authors note on portfolio

This is my author's note for the final drafts of my portfolio. Overall I feel really good about all of my drafts. The on that I like the most is the OP-Ed. I think I successfully exposed all of my thoughts in an organized manner. My humorous argument really applies to my topic and i think that it is funny. On my letter to the editor I am basically responding to the article and how I feel about its lack of information and how it should go about to be a better article. This Murcia issue is something that really captures my attention. It makes me angry how the government managed all this issue. This is why i decided to choose this as my topic. Working through this portfolio I had the opportunity to learn more on the topic. I hope that this is what you were looking for. I took my work to the writing center and got it revised. I do not think it was of much help. Because the person who helped me was in some kind of hurry or at least that is what he made me think. 

humor argument

For my humor argument I decided to make some funny drawings portraying Martin Torrijos( the president of Panama) along with certain people of his administration; and David Murcia ( the money laundering lord). In the drawing I am actually making fun of Martin torrijos and his lack of knowledge. He made the wrong choice by sending david Murcia back to colombia. 

I am not a good drawer and I am not creative at all. So, this assignment has been challenging for me in these two areas. Moreover, it is very challenging for me to make something funny about this issue, because it is a very serious issue. My concern is that people who do not know about the issue, or are not panamanian may not understand my humorous argument. I will try my best to work on these challenges. 

humor

First of all humor is a unique thing in each person. Everyone has a different sense of humor. For example, since I came here to TCU  I have noticed that people form the united states have a totally different sense of humor than the one we Panamanians have. I personally believe that humor needs to have a touch of sarcasm. From what i read on the book, humor on arguments need to have timeliness and lively details that make it more fun and makes the reader connect with the author in order to create humor to the argument. They also have to talk about day to day topics. For example, political issues or religious views,etc... 

oped first draft

Money launderer, David Murcia Guzman, came to Panama and did exactly what he wanted whenever he wanted. Murcia is a Colombian native that came to Panama when he founded DMG Holdings. This company was found to be managing illegal businesses such as money laundering and a Ponzi scheme. Through this company, Murcia stole from people while promising high and ridiculous returns. He enriched himself in such colossal way that he was able to enjoy living a millionaire’s live for 2 years. He owned 3 boats, 1 private jet and 7 or 8 cars from which 2 where Ferrari, 2 Masserati, 2 Lamborghini and the others Mercedes-Benz. Murcia was living such an extravagant live that people started to suspect that he was in the wrong business. Although people suspected Murcia’s wrongdoings, he was able to manipulate high-powered people in Panama’s government and electoral campaigns.
Reportedly, Murcia “donated” 6 million to the PRD to help finance the political campaigns of Roberto “bobby Velazquez” and Balbina Herrera. I chose to put the word donated in quotations because for Murcia this was not a donation but an investment in cash that will give him various advantages and contracts with companies that will help his money laundering business more successful. He was also protected by the SPI, which is an Institutional Protection Service in charge of protecting high-ranked people and the president. It is against the law for the people who work for the SPI to provide this service to people not appointed by the president. Therefore this was corruption and proves that money can do anything. Murcia did whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. I have not found information linking the president to David Murcia but I believe that, Martin Torrijos, the president did not manage this whole Murcia situation the way he should have.
As soon as Murcia was caught in November 2008, Martin Torrijos ordered the authorities to send this money launderer back to his country. I think this was a huge mistake because Murcia committed various felonies in Panamanian therefore he should abide by Panamanian law. Our law system is good and it should have taken action over Murcia. Moreover, a lot of things were left unclear after he got caught. For example who worked for him and with him on his company (DMG), who else did he gave money to finance campaigns and did the president knew all along about Murcia? How did he contact the SPI(Protection Service) to work for him. These are just one of the various things that were left unclear and should have been resolved before the president decided to send Murcia to Colombia.
Author’s notes:
This is my first draft for the op ed. I am not sure if I’m I the right track. What I have written so far is kind of an introduction to who Murcia is and what he did. My argument is questioning why Martin Torrijos( Panama’s president) ordered the authorities to send Murcia back to Colombia without resolving various issues that need to be answered. For this draft I will like recommendations on how to address this issue and if im on the right direction.
roberto

Other opeds

I finally found other op eds in el Panama America. I read a couple  of them and most of them where responses to the current government situation. It seems like if the target audience are the new candidates for the may 3 presidential election. The one's I read had good grammar, oppose to what i thought. The grammar of panamanians is not good at all. You can see that the writers of good newspapers is horrible. But the op eds where good and they proposed positive things for the future of panama. Most of them talked about the problem of education and how it should be attacked. Before this assignment I had never heard about op eds but now that I know of it I can check out the opinion section which has good articles. 

op ed

I had trouble finding an article for doing my op ed. I am not sure if it has to be the same as the first assignment. But i will try to find something that really concerns me so as to make the argument as good as possible. It could maybe be something happening between today and tomorrow in my country. Presidential elections are taking place next month and it would be great if i could write the op ed on that. But I have yet to find a good article on that. 

editors letter first draft

As a Panamanian, I get offended when I read an article for a major newspaper that lacks info and has grammatical mistakes.  The article has valuable facts that inform the reader of a recent and interesting event to the community. But I believe that it was lacking background information. If I were not informed about the issue before reading the article, it would have been difficult if not impossible for me to understand what Santiago Cumbrera wrote on “ La Ruta del Dinero de los Clientes de DMG”.  My intention is not to attack Santiago personally, but the article is missing valuable info such as who is David Murcia and what is DMG.  Since I am 100 % percent Panamanian, I feel bad about the way this article was written. This is a very serious issue because David Murcia, a Colombian, made lots of middle to high class people lose colossal amounts of money while he was living the good life in my country.

            What I liked about the article is that good facts that I did not know beforehand were included. For example, I did not know that Murcia promised their clients a credit card with unlimited credit for spending.  Moreover, I did not know that the money first went to national banks then transferred to the U.S and then to Belize.  I have to credit that that the article included these good facts that I would have not known without taking the time to read the article. If I was not Panamanian or a person interested in the issue, it would have been imposible to understand these facts without some background info explaining the issue beforehand. 

 

 

Author’s notes:

 

This is my first draft for this assignment. I am not sure if I am on the right track. I think I sound like if  I was attacking the writer and I am not sure If I am on the right track. Please let me know what you think as of now.

DMG article

On this article, the author is arguing where all the money invested with David Murcia, a criminal, ended up. All this strategies used by Murcia are explained and how he convinced people to invest with him as well. He promised people ridiculous amounts of returns. The author is just explaining where the money was "invested" and how were investors foolished.  

This is an issue directly affecting my community. And it is a very recent topic. Therefore, i think an editorial letter to wards this topic would be  very interesting. Guys like David Murcia and Bernard Madoff caught my attention. They should be judged and pay for their wrongdoings. 

rhetorical case study progress

During the break, opposite of what i thought, i had little time to work on my rhetorical case study. I have to work really hard to make my final draft between today and tomorrow. I feel confident of what i need to write. I understand all of the terms and i have good sources that backup my study. I have not written on al of the sources but I have underlined important info on each source that could be analyzed. Reading and researching on my topic has been very helpful. I have learned about the biggest fraud in world's history. I feel really bad about the people who got financially hit because of this scandal. 

The development of my study in under work right now. And i am sure it is going to be good because it is a very interesting topic. It has been difficult for me to write and analyze this sources. Because I have never done a rhetorical case study. But it has been very interesting to work an essay in a rhetorical way.

rhetorical essay sources

Researching on my topic was not difficult due to the amount of information available on it. Bernard Madoff's ponzi scheme topic is very recent and there are various magazine articles available out there. After researching i decided to make my topic a little narrower than it was. I decided to change my topic and focus on how were people and organizations affected by bernard madoff. 

The information that i found is very useful. I found four sources that clearly support my topic. Three of my sources talk about how admirable business men who invested or had madoff accounts were affected due to this ponzi scheme. The other source talks about sports figures who had money invested with madoff. I used the library website to make my research. I think this website is a very useful tool since i found what i was looking for. I used the academic search complete search form. For my next research i plan on using other tools to broaden my research on the topic. But as of now i feel very good with the sources i found. 

Rhetorical case analysis topic

I believe that in the business world one should be as ethical as possible. Since i was little , i was thought to be honest and hard worker. Moreover, i was thought to work for the things i wan to accomplish in this life. Therefore , i believe i have a good sense of integrity and it is important to me that the people who surround me have the same or similar standards. 

For this rhetorical case analysis i decided to talk about Bernard Madoff. Mr. Madoff was a well respected financial manager. Until his ponzi scheme was revealed . He was not an honest person. he stole money from various people around the world. By this ponzi scheme he compiled more than 52 billion dollars. This is an interesting topic because i would like to learn more about this guy and how he got away with this scheme for such a long time. This is important for me as a citizen because people in my country lost money due to this thief. 

author's notes on final draft

as an international student and english as my second language, i had a hard time writing my public space analysis. It was difficult for me to translate my thoughts from spanish to english. I have to admit that the workshops were really helpful to me; because through the help of my peers i could easily track all of my errors and expand on ideas. i had fun analyzing the library. I never thought that i could analyze so much about one place. After reading this final draft, i feel confident about what i wrote and i hope this is what you were expecting me to write. 

This photo ad is a pathos argument(an argument form the heart). " Money isn't everything" this first line is self explanatory and when I first read it I felt a pit on the stomach. By just reading this first line I would donate blood without hesitating.  This ad gives a heroic feeling to those who donate blood. The most incredible thing is that one can save three lives without spending a cent.