Introduction and Methods Sections

Introduction 

Greek life on college campuses is something that is constantly debated. Whether it be the party scene, philanthropy events, or members involved in other things, there’s always a lot going on – and not everyone may agree. If “fraternity and sorority life” is put into any search engine, almost every single result is negatively speaking about Greek life. This is something that is extremely controversial and definitely needs to be pulled apart to further understand the other side that many don’t look at upon first glance, the benefits of being a member in Greek life, specifically sororities. Incidents such as hazing are a threat to our community and the bad news reports that surround it. How do members actually a part of this “Greek life” phenomenon view these issues? Many would disagree with the outside eye and bad news reports that are clogging the news today. 

Methods

Participants 

The participants in my survey were members of sororities across campus located at the University of Iowa. The women surveyed all were between freshman and seniors in college, ages 18-24, and all had similar (but different) experiences with Greek life. All surveyed women had come from slightly different backgrounds, had different majors and areas of study, but all shared a common eye for what Greek life is really like. 

Procedures 

The women I surveyed participated in a questionnaire online composed of only 5 questions. All of the questions could be answered on a scale from strongly agreed to strongly disagreed, with agree, neutral, and disagree falling in between the two extreme ends. The questions were simply assessments of whether or not the women felt that different aspects of sorority life were beneficial to their overall college experience and gained a sense of what women thought benefitted them the most. The survey was completely anonymous, only was sent to women of a variety of different chapters at the school, and they knew it was pertaining to Greek life, specifically sororities. 

Synthesis Chart

Sources	USA Today	New Mexico State University	Thought Co.	Greek U
Prepare for careers	Paragraph 11	Paragraph 1 under “academics”	Point 7	Point 1
Friendship	Paragraph 16	“social activities” section	Point 2	Point 2
Giving back to the community	Paragraph 3 under “giving back”	“community service” section	Point 8	Point 5

https://www.usatoday.com/story/college/2012/05/08/examining-the-benefits-of-greek-life/37392651/

https://greeklife.nmsu.edu/advantages-of-greek-life/

https://www.thoughtco.com/greek-life-benefits-and-advantages-3570274

https://www.greeku.com/blog/benefits-of-greek-life/

Survey Questions: 

1.    Overall, has your experience in Greek Life bettered your college experience? 

2.    Have your grades improved because of being in a sorority? 

3.    Do you feel like you’re a part of a stronger network that will aid you in finding a job after graduation? 

4.    Have philanthropic events helped you to be more involved in the community?

5.    Do you feel like you’re a part of a social network that makes you more extroverted? 

Topic Proposal

My topic is going to be centered around Greek Life, primarily looking at whether or not members of the Greek community, specifically sororities, found it to be beneficial to their college experience or not. I'm going to send out a survey to women in a chapter here at Iowa and ask around ten questions, some of which may be the following:
- do you feel that being involved in greek life has influenced your academics in a positive way?
- do you feel that being involved in greek life has made you feel more connected to the university?
- do you feel that greek life has better helped you understand philanthropy or community service?
- do you feel that diversity is present in greek life, and how has that changed your views on the community?
- educational sessions provided by greek life have helped me develop more life skills
- I am proud to be a part of greek life at my school
- I am happy I joined the greek community

This topic is important because greek life is something that is very controversial and especially at Iowa may have some negative connotation. I think showing how the members feel and react to certain standards is crucial to the development of the Greek community.

1st Speech.

In the first major speech I thought I did well. I think that everything the rubric was asking for was included in my presentation. I think I did well presenting all the information in a good order so it's understandable and clear. I was confused on the feedback I got back because it was opposite from each other after the rehearsal and the final speech. Some things I was told I did good on during the rehearsal that I didn't change were things I got negative feedback on on my final one. So maybe figuring out what I need to do exactly and having it be more clear would be helpful on the next one. 2 aspects of delivery I need to improve are vocal fillers and not looking at the board. I'll just be more aware of it.

IMRaD vs. Argumentative Essays

There are a few key differences between the IMRaD and a normal argumentative essay like I've written in the past. To start, IMRaD essays are formatted differently, which is the main thing that sets them apart from other types of essays. It goes Introduction, Methods, results, and discussion. Then these can be broken down further into what each of those sections means.

Another difference is that it's often used for lab analyses or other things regarding sciences and analyzing those. Also, including a graph or data is something that I've never had to do in previous writing. Including an abstract is a part of this as well. These things set the IMRaD apart from other types of writing.