Three Part Blog

Emily Joanne Flores
May 10, 2021
2 min read

Part One

My three assignments that I think contributed the most to helping me write the LR paper is both of the Connect assignments where we were required to annotate two different research studies, one pertaining to elephants and the other to chimpanzees, and the assignment where we were supposed to annotate the film Bird Brain. The two connect assignments really helped me to make sure I knew what kind of studies I should be looking for while also teaching me a good and effective way to annotate. I learned so much and was able to apply the same knowledge I learned from those two assignments on the Big 3 research studies later on. As for annotating Bird Brain, it helped more so give me an idea of what I wanted to write about in my LR essay. I was fascinated by how creatures I never really thought about could be so much more complex and intelligent than I could have ever imagined.

Part Two

After rereading what I wrote in my draft, I have to say that I think my first and second paragraph are not too far off from what I want them to be. I'm confident that they meet the minimum requirements, but I know they can be much better, especially the third paragraph that sounds redundant with all the uses of "intelligence". I'm not sure how to fix it just yet, but I also think I could quote from Safina more effectively than I can from Kluger. I do believe I delivered my thesis and purpose of my paper. It's best depicted in this portion from my essay:

In this essay I seek to provide insight into the research being done around the world to understand birds just a bit better. Corvids are where I will focus most of my research, explaining how they use tools out in the wild as well as in the lab, the extent of their cognitive reasoning, the extent of their problem solving skills, and the general research that has been done concerning the intelligence of corvids.

Part Three

I took some time to research and look at what problems corvids are currently facing. It hasn't been easy work and I am still not too sure what issue to specifically tackle, but I'm thinking I will write about the treatment of captive corvids. Through my research I found that PETA was addressing how captive crows were able to remember and hold grudges against certain people. If they are captured then crows will remember the face and swoop down to attack their capturer. Since corvids are getting more attention when it comes to their intelligence, I think I can explain how their cognitive abilities help to make crows more wary of humans and how this stress might hurt them in the long run. I'll definitely do more research to try and find a bigger issue. I'm also aware of the poisoning of crows in certain areas, but I'm not sure if it's a big enough issue to cover.