Mariah's Blog

Northern Michigan University

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Throughout my writing process, I did brainstorming on what specific topics I want to talk about. When my teacher gives me back my rough draft paper with corrections and advice about switching areas in paper, I literally go through and change what he asks me to change and check it off. The entire process probably takes me about two hours if I stay on track and focus. I have one rough draft, somewhat of an outline, and my final draft. I truly believe that focusing on the corrections that I need to fix for a good couple hours really helps me. I struggle really hard trying to come up with an attention getter in my first paragraph, my thesis (mostly staying on topic with that thesis), and coming up with a great conclusion paragraph. I don’t really know why it’s so challenging for me, but those parts have always been difficult for me to come up with. Another thing that was a little challenging was the fact that in high school I was taught to have five paragraphs for all of my essays. Now that I’m in college, I feel that I can have more paragraphs, but I am always nervous in doing so, because I’m not sure what’s correct and what’s incorrect. Every time I come up with an outline or just ideas of what to gear my topic on really helps me get my paper started. Honestly, the workshop feedback didn’t play any factor in my final draft. The only feedback that I look at is my teacher’s, because he’s the one that’s grading me on my paper. I also feel that since it was the end of the semester, I only wanted to look at my teacher’s feedback and just get going on revising my paper. The only thing that surprised me the most was the fact that I had to have my paper really flow well, especially into my counterargument. My counterargument was in the middle of my paper and not the second to last paragraph, because in high school I was taught to have an intro, two claims for my argument, one counterargument, and then my conclusion. If I could change one thing about my writing process, it would be to start brainstorming earlier on what I specifically want to argue and why. I would also like to look at many more peer-reviewed articles and more case studies to provide more factual evidence. I would change this by just start looking at topics a head of time so when the time comes and I need to write my essay, I will be fully prepared.

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Argument essay ~ article summary

http://ezpolson.nmu.edu:6744/docview/1518934440?pq-origsite=summon&http://ezpolson.nmu.edu:2048/login?url=accountid=2745

The author’s main point is talk about the death drive and the actual enjoyment of playing violent video games. The purpose of writing this essay is to show how violent video games are portrayed and why bad behavior is increased after playing. Also, the purpose is to provide studies that were done by universities and even some scientists. After the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, for instance, 25 computer and video game companies were sued by relatives of victims, who claimed that “absent the combination of extremely violent video games  and these boys’ incredibly deep involvement, use of and addiction to these games and the boys’ basic personalities, these murders and this massacre would not have occurred” (Ward in Lukas, 2010: 75). The author get’s their point across effectively by showing studies and truthful information from other scholarly sources. The author is very organized by his/her thoughts, which helps better understand the somewhat lengthy article. The article did not provide any images in his/her text. This article was written in 2014 by Kaja Poteko in Slovenia. The medium of this article is that it’s a text. The writer is a young adult who is arguing that violent video games is something that does affect the brain. The readers of this article is geared towards anyone who wants to learn more about violent video games increasing bad behavior.

This article will be useful for me to be able to look at the side that I will be arguing; violent video games affect bad behavior. Basically, everything from this article was new to me, besides the fact that rage and anger can come from playing violent video games. I would look at other articles by the same publication if there were any.

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Argument Topic Proposal

I chose to argue that teens and adolescence have an increase of bad behavior by playing violent video games. I chose this topic, because lately there have been school shootings all around the world by teenagers. There have been theories brought to our attention that playing violent video games can cause bad behavior like this to happen. According to Palo Alto Medical Foundation, “A 2010 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that youth age 8 to 18 devote seven-and-a-half hours a day to entertainment media. Less than half of the kids surveyed said their parents have rules about the shows and games they can watch or play.” Video games increase violence, because many of the aggressive behavior is being repeated over and over throughout.

The fact that this has been recently talked about the past decade or so and that many college students play violent video games, such as COD and so forth, influenced my decision on this topic. Before I chose this topic for sure, I did some research and made sure that I would be able to find legit scholarly sources and I have found quite a bit! Limiting our word count and only having 7 pages to argue a topic is difficult, but I thought that I would be able to argue both sides of this topic. I will be talking about the effects of violent video games and why it has become a bad behavior in most teens and in most adolescence. I will also add in that research and findings have found out that video games in general are cognitively pro-social responses for the brain. I wanted to find a topic that had studies to prove that violent video games increase aggression and violence and why. 

http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2013/11/video-games.aspx

http://ezpolson.nmu.edu:5331/content/36/1/94.full

http://ezpolson.nmu.edu:6129/content/40/5/578.full

http://ezpolson.nmu.edu:5126/article/10.1007/s11126-007-9056-9/fulltext.html

http://www.pamf.org/parenting-teens/general/media-web/videogames.html

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Analysis Reflection

After I came up with the topic of comparing and contrasting the show How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) and the show Friends, I immediately came up with an outline of topics that I wanted to talk about. That outline helped me organize my thoughts and figure out what my introduction and conclusion were going to be. I had a total of two drafts, my rough draft and then my final draft. What helps me the most when I’m editing my paper for my final draft, is by editing bits and pieces through the week and even through the day. I feel less stressed by doing that. The hardest part for me in every paper I write, is to come up with my introduction paragraph and even my thesis statement. I tend to come up with my thesis statement at the very end of my paper, because it’s always getting changed. Like I said, coming up with an outline for my rough drat and editing my paper throughout the day/week helped me get further along with my writing process. Workshop always helps, even if I don’t want to hear the criticism that my group members have to say to me. I guess the only concern I have is that I would like to be with group members that I have never been with. It’s nice to be able to read different papers and see the different writing patterns that occur with every writer. I only received feedback from one of my group members and she told me that I basically missed out on the “analysis” part to the essay. John had said the same thing. Although, at the time I thought it was okay to just compare the two shows, but after talking to both my group member and John, I realized that I needed to add more analysis to my paper. Basically, I needed to figure out the “so what” to my paper and also talk about some of the differences between the two shows. Once I had the better understanding of what my paper was lacking, I figured it wouldn’t be too terribly bad to revise my paper. I was somewhat wrong, because it took me a couple hours to figure out exactly what John wanted from me. I am hoping I revised my paper well enough and that my analysis of the two shows make my paper even stronger. What surprised me the most was that I dug deeper into the two shows and got the hang of analyzing better than I thought I would have. If I knew what analyzing meant in the first place and how to exactly incorporate it into my topic, then my writing process would have flowed right along and I don’t think I would have much to revise. If I could go back in time and change that, I would have gone straight to John and told him about my topic and made sure that I would be doing the analysis part correctly.   

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Narrator vs. no narrator

With all of these similarities, there are some differences between the two shows. The main difference between the shows is that in HIMYM there is a narrator and Friends does not. The show uses a narrator (voiced by Bob Saget), who plays the role of Ted as a father who sits down with his kids to tell them how he met their mother. Having a narrator helps the audience stay on track with all that’s going on in the show. The title of the show, How I Met Your Mother means more than how Ted actually met the mom of his two kids. Ted tells this long (9 seasons long) story to his kids about his friendships, relationships, memories, and even drama that happened along the way to becoming an adult and getting married. The show Friends is the lives of the six friends and what they do on a daily basis and it’s not from one specific persons view point. The shows were solely based on friendship, hanging out, jobs, relationships, and drama that was going on in their lives.

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Analyzing Friends & HIMYM

The main characters in the show Friends would always go to a café called Central Perk in New York to hang out, talk about their day, and drink some coffee. At Central Perk there is one couch, one chair, and many small tables surrounding. Ever since season one, episode one of Friends, the group of friends always sat at that couch, the chair next to it, and the smaller table right next to the couch. If they got there and there was someone else sitting there that they didn’t know, then they would kick them out of their spot. There is one specific scene where Ross and Chandler walked in on two muscular guys sitting at their couch. Chandler and Ross decided to go up to the guys and tell them that they had to move because that was their spot. That caused them to get into a little fist fight that didn’t last long at all, because Chandler and Ross got scared and ran off. In HIMYM the group of five friends also had somewhere they always went to hang out, and that place is called Maclaren’s Bar. This bar is located right below Ted, Marshall, and Lily’s apartment that is located in New York. They always sat in the same booth and would never let anybody else sit there. In almost every episode of HIMYM, there will be a scene of the friends in their favorite bar, sitting at the same booth talking, arguing, flirting, laughing, or doing whatever they do best. The group of friends in both of the shows are always staying up late at nights, even when they have work the next day. In HIMYM, the friends stay up late at Maclaren’s bar, and in the show Friends, the group of them stay at Monica’s apartment late at night.

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Intro to my analysis essay

According to Internet Movie Database (IMDb), the show How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) got a rating of 8.4, while the show, Friends received a rating of 9.0. Both of these shows are similar in many ways, such as the setting that both sitcoms are taken place, the characters, and even their “hangout” spots.

According to IMDb, this show was watched by around 52 million American viewers by the time the finale season was aired and received a rating of 9.6 out of 10. There are six main characters and those characters are Monica Geller (Courtney Cox), Ross Geller (David Schwimmer), Rachel Green (Jennifer Aniston), Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow), Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry), and Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc). This show is about this group of friends who all live in the same vicinity of one another and enjoy their young adult life in New York City.

The show HIMYM became a huge success with the finale episode having 12.9 million viewers, but the ratings of the finale episode got a 5.7 out of 10. (Carter, Bill). This TV sitcom ended up having nine seasons of Ted Mosby telling his two kids how he met their mother. The main characters are Ted Mosby (Josh Radnar), Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders), Marshall Eriksen (Jason Segel), Lily Aldrin (Alyson Hannigan), and Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris). There is a narrator for this show and that narrator is Bob Saget, acting as the future Ted Mosby. The show is mainly about Ted telling his kids how his life was from college up until he married their mother. Ted shared many memories that he had with each of his friends and even talked about his past relationships that he had and all of this friends past relationships. This group of five friends also live in New York City, and they are all terrified to move outside of New York or anywhere else in the world

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Yoplait Commercial Ad

http://dailycommercials.com/yoplait-dominic-purcell/

I decided to look at the most recent Yoplait commercial ad that stars Dominic Purcell. Dominic Purcell is a very cute actor who played one of the main characters in the TV show Prison Break. This commercial is trying to get us to purchase Yoplait Greek 100 yogurt, which is supposed to only be 100 calories. The author chose Dominic Purcell to play the role of the person eating the yogurt, because he is attractive and catches most women’s eyes’. The author then hopes that women will be more inclined to purchase their Greek 100 yogurt, because Dominic is attractive. Also, women are very particular about their body and when they see “100 calories” it will make us think how little calories there are in Greek Yoplait yogurt and then we will go buy it. They are making us think about the “100 calories” and how it would be a perfect snack for when we have cravings for food and a good way to keep the calories low. The author wants us to have those cravings to eat Yoplait Greek 100 yogurt instead of eating any other type of snack. They want us to feel like we “need” this yogurt in our lives. This ad is somewhat effective, because women like to see cute guys and the words “100 calories”. I personally don’t care for yogurt at all, but to the people who like yogurt, this could be very effective. The only reason why this commercial caught my eye is because of Dominic Purcell and the fact that I’m currently watching Prison Break on Netflix. He is very attractive, so kudos to Yoplait for having him in their commercial!

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Friends vs. How I Met Your Mother

I have decided to compare and contrast the show Friends and the show How I Met Your Mother. Friends is based on a group of friends who are basically each other’s family and they share their lives with one another. HIMYM is also about a group of friends who share their lives with one another and do all sorts of things together. Ross and Rachel in the show Friends have a very complicated and up and down relationship. That’s very similar with Ted and Robin from HIMYM. Chandler and Monica in Friends end up getting married, whereas in HIMYM, Marshall and Lily are married. Then there is Joey in the show Friends and he is the odd ball out. In HIMYM, there is Barney, and Barney does his own thing and hooks up with many many woman. Phoebe in the show Friends is the only person who isn’t compared to anyone in the show HIMYM. That is one main difference between the two shows- Friends has a group of 6 friends, where HIMYM has 5 of them. In both shows they have a place that they all go to and hangout. In Friends, it’s at a coffee shop called, Central Perk. In HIMYM their place to meet up is at MacLaren’s Bar. The settings in both of the shows are in New York and in both shows, each character falls so deeply in love with New York. It’s so hard for any of them to actually leave New York and start a new life somewhere else. Another similarity in both shows is that there is one apartment that they all hangout at. In Friend’s, it’s had Monica’s apartment and in HIMYM it’s at Ted’s apartment. Another difference that I have found was that in HIMYM there is a narrator (Bob Sagot) and that narrator represents the future Ted as a father. There is no narrator in the show Friends.

*Sorry if this blog post is random and all over the place, but this is the best way of figuring out similarities and differences of each of the shows!

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Left --> Right

Ted, Robin, Barney, Lily, and Marshall

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Analysis topic blog

I think I’m going to analyze the show How I Met Your Mother, which stars Cobie Smulders as Robin, Neil Patrick Harris as Barney, Josh Radnor as Ted, Jason Segel as Marshall, Alyson Hannigan as Lily, Cristin Milioti as The Mother, and Bob Saget as the narrator. It all started out when Marshall and Ted were college roommates and then Marshall met Lily in college and they started dating. Ted, Marshall, and Lily were always hanging out together and they eventually moved into an apartment together right above a bar. They went to the bar a lot, and that’s where they met barney, who is always sleeping with a different girl almost every night. When Robin showed up at the bar, Lily immediately wanted to be friends with her. That’s how the five of them became a good group of friends. The show, How I Met Your Mother is basically about Ted telling his two kids about how he met their mother, but along the way he talks about a few girls that he dated until he met their mother, and one in particular, Robin. Robin was his first love, but it didn’t work out, because Ted told her he loved her right in the beginning of their relationship. This show very much resembles the show Friends in many ways. Part of me wants to compare/contrast those two shows and I might just end up doing that, but for now I’m just going to stick with talking about How I Met Your Mother. My rhetorical situation influenced my decision in analyzing this show, because part of me thinks that most college students have watched this show, mainly because it’s on Netflix and has been for a while. Netflix is every college students “go-to” when they aren’t busy. I wanted to write about a specific piece of media and I feel more comfortable writing about a TV show than my previous idea of analyzing a political debate. I also have recently watched this show and I love it so much that I may even re-watch it! 

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More options for analysis essay

I did more thinking over the past week and really thought about the TV series How I Met Your Mother. I finished watching this TV series in the beginning of this year. There are 9 seasons of this show and all of them are currently on Netflix. The shows are 20-30 minutes long each, so it’s an easy show to watch. I strongly recommend this show to everybody! This show reminds me a lot of the show called Friends, because there are 5 best friends who are constantly hanging out together up until their later years. Their names are, Ted, Robin, Barney, Marshall, and Lily. The main thing all of them do is go to their favorite bar, Maclaren’s Pub and sit at one specific table. They have “claimed” that table to be theirs and will kick anybody out who is sitting there. How I Met Your Mother is about Ted telling his two children how he met their mother. Ted thinks back to all of the memories and all of the woman he dated up until he met the kids’ mom. Many emotions are being thrown at you while you are watching this show, just like Friends. I have laughed out loud, cried, and smiled many times throughout watching HIMYM. If I decided to analyze this show, I was thinking of doing the finale episode. The finale really explains everything that has happened throughout all of the years. I would also almost have to analyze the main scenes that happened in this show to make it better understanding to my audience members who have not seen this show. I have also found some blogs on google where people have analyzed this show in great detail. This show has so many meanings to it and it relates a lot to a life of a young adult trying to grow up, find a wife/husband, start a family, and find a job that will last for a while.

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Reflection on research essay

Based on the first essay I wrote for EN211 I believe that my entire writing process helped me look even further into my paper. I basically only did one rough draft and one final draft, but I kept fixing up my final draft many times. I also revised most of my paper while my boyfriend was doing his homework and I would have him listen to what I changed to see if it makes sense and if it sounded better than what I had before. Having him there to help, made the process a little easier and I also felt confident in what I was revising. I worked on my paper for five hours one night and the next night I worked on it for two hours. I used all of the feedback that I was given from my two classmates, from my teacher, my own feedback, and my boyfriend’s to really revise my paper. For many sentences that I needed to fix I decided to write by hand on a piece of paper and then transfer my finished sentences to my laptop. I felt that it was easier to figure out how I wanted to word my sentences on paper, because I could easily cross words or sentences out that didn’t sound good. Doing the workshop helped me get great feedback on my paper. My group members provided me with suggestions of how to come up with my thesis and thoughts on how to re-word some of my sentences. The suggestions that I got from my teacher really helped me as well. He did scribble all over my paper, which gave me a little anxiety, but I managed to get through it. Although, I didn’t take all of the suggestions that my classmates and my teacher gave me, because there were some things that I really didn’t want to take out. The most challenging part was honestly the beginning. I did not know where to start or what I should even fix. It took me a good hour to finally change something on my paper. I think it was so challenging, because I didn’t want to take many hours to revise my paper. I was not looking forward to doing it, but once I finished all of the revising process and turned in my paper, I felt a sense of relief. Once I got into the groove of the writing process, everything started to flow and I kept on with my revisions. I was surprised by how many times I could change a sentence and have it be somewhat of a different meaning. I was also surprised how easy it was to write my thesis after all of my revisions on my paper were done. I will for sure be writing my thesis after I have typed my paper out. If I could change one thing about my writing process for this essay, it would be to start revising right after conferences with my teacher. I would want to do that, because the feedback that he gives me at our conferences would be fresh in my mind and it would also speed up the writing process.

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Analysis essay

I’ve been looking up a lot of speeches and interviews with Donald Trump and they are all very interesting. A lot of the speeches are over 30 minutes long, and I’m not sure the requirements for this essay is quite yet. By far, I enjoy watching the debate, mainly because all of the Republicans are arguing against each other on why they are better. It’s hilarious at times, because Donald Trump just says whatever he wants. He doesn’t necessarily have a filter, but I think that’s why a lot of people are starting to really like him. He is “real”. 

If I just look at the Republican debate, Trump really gets destroyed by Megyan Kelly, who is the anchor for Fox News. She said to him, “You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.  Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women's looks.” Trump didn’t say sorry for what he said or even regret what he said. He basically told the people that if you don’t like what I say or do, then “I’m sorry”.

One of Trump’s main topics that he talks about is immigration reform. He wants Mexico to pay for a border to put up all along the Southern border. Trump claims that Mexico is taking advantage of the United States by illegal immigration to get rid of their criminals and poverty. Trump had stated in one of his speeches that illegal immigrants are getting treated better than our veterans. Veterans are put on good healthcare and receive some pay from the government. Back to illegal immigrants, there are criminals who come into the United States and commit crimes. Donald Trump provides the example of an older male who broke into a woman’s home in Santa Marie crushing her skull and eye sockets, raping her, then murdering her. Things like that can easily be fixed if our laws for the borer were improved.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/06/politics/republican-debate-donald-trump-top-lines/ 

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/immigration-reform 

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Now thinking of my analytical essay

I have now just finished writing my research paper, so I  need to start thinking of a topic to do my analytical paper on. In EN111 I chose to do my analytical essay on a speech that Lupita Nyong’o did at an award ceremony. The speech was roughly 5 minutes long and I thought that it would be something interesting enough to do 1,500 word essay on. I would like to still lean on analyzing some kind of speech, whether it’s political, an award speech from a celebrity (actor/actress or singer), a CEO of a company’s speech, etc. There a pros and cons to every topic that’s out there, but it all comes down to what I would be more interested in analyzing. I love to follow celebrities and find out what they are doing next, but I also have been really enjoying Donald Trumps political speeches and what he has to say to the people of the United States. A down fall about analyzing a political debate/speech is that I personally don’t follow politics very well, so it may be hard for me to follow their language. Although, analyzing a political speech by Donald Trump could get me a lot of great information and many different views on what others in the United States are saying about him. He is most definitely the most talked about presidential candidate, which will also lead me to a lot of good information on him. Also, learning more about the candidates for this upcoming presidential election will help me decide who I should or want to vote for. This particular topic could be very touchy to some individuals, so I will have to be careful what to say and how to say things for my readers. After re-reading what I have wrote, it seems as thought I want to learn more about Donald Trump and what he, himself has to say to the people of the United States.

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Annotated Bib - research paper

1)

Myklebust, Jon Olav. "How Physical Disabilities Influence Social Security Receipt among Vulnerable People in their Late Twenties." Journal of Developmental and Physical Disabilities 27.1 (2015): 1-14.

This article mainly talks about students who have special needs and social security for those individuals keeps increasing. For the ones who had special needs, it is very unlikely that they will be able to work. There may be some individuals who might be able to, but it depends on their severity level. Most people who have special needs will have social security before they are 30 years old. This also goes along the lines of individuals who aren’t just physically disabled, but also mentally and socially. This article isn’t necessarily arguing anything, it’s mostly just stating facts and real-life situations. This article is writing to anyone who wants to learn more about people who receive disability. 

2)

Maestas, Nicole, Kathleen J. Mullen, and Alexander Strand. "Does Disability Insurance Receipt Discourage Work? using Examiner Assignment to Estimate Causal Effects of SSDI Receipt." American Economic Review 103.5 (2013): 1797.

The author decided to write this, because they wanted more people in the world to know about disability and how it affects people who work. They are looking at what would happen if the entry level went down 23% and how it would have affected our country. They are writing to other authors and people who are higher up in the government to get their word out. I personally won’t be using this source or any of the information, because it’s not exactly what I’m trying to look for. Their sources are coming from universities, Washington D.C., and other places that provide reliable information.

3)

Olney, Marjorie F., et al. "It Takes a Village: Influences on Former SSI/DI Beneficiaries Who Transition to Employment." Journal of rehabilitation 80.4 (2014): 28.

This article is saying that less than 1% of people who have been receiving disability pay and benefits will eventually return back to work and stop getting disability. That’s not very many people at all. This article is putting out their facts and information on disabled people who return back to work, and maybe even some people who end up working under the table while receiving pay and benefits from the government. I believe this is a reliable source, although I can’t seem to find the full article which I would need to be able to write my research paper. The writer’s may be trying to reach out to individuals who receive disability benefits and pay to persuade them into going back to work and not working under the table.

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And even more research

What is fraud, waste, and abuse?

When applying for disability, people need to be truthful and they need to write everything down that is being asked. If that individual gets caught lying to SSA (Social Security Administration), then it’s a crime and that person could get in a lot of trouble. If a person decides to not let SSA know that they have returned back to work, are in jail, or if an individual does not let SSA know that a beneficiary has passed away then those people will stop receiving benefits immediately and may even be in further trouble. On the other hand, there are beneficiaries who are so disabled that the SSA investigates and has either a friend, relative, or an organization to handle that persons information and security stuff. That person is called a Representative Payee and they basically have to make sure all the information on the beneficiary is correct and up-to-date for the SSA. There is more to the Representative Payee, and there is further information on the website I provided at the bottom of this blog post. If a Representative Payee disrespects the rules then they will be paying for that price. I never really thought of someone selling their disability card, but that obviously happens and that is definitely against the law. The person who bought the card could also get in a lot of trouble.

Now, the employees who work for SSA have signed something before they officially start there job stating that they CAN NOT share information of beneficiaries to anyone. It’s a very private job and if the rules aren’t being followed, then that employee won’t just lose their job, they will probably face criminal charges. There are people out there who fake being an SSA employee and are trying to get medical information and bank account information so they can steal your identity and money. Beneficiaries and employees of SSA really need to be careful in what they are doing. If they aren’t careful, it could cause them to have a criminal background and could possibly even be put into jail.

http://oig.ssa.gov/what-abuse-fraud-and-waste

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20150726/NEWS/307269975/disability-rolls-surge-in-state

http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/106611/arkansas-launches-program-to-prevent-disability-fraud