people to have a negative view of rap music, and 2, those who like rap to develop racist or sexist views.

The authors definitely have a negative view of rap and do not agree with the representation of women in rap music. They only provide one perspective, making this a rather biased article. Facts and cited information is used to promote their viewpoint, but again that is the only one discussed throughout. The positive themes within rap are never examined.

This article will work well to conflict previous articles I found like "Rap Music and Its Violent Progeny: America's Culture of Violence in Context," which has a more positive outlook on rap music. When used to argue against each other, I think they will provide an interesting argument in my own paper. I personally do not agree with this article, but it's good to use "balanced coverage" when writing my own paper, even if I disagree with something.



Trapp, Erin. "The Push and Pull of Hip-Hop: A Social Movement Analysis." American Behavioral Scientist, 48.11 (2005): 1482-1495.

The article examines how hip-hop and rap have affected social movements, using two different theories. The new social movement theory states "...music asserts the shifting identities of (largely) African American youth into the larger culture that could not previously accommodate the ideas and practices expressed in these identities" (1483). This is considered to be the "push" effect. The new social movement theory can be compared to the political opportunity theory which says hip-hop/ rap artists are social movement leaders themselves. This theory is called the "pull" effect. Trapp uses the work of rap and hip-hop icons Queen Latifah and Tupac Shakur (who grew with similar lifestyles), to show the difference in portrayal of women in their songs.

Trapp has a very neutral standpoint in her article, she solely wanted to explore the difference between an artist who creates a new social movement and one who simply promotes an existing one. However, by the end of the article, she comes to a conclusion based on her research, without ever taking a side in the article.

This article was useful for more than just information. Trapp's ability to make a conclusion about her topic without using bias, as I explained in the previous paragraph, will help me write my own paper. From an information standpoint, the use of the two contrasting theories is different from any other article I've read so far. Two contrasting ideas like this is always useful, because I'll be able to put both in my paper and allow the reader to make their own decision on which they feel is more correct.



Sullivan, Rachel. "Rap and Race: It's Got a Nice Beat, but What About the Message?." Journal of Black Studies, 33.5 (2003): 605-622.

This article provides a first-hand look at how rap has affected rap music fans. It is different from many other articles that examine rap portrayal, in that, most focus on studies and writer's viewpoints, instead of the opinions of individual rap music listeners. Teenagers are the focus of the article, because they make up the majority of rap music listeners. Interviews are used to determine the difference of perception of rap based on race. It was found that rap music is liked by a wide variety of races, but was easier to actual relate to for a African American kids. The history and origin of rap provided in the beginning of the article shows why rap is characterized like is today.

The author Rachel E. Sullivan, writes from a purely research-based standpoint. Once again, personal opinion is absent in this paper. As shown under the title, she is writing in affiliation with the University of Connecticut. The title- "Rap and Race: It's Got a Nice Beat, but What About the Message?" seems to show she wrote in a very similar manner as I will be. A question in the title like so, leads to inquiry, as I will also be doing.

The interviews of teenage kids will be very useful to me when writing my own paper. I can relate well to other teenager's opinions of rap, because I am a teen that listens to rap as well. Also, because this paper is written in a similar way that I plan to write mine, it will be a nice guide for me to look at.

Tyson, Edgar. "Rap-music Attitude and Perception Scale: A Validation Study." Research on Social Work Practice, 16.2 (2006): 211-223.

Tyson's article is actually a study that tests the Rap-music Attitude and Perception Scale (RAP), which apparently is supposed to measure a person's feelings towards rap based on the content of rap music. Using various theories, studies and procedures this study confirmed that the RAP was a good measure of people's feelings towards rap music.

The author of this article wrote from a skeptical perspective. He probably felt that there was no way a sheet of paper like the RAP could prove a person's perception of rap music. He used experiments he conducted to prove himself wrong, and then put the results of his study into a paper.

I don't really think this article is going to be very useful for answering my own research question, it contains a lot of information I really don't think will be useful to me. However, I feel the actual RAP Scale and its measures of people's perceptions may possibly be useful. I may try to find a copy of it and use it to support claims in my paper.

Herd, Denise. "Changing Images of Violence in Rap Music Lyrics: 1979-1997." Journal of Public Health Policy, 30.4 (2009): 395-406.

The idea of this article is to explain the changes within rap music, especially lyrically from the 1970s to the 1990s. Obviously, rap music has changed tremendously in many ways since its beginning in the 1970s. This specific article focuses mostly on the appearance of violent references within rap songs. It finds that violent phrases have more than doubled in rap music as a whole in the 20-year span. Violence has gradually become associated with power, wealth, glamour, etc., which has also increased acceptance of rap. Changing social conditions and increased teenage violent behavior is seen as a cause of such a change.

It seems as though the writer is concerned with the content in rap music, especially violent references, which would be why she chose to write about such a topic. It seemed that by the end of the article she became more understanding of rap, based off of the information she gathered about changing social conditions which explained why rap has changed.

The examining of actual content of rap music in this article will be very helpful in providing information to back-up a conclusion I'll eventually make about my own research question.

1 from Original Research Question:

Research Question: "How has the portrayal of the father figure in television sitcoms changed throughout the life of sitcoms?"

Scharrer, Erica. "From Wise to Foolish: The Portrayal of the Sitcom Father, 1950s-1990s." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 45.1 (2001): 23-40.

Summary: Over the years, the representation of fathers in television sitcoms has changed gradually but drastically. For example, jokes directed toward the man of the family used to be non-existent, where as today it is very common. The fact that sitcoms tend to follow the current economic and social states of a country, explain why this is true. Historically, when men were the main breadwinners for the family and women were stay-at-home moms, men were respected more than women. This idea of men being more important than women basically prohibited jokes being made against men in sitcoms. Today, women are much more present in the workforce and are viewed as equal to men, making jokes against men more appropriate.

An aspect that changes more randomly is when relating a man's portrayal in sitcoms to their economic class on the show. For the most part, more shows with a middle-class father will make fun of the character when compared to a show with an upper-class father. The idea being a middle-class father has less "power" than an upper-class one. Overall, sitcoms represent real-life society and allow a "weak" father character to be the basis of a joke, whereas a "strong" is the opposite. For example, in real-life tall men are usually seen as powerful and short men viewed as weak.

Author's Perspective: While reading the article, I got a feel of a feminist perspective without even realizing that a woman wrote it until after i read it. A majority of the article is not only about how a father's portrayal has changed, but a wife's as well. I feel as though Scharrer likes the idea that today's portrayal is not as unfair; that is something she points out numerous times. She definitely feels that the portrayal of fathers in sitcoms has changed quite a bit, and rightfully so. Her research led right to that conclusion.

How it helps me: This article provides a lot of information as to why the portrayal of fathers has changed and lays out how it occurred over time. I feel it will be useful for me when writing my own paper, especially from the "shift in power aspect."

Starbucks Article Response

Overall Claim: "The language of Starbucks aims to seduce us with comfort, romance us with relationships, and assure us that we are all working together for the good of the underprivileged" (Ruzich 440). This comment in the last paragraph of the article sums up the whole paper and states exactly what the point of the paper was, making it my choice as the overall claim. Her point was that Starbuck's use of language and sense of romance/ comfort is what put them ahead of many other similar coffee companies.


Sources: Ruzich did a great job incorporating a variety of sources into her article. A majority of her sources were scholarly articles, which proves the information she used was legitimate. Examples of scholarly articles were, "Hot Starbucks to Go" and "Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World." Both of these were used numerous times throughout the article, which reassures they were good sources. Along with scholarly articles, she also used a variety of direct reference material from the Starbucks Corporation. The article was filled with quotes pulled  from Starbucks brochures to promotional signs. Her use of these sources provided proof that Starbucks image was meant to be very comforting and relaxing.

Reasoning for Sources: To start out the article, Ruzich used a variety of what seemed to be scholarly, historical (especially Pendergast) sources about the history of coffee and how it became what is it today. This provided readers with insight, before reading the main material. The rest of the article focuses on her main claim of Starbucks being a company focused on promoting more than just coffee. Her use of the sources (Pendergast) and (Koehn) extend her main claim by giving examples of competing companies' advertisements and contrasting them to Starbucks. Then, a combination of scholarly articles and Starbuck's brochures/ signs provide quotes showing Starbuck's intended image to the public. For example the quote "We trust you, help us choose" (Ruzich 435), was explaining how Starbucks allowed customers to provide requests for in-store music.

Thoughts: I felt Ruzich did a great job on the article. It was quite amazing the she used 29 sources in a 12-page paper. Her use of so much scholarly information proved her main claim and she wrote it well. I understood her opinion about Starbucks and their image.

60 Minutes Episode

The 60 minutes episode was very similar to other rape stories I have seen on T.V. It was very one-sided, and mostly told from only Beckett Brennan's perspective. Whether this was on purpose or because the three men's basketball players declined responses, it creates a tough situation for a reader to make conclusions about the story. Personally, I really need to hear both sides of a story before I can decide how I feel about it. By no means am I saying Brennan didn't get raped, or did for that matter, I'm just saying without balanced coverage I'm careful when making a decision about how I feel.

By watching this episode, I realized why it's important to provide more than one perspective on a topic when doing research. Also, I learned that providing too much personal opinion, especially early in a paper can be very destructive towards the quality of the paper, because it will end up being very biased. Instead of automatically assuming something is true about a topic, approach it from a more neutral standpoint.

Out of the three articles I've read so far relating to rap music and its portrayal, there has been information that looked at rap from a positive, negative, and neutral standpoint. This is perfect for writing my research paper, because as I explained above a variety of perspectives is needed to write a good research paper. I am surprised  to have as much positive information as I do, considering I expected most scholarly articles to be neutral or negative.

My first article, " Rap Music and Its Violent Progeny: America's Culture of Violence in Context" had a very positive outlook of rap music. It took the perspective of relating to the true meaning within rap songs and understanding what the artist's lives are like, before making conclusions about rap. A source like this has both positive and negative effects on a paper. Being a very persuasive article, it presents a lot of bias toward the topic, so the reader only learns about that side, however this can be made up for by reading opposite-viewed articles to contradict. An article like this provides a break a personal standpoint, which can be very effective when used in sequence with facts.

The second and third articles, "Who's Afraid of Rap: Differential Reactions to Music Lyrics" and "Tupac Shakur: Understanding the Identity Formation of Hyper-Masculinity of a Popular Hip-Hop Artist," both had negative and positive viewpoints within, but also incorporated a lot of facts and used mostly a neutral standpoint. Facts are always needed in a research paper, otherwise it wouldn't be a research paper, so obviously these articles are very important and should probably be the most numerously used type of articles. Examples of factual information that was used is informational studies, surveys, and an in-depth analysis of Tupac and his music in the third article. 

As I explained in the past three paragraphs, many perspectives and disciplines should be used when writing a research paper. The ones I hope to incorporate are:

• Positive outlook on rap
• Negative outlook 
• Neutral standpoint
• Facts
• Personal opinion
• Specific biographies

My work and research so far has went well. I am very interested in the rap portrayal topic and hopefully it will be easy for me to write about. Originally, I was worried about the quality of information I could find, however I no longer think that will be a problem after finding good articles rather quickly.

Research Paper Sources (all 10)

Research Question: What is America's general portrayal of rap music and is it fair?

Richardson, Jeanita, and Kim Scott. "Rap Music and Its Violent Progeny: America's Culture of Violence in Context." The Journal of Negro Education, 71.3 (2002): 175-192.

This article's intention is to take a different look at rap music/industry from a positive outlook. Its main purpose is to show why rap music shouldn't be seen as just deviant behavior put into words. The belief being that making a negative impression about rap, without understanding its meaning and how it came about is unfair. The statement "Rap music, is rooted in the African tradition of speaking rhythmically to a beat generally supplied by background music" (Richardson 176) really sets the stage for the rest of the article, as a beginning to show the truth behind rap music.

Richardson and Scott truly seem to believe that too many negative attitudes nationwide are directed at rap music, when many other forms of music and media could also be seen as having negative messages. They realize that rap does give off negative messages about drugs, alcohol, prostitution, etc, however they think that if put into a rap artist's shoes, many people would better understand the intended theme of the songs.

This article seems to be perfect to provide information to write my paper. It not only gives the an opinion on America's portrayal, but also a personal opinion about rap music. The use of both personal opinion and outside sources/facts really increases the functionality of the article. What seems logical is to use this source as information for one point of view on the topic and find another article with a mostly negative outlook on rap.

Fried, Carrie. "Who's Afraid of Rap: Differential Reactions to Music Lyrics." Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29.4 (1999): 705-721.

The use of experiments and polls is very prevalent in Fried's "Who's Afraid of Rap: Differential Reactions to Music Lyrics." The idea of the article is not necessarily to persuade or convince, but to let the reader form their own opinion based on informational studies and statistics. By stating both positive and negative results of rap music, the article becomes a very balanced, straight-forward article. The two following quotes provide this balanced reporting: "It has been argued that rap serves as a voice of protest for those left out of the “American dream” (Fried 706)," and "...exposure to violent rap videos leads to a greater acceptance of violence and lowered academic aspirations among young African Americans (Fried 706)." The article also makes many comparisons between rap and other genres of music, especially country and heavy metal in order to show the difference in perceptions of similar quotes in music.

Fried purposely takes no apparent opinion on the topic in the article. She solely is providing information for the reader to form their own perspective about rap music. This is good for my paper, in that a neutral viewpoint gives non-biased, factual information about rap and its effects on Americans. The various graphs and charts will provide me with proven numbers to work with, if needed, to persuade the reader in my own paper.

Iwamoto, Derek. "Tupac Shakur: Understanding the Identity Formation of Hyper-Masculinity of a Popular Hip-Hop Artist." Black Scholar, 33.2 (2003): 44-49.

This Tupac Shakur article is the first one i read that focused on a specific rapper, compared to the rap industry as a whole. It basically differentiated Shakur's "masks" in the wide variety of songs he produced and showed how they influenced the media and public perception of not only him, but rap music as a whole. For example, many of his songs did reference violence, so Iwamoto showed the difference in the effect this had on followers of rap and non-followers. Now, because he was a major artist within the rap scene, many people associated the rest of rap with him as well. The article did provide two sides of information throughout.

Though the author's perspective wasn't shown too much in the article, his perspective seems to be critical of the public's general negative quick interpretation of rap, especially those with little knowledge of it. He seems to think that rap has both positive and negative effects, but also appreciates the creativity that goes into creating rap songs. Overall, I'd classify his position as neutral or slightly a positive outlook on rap.

A micro-research paper like this provides specific examples of the ideas that other articles just touch on. It will be good to incorporate both general and specific material into my paper to create a balance of information. I can use the information in this article to explain the broad topics within my paper.

Conrad, Kate, Travis Dixon, and Yuanyuan Zhang. "Controversial Rap Themes, Gender Portrayals and Skin Tone Distortion: A Content Analysis of Rap Music Videos." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 53.1 (2009): 134-156.

Key terms:
Materialism: Expression of one's wealth
Misogyny: portrayal of men's dominance over women (in rap music videos)
Colorism: prejudice based on skin tone/color

The content of this article is laid out almost perfectly in the title of the article. Its main purpose is to analyze rap music videos and show how they affect people's overall portrayal of rap music. The authors use various research and experiments to analyze three main issues with rap music: thematic content, Afrocentric features, and gender differences. They provide both negative and positive themes found within rap music and use them to figure out the relation of music video content to listener's perception. Also, the article not only focused on skin color, it got specific enough to examine skin tone of blacks and how darkness effects perception.

Since there are three different authors for this article, it is hard to tell what perspectives they each have. However, it seems as though they are trying to write a neutral article that focuses on research to provide answers to their questions. They use very little personal bias and focus mostly on facts found in experiments of rap music videos.

I like that this article showed the relation of the actual rap songs and the videos that go with them. It provides me with information from a whole new viewpoint that I previously wasn't planning on going into.

Adams, Terri, and Douglas Fuller. "The Words Have Changed but the Ideology Remains the Same: Misogynistic Lyrics in Rap Music."Journal of Black Studies, 36.6 (2006): 938-957.

Keyword: Misogyny- hatred or disdain toward women (939)

Adams and Fullers' article has one large goal in mind: to show the relationship between misogynistic views in rap music and the overall view of African American women throughout history. They claim that since misogyny emerged in rap music during the 1980s, it has remained a large component of rap in many different ways. Even songs with a title that doesn't relate to women at all sometimes fit misogynistic comments in their songs somewhere. Adams and Fuller claim that the use of misogyny in rap is what causes 1, many people to have a negative view of rap music, and 2, those who like rap to develop racist or sexist views.

The authors definitely have a negative view of rap and do not agree with the representation of women in rap music. They only provide one perspective, making this a rather biased article. Facts and cited information is used to promote their viewpoint, but again that is the only one discussed throughout. The positive themes within rap are never examined.

This article will work well to conflict previous articles I found like "Rap Music and Its Violent Progeny: America's Culture of Violence in Context," which has a more positive outlook on rap music. When used to argue against each other, I think they will provide an interesting argument in my own paper. I personally do not agree with this article, but it's good to use "balanced coverage" when writing my own paper, even if I disagree with something.



Trapp, Erin. "The Push and Pull of Hip-Hop: A Social Movement Analysis." American Behavioral Scientist, 48.11 (2005): 1482-1495.

The article examines how hip-hop and rap have affected social movements, using two different theories. The new social movement theory states "...music asserts the shifting identities of (largely) African American youth into the larger culture that could not previously accommodate the ideas and practices expressed in these identities" (1483). This is considered to be the "push" effect. The new social movement theory can be compared to the political opportunity theory which says hip-hop/ rap artists are social movement leaders themselves. This theory is called the "pull" effect. Trapp uses the work of rap and hip-hop icons Queen Latifah and Tupac Shakur (who grew with similar lifestyles), to show the difference in portrayal of women in their songs.

Trapp has a very neutral standpoint in her article, she solely wanted to explore the difference between an artist who creates a new social movement and one who simply promotes an existing one. However, by the end of the article, she comes to a conclusion based on her research, without ever taking a side in the article.

This article was useful for more than just information. Trapp's ability to make a conclusion about her topic without using bias, as I explained in the previous paragraph, will help me write my own paper. From an information standpoint, the use of the two contrasting theories is different from any other article I've read so far. Two contrasting ideas like this is always useful, because I'll be able to put both in my paper and allow the reader to make their own decision on which they feel is more correct.



Sullivan, Rachel. "Rap and Race: It's Got a Nice Beat, but What About the Message?." Journal of Black Studies, 33.5 (2003): 605-622.

This article provides a first-hand look at how rap has affected rap music fans. It is different from many other articles that examine rap portrayal, in that, most focus on studies and writer's viewpoints, instead of the opinions of individual rap music listeners. Teenagers are the focus of the article, because they make up the majority of rap music listeners. Interviews are used to determine the difference of perception of rap based on race. It was found that rap music is liked by a wide variety of races, but was easier to actual relate to for a African American kids. The history and origin of rap provided in the beginning of the article shows why rap is characterized like is today.

The author Rachel E. Sullivan, writes from a purely research-based standpoint. Once again, personal opinion is absent in this paper. As shown under the title, she is writing in affiliation with the University of Connecticut. The title- "Rap and Race: It's Got a Nice Beat, but What About the Message?" seems to show she wrote in a very similar manner as I will be. A question in the title like so, leads to inquiry, as I will also be doing.

The interviews of teenage kids will be very useful to me when writing my own paper. I can relate well to other teenager's opinions of rap, because I am a teen that listens to rap as well. Also, because this paper is written in a similar way that I plan to write mine, it will be a nice guide for me to look at.

Tyson, Edgar. "Rap-music Attitude and Perception Scale: A Validation Study." Research on Social Work Practice, 16.2 (2006): 211-223.

Tyson's article is actually a study that tests the Rap-music Attitude and Perception Scale (RAP), which apparently is supposed to measure a person's feelings towards rap based on the content of rap music. Using various theories, studies and procedures this study confirmed that the RAP was a good measure of people's feelings towards rap music.

The author of this article wrote from a skeptical perspective. He probably felt that there was no way a sheet of paper like the RAP could prove a person's perception of rap music. He used experiments he conducted to prove himself wrong, and then put the results of his study into a paper.

I don't really think this article is going to be very useful for answering my own research question, it contains a lot of information I really don't think will be useful to me. However, I feel the actual RAP Scale and its measures of people's perceptions may possibly be useful. I may try to find a copy of it and use it to support claims in my paper.

Herd, Denise. "Changing Images of Violence in Rap Music Lyrics: 1979-1997." Journal of Public Health Policy, 30.4 (2009): 395-406.

The idea of this article is to explain the changes within rap music, especially lyrically from the 1970s to the 1990s. Obviously, rap music has changed tremendously in many ways since its beginning in the 1970s. This specific article focuses mostly on the appearance of violent references within rap songs. It finds that violent phrases have more than doubled in rap music as a whole in the 20-year span. Violence has gradually become associated with power, wealth, glamour, etc., which has also increased acceptance of rap. Changing social conditions and increased teenage violent behavior is seen as a cause of such a change.

It seems as though the writer is concerned with the content in rap music, especially violent references, which would be why she chose to write about such a topic. It seemed that by the end of the article she became more understanding of rap, based off of the information she gathered about changing social conditions which explained why rap has changed.

The examining of actual content of rap music in this article will be very helpful in providing information to back-up a conclusion I'll eventually make about my own research question.

1 from Original Research Question:

Research Question: "How has the portrayal of the father figure in television sitcoms changed throughout the life of sitcoms?"

Scharrer, Erica. "From Wise to Foolish: The Portrayal of the Sitcom Father, 1950s-1990s." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 45.1 (2001): 23-40.

Summary: Over the years, the representation of fathers in television sitcoms has changed gradually but drastically. For example, jokes directed toward the man of the family used to be non-existent, where as today it is very common. The fact that sitcoms tend to follow the current economic and social states of a country, explain why this is true. Historically, when men were the main breadwinners for the family and women were stay-at-home moms, men were respected more than women. This idea of men being more important than women basically prohibited jokes being made against men in sitcoms. Today, women are much more present in the workforce and are viewed as equal to men, making jokes against men more appropriate.

An aspect that changes more randomly is when relating a man's portrayal in sitcoms to their economic class on the show. For the most part, more shows with a middle-class father will make fun of the character when compared to a show with an upper-class father. The idea being a middle-class father has less "power" than an upper-class one. Overall, sitcoms represent real-life society and allow a "weak" father character to be the basis of a joke, whereas a "strong" is the opposite. For example, in real-life tall men are usually seen as powerful and short men viewed as weak.

Author's Perspective: While reading the article, I got a feel of a feminist perspective without even realizing that a woman wrote it until after i read it. A majority of the article is not only about how a father's portrayal has changed, but a wife's as well. I feel as though Scharrer likes the idea that today's portrayal is not as unfair; that is something she points out numerous times. She definitely feels that the portrayal of fathers in sitcoms has changed quite a bit, and rightfully so. Her research led right to that conclusion.

How it helps me: This article provides a lot of information as to why the portrayal of fathers has changed and lays out how it occurred over time. I feel it will be useful for me when writing my own paper, especially from the "shift in power aspect."