Category Archives: Summary

Can you buy happiness?

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Many people ask the question can money give you happiness? Well, according to the article “How to Buy Happiness” written by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton studies show that money does not make u any happier. They actually realized that having a great amount of money actually makes you think a little bit more about yourself. They saw that what makes you happy are what you experience in life. For example people gain happiness from what they do more than from what they have. They also proved that spending money on others makes people happy. Elizabeth and Michael experimented this conclusion by handing out Starbucks gift cards. The people who treated someone else and shared it came out to be the happiest. By combining giving and experiences It creates “the perfect happiness intervention”.

I absolutely agree with this article. Both authors studies people who moved from a smaller space to a large space and only found one thing. They found that the only thing that changed was the difference in size. It did not make them any more happier. Personally I believe that happiness comes from you. Having valuables and a lot of money or even fame does nothing but give you more attention. Sometimes all it does is keep you stagnant and keeps u feeling the same as before. Things that you do, places that you go and the people that surrounds you is what creates your own happiness.

 

How much is happiness?

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In this day and age money is displayed and worshiped immensely. Many believe that with money you have everything. When in reality, what you make of your wealth is what you make of yourself.

In the article, “How to buy happiness” by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton, money, generosity and experiences are juggled to see which can have the ultimate outcome of happiness. They question what would one do if they were to wake up with one million dollars to their name. Due to research they share that when people have new found wealth the first thing they think about is themselves. Of course all sorts of material things such as clothes, shoes, bags, gadgets etc. come into people’s minds that they may not have been able to afford before. After thinking about all the nice luxurious things you can now obtain it’s hard to think that happiness doesn’t have to be expensive if it even costs anything at all. In the article they state, “studies by a generation of behavioral scientists show that material goods often fail to deliver lasting happiness.” In reality a lot of material things that are believed to bring happiness, don’t. One of the examples in the article is a family who moved because they didn’t like their old home. Years later when asked about their current state,they reported that they were living comfortably but their overall happiness hadn’t changed. Which further proves that happiness cannot be based on objects. Instead why not use the money in a way that someone else besides yourself can benefit? Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton believe that both sharing with others and experiences create happiness. An experiment is tried out on a campus when the question of, what would happen when you combine experiences and generosity. The students were given Starbucks gift cards, some were told to go buy something for themselves, another group was told to buy something for themselves and someone else and the last group was told to buy something for themselves and someone else but also had to hang out with the person at Starbucks. The people that were happiest were the people who bought something for someone else and shared the moment with them by just hanging out in Starbucks with them. Throughout this article it is shown that you shouldn’t wait around for an extra dollar to start living your life and enjoying yourself. Instead of missing out on events to be able to purchase a materialistic item later, live for the moment because it wouldn’t compare to the great memories you could be missing out on currently.

I believe happiness can’t be bought and agree with the points made in the article. A person can save to finally purchase a Chanel three thousand dollar purse and feel excited upon buying it but shortly after it’s just that – a purse. Compared to using that money to going on a vacation with family or close friends that would make life long memories. Material things are sometimes given too much importance because money brings out the selfish side of individuals. 

How much money do you need to buy happiness?

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In Los Angeles Times Elizabeth Dunn and Norton wrote an opinion piece titled “How to buy Happiness” published May 19,2013. Dunn and Norton gave an example of finding a million dollars under your mattress. What will most people do with that much money? Research shows that money brings out the selfish side of a person. Making us think what we could do with that money for ourselves. For instance, buying a new car, a new cellphone, or a new T.V. Studies have shown that materialistic goods don’t bring lasting happiness. You don’t need a million dollars to buy happiness. Just by spending as little as $5 can bring you more happiness then spending $500 in materialistic goods. It all has to do with how and in what the money is being spent. Many people still associate the American dream with buying a house. A new research shows that buying a house doesn’t really have an impact in happiness. Women that are homeowners in the United States didn’t show to be any happier then those who rent. A research in Germany showed that people who moved to a better home were satisfied with the home its self, but their happiness with their lives didn’t increase. Studies have also shown that buying experiences and memories such as going on trips or the movies will bring people more happiness than buying a material item. Social contact is proven to be a major factor for increasing mental and physical heath. Experiments done in Canada, the United States, Uganda and South Africa prove that people are more happy when they spend money on others. Dunn and Norton made an experiment that combined both experiences and giving to others. On a university campus they gave a Starbucks gift card to three groups. One group had to go to Starbucks and buy themselves something. The second group had to give the Starbucks gift card to someone else. The third group had to use the gift card to buy someone else something and to hang out with them in Starbucks. The results of the experiment was that the third group who bought something for someone else and spend time with them were the happiest. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, but the way you spend that money makes all the difference. Buying experiences for you and others could increase your happiness enormously.

I completely agree with Elizabeth Dunn and Micheal Norton. I put myself in the position of finding one million dollars under my mattress. What will I do with the money? Although it will be a tricky decision to make I honestly think I would buy myself and someone special to me a flight ticket to go on a adventure. If I was to buy myself a huge T.V I would tend to stay home watching T.V all day. Instead of wasting a whole day staying home watching T.v isolated from all the things that could be done outside and spending time with love ones. I would prefer to go out and enjoy myself. Elizabeth and Micheal said “the cost of increasing your happiness may be as cheap as two cups of coffee” (2). Rich or poor if you know how to spend your money you could increase your happiness with just two cups of coffee. Memories last a life time, material stuff doesn’t.

Money Can’t Buy Happiness or can it?

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In the Los Angeles Times , “How To Buy Happiness”, by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton, they have some questions in their mind. Can one buy happiness and how happy can one be from buying happiness? In the beginning of their argument, they suggested and provided studies showing that money makes us selfish. It makes us focus on what the money can do for us. For example, buying new possessions like a new phone, or a new car. However, Dunn and Norton also provide us with research that buying a new house doesn’t increase happiness as much. In fact, a study shows that homeowners and renters are as happy as each other.

In another part of the argument, Dunn and Norton suggested and provide facts that buying experiences makes people more happy than buying material things. Buying experiences are like buying tickets to a concert, special meals, and trips. In fact, buying experiences can bring people together. For example, wouldn’t you go to the movies with someone instead of going alone, or to eat in a restaurant?

In an experiment, Dunn and Norton also found out that buying something for someone else rather than yourself gives the buyer an additional boost of happiness. It doesn’t matter if one spends just a few dollars on someone, it still provide more happiness. In another experiment, Dunn and Norton combined buying experiences and giving to see if it would increase happiness. They gave three groups of students of a university campus gift card to go to Starbucks. One were ask to go by themselves. Another was told to give it to a friend and the last group was asked to go with a friend and treat that friend. in fact it shows that treating someone and sharing the experience with that person is happier than just buying something for yourself or just for someone else.

In response to Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton, I agree with all of their studies and suggestions. I do believe that money makes us selfish. I would think of something I would get if I found a million dollars under my bed. I might get the new iPhone 6, the upcoming iWatch, beats headphones, etc. I believe that money buys happiness especially when I buying and giving experiences I was so happy when I bought a ticket to a concert I been wanting to go to. I didn’t want to go alone so I bought another ticket for a friend. I treated and shared the experience with a friend. I was so happy that day, it wouldn’t be the same without my friend. I think this example also proved what Elizabeth Dun and Michael Norton experiment were true.  I also think that it made my friend happy too. Making others happy usually makes me happy too. I think that people should treat others more often instead of being selfish. It makes the other person happier and it makes you more happier too. In fact, I am going to treat myself and a friend a Starbuck drink on Monday, and be happy together.

 

 

Strategies for Summarizing

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*Click here to download this post as a PDF (and print it out)

We had some good conversation in class today about strategies for summarizing effectively. Thank you all for sharing your summaries and writing with the class and for asking important questions.

Here are some of the things we discussed about summary (as well as a few new additions). Please take some time to review them before Thursday’s class, and use them going forward (remember, each blog post you do for this course should incorporate a with a brief summary of the text/s in addition to your analysis/response).

I also encourage you to continue the conversation by posting comments to this post (just hit “reply”) with further strategies (I’d love to hear your thoughts) and questions about summarizing. I’ll be checking in on this discussion over the next few days and am happy to continue this conversation online here to help you become more comfortable with the summarizing work we have done (and will continue to do) this semester.

 

-The length of the summary will vary depending on the length of the article you are summarizing, but in general, summaries for a short article should be one paragraph that are each neither too undeveloped (e.g., 1-2 sentences) or too over-developed (e.g., 12-15 sentences).

-Since you only have a short space to convey the main points of the article, you should get right into the text’s thesis right away (remember, the thesis is not the general subject–such as technology–but a particular author’s argument about a particular topic or idea). While it may be useful/desirable in other types of writing (creative writing, more informal writing) to start with generalizations and/or questions in order to engage your reader or ease into the topic, in a summary paragraph you want to immediately and clearly state the author and title of the text and the text’s thesis. Doing so in the first sentence of your summary will help you to focus your attention on the task at hand: summarizing the text’s ideas (not bringing in your own ideas and opinions). Remember, a large part of writing effectively and successfully is to consider your purpose and your audience. In this case, your purpose is to convey information, in as straightforward a manner as possible, to readers about the content of a text (what the text says). You are not asked to respond to that content, or evaluate it. You don’t have to worry about grabbing your reader’s attention. Your primary goal is to summarize a text.

-You should only include discussion of the main point (thesis) and essential supporting points of the text. You will not be able to mention every detail or example the author uses. Use active reading to help you identify key words, identify the author’s claims, and locate important supporting points.

–Summaries should be concise, which means to-the-point. You only have a short space to convey a lot of information (a pretty difficult task!), so every word you write is precious. If a word or sentence doesn’t help to summarize the text’s main points, then it doesn’t have a place in your summary. Instead of spending time repeating ideas, discussing something generally, or beating around the bush, be direct and clear. State the author’s main ideas and stay grounded in the particulars of the text itself.

-Summaries should be written in the third person (she, he, it, her, him, its, they, them, their), not the first person (I, we, my, our, us, me) or second person (you, yours, yours).

–You should not include your own experiences, opinions, ideas, interpretation, analysis, bias, etc. You are not writing a subjective response or giving your point of view/response to the text. Remember that, when writing a summary of a text, your task is to concisely and accurately state the text’s thesis and supporting points. Therefore, your focus should be on an objective discussion of the main ideas of the text you read. Writing in the third person will help you to maintain this objective stance.

-In your summary (and all essays), write about the text in the present tense. Even though the author wrote the article in the past, you still discuss it, always, in the present tense. Some examples are: writes, states, claims, argues, examines, discusses.

You may use quotations from the text, but these quotes should be used sparingly, be short, and be relevant to the point you are discussing. Remember if you use the exact words from the text, you must indicate this by using quotation marks (” “) around the word and to provide a citation for that quote. We’ll discuss citation in greater detail this semester, but for now, remember that we using MLA (Modern Language Association) style. For MLA citations, simply provide the page number in parentheses after the quote. E.g., “Somerville officials hope to create a well-being index that they can track over time” (3).

(When you are discussing more than one text, you will also need to include the author’s last name in the parenthesis, but for this summary, which only is on one article, you can simply provide the page number.)

As always, I’m happy to discuss summarizing with you in more detail during my office hours, so stop by then if you’d like some individualized feedback on your summaries.

A Census Article about “How Happy Are You” And the State of Your Well-being.

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The article “How Happy Are You” A Census Wants to Know” by John Tierney is about a Boston suburb, Somerville, Mass. Officials are asking the people of Somerville about their happiness and what they should do to make them feel more happy. They added questions on to their census such as “How satisfied are you with your life in general?” and “Taking everything in account, how satisfied are you with Somerville as a place to live?” These questions added to the census were expected to get back specific answers. In my opinion i do not agree that happiness can be measured. In the article there were also some concerns on whether or not politicians should be promoting happiness or not.

I believe that the officials are making it seems as though one can measure there happiness by how much “green” one has. I do not agree that people could measure there happiness because, they are being blinded by material or environmental things such as “physical settings”. One can have a moment of tranquility and peace when looking at the  physical settings they want to be around, but happiness in my opinion is deeper than that. What happens when you turn around from this “physical setting” and your surroundings, when you wake up at 3 am and you’re laying in bed; Are you happy? So i do not think it should be measured by governments because the government can only do so much, and they can’t measure every single persons complete happiness. That is why i believe happiness is deeper than having “more parks or highways” in ones city. Other than being measured people tend to “promote” happiness. The government tries to promote happiness by giving the people what they want. But even in a world with everything the people want, true happiness is  ones choice.

Things that are important for my well-being would be food on the table, a roof above my head, principles, education, communication, and feeling safe and comfortable. I believe sanitary, hospitals, police and fire departments are important for the well-being of a community. While this is all true well-being and happiness are slightly different. Things that make you feel comfortable and healthy, like food and government agency’s, are all part of ones well-being. And having all of this would make you feel happy at the moment, but true happiness comes from within. Nevertheless Conflicts between individuals and community well-being exist and i believe its normal because people have different opinions and ideas regarding a community well being.

Article: How happy are you?… Summary/Response

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According to The New York Times’ 2011 article; “How Happy Are You? A Census Want to Know” by Jon Tierney, Somerville, Mass. started to question, “How happy do you feel right now?,” on their census. Citizens are given a scale of one to ten. Ten meaning really happy. The purpose of this is to become United States’ first city to track people’s happiness and to advertise policies that gain happiness. Somerville wish to see the effects on installing bike paths and how opening new parks is happiness.

However I don’t believe that happiness can be measure the way Somerville did. The Census usually don’t come in every day. Everybody feels different every day or even different time of the day.  The Article also backed me up by stating the a citizen of Somerville, Coner Brennan , “…any survey like this is going to depend on the mood of the person at that moment.”  If I were to fill this census now, I would put a five, but if I would fill the census at a concert wouldn’t I put a ten? Even though I don’t believe in the measuring, I actually don’t mind that question to pop up in every census in the world. This gives the people doing the census to realize how they are feeling. They might do something about it if it was a low number. They might even try to keep up their own happiness if they picked a high number.

I believe that happiness can be promoted, however only to a specific side or group. Fr example, in the article Somerville wanted to promote happiness by installing more bike lanes. Many bikers would be really happy about that, however car drivers might feel that it would produce a lot of traffic and wouldn’t be happy about that at all. In the article, it also mentions that if many low-income people shows a lot of small numbers in the scale of one to ten of ten being the happiest, they might introduce policies of that specific group.

I think many things are important to our well-beings. Which according to Merriam-webster “Well-being” means the state of being happy, healthy or successful. As a New Yorker, the cost of living is high, I really hope the government would lower that cost. It is something that would improve everybody well-beings, not just one side or group. To me myself, doing something that I love is something important to my well-beings. I won’t be happy if I don’t love doing it, like helping others for example. However, there can also be conflict between individual, one group and the community well-beings. One I would be increase the tax for the rich. The community might like the idea but the rich might not.

In Conclusion, measuring citizen’s happiness might not be accurate, but can still help introduce new policies or programs that promote well-beings to the citizens in different groups. I hope to see this question, “How happy do you feel right now?,” to be in every census around the world.