What have I learned? What will you take with you from this class? where can you still improve?

1. What Ive Learned….. I have learned a lot in this class. I have learned how to Argue my point in an augmentative paper while still conceding and fairly stating the opposing sides argument. I also learned how to properly organize my paper so it is more presentable. Most importantly I have learned how to be more Open-minded and have an unbiased view while I am listening to an opposing argument.
2. What will I take away from this class is….. I don’t think writing is that bad anymore and I think after this class it is a lot more enjoyable. I am also a better writer in general because of this class.
3. While I have improved tremendously at many writing skills throughout this semester, I am by no means done learning. I feel like I can definitely improve on my transitions between paragraphs. I also believe I can still get better at restating my thesis in my conclusion.

Essay Outline:

Introduction:

1. Hook/ Attention Grabber
2. Thesis Statement

1st Body Paragraph

1. Talk about how this class has helped me become not only a better writer but in my eyes a better person.
2. Give examples

2nd Body Paragraph

1. Talk about 3 main things that I have learned and how they help me for the future
2. Give Examples

3rd Body Paragraph

1. Talk about professor Tharp and how she has helped me so, so much over the last 3 months.
2. Give Examples

4th Body Paragraph

1. Review on what I have mastered and reflect on areas where growth can occur in the future but how Dr. A has made that future growth become so much easier.

Conclusion

1. Sum it all up and thank Professor Tharp for the tremendous help.

I have learned a lot of great things over the last semester and this has definitely been my favorite English class I have ever taken….By A Long Shot!

Starting off with 3 things I have Learned (There has been a lot more then just 3)(Will include many more in essay)

1. I learned how to write argumentative essays a lot better then I did before, even though I thought I knew how, but turns out I didn’t know how to do it the right way.
2. I learned how to view other peoples views in an argument with an un biased mindset and allowed them to fairly state their point of view.
3. I have learned how to finally write thesis statements the RIGHT way because for years I had been doing it the wrong way.

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Advancements In Technology have Led to a Change in The Way Major

Terror Groups Like ISIS Recruit

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What would you do if you lived in a nice quiet community in the suburbs of Dallas and you come to find out that one of your next door neighbors was secretly being recruited by ISIS? Later you were informed that they were trying to become a sleeper cell for the terror group. To make matters worse that neighbor was a 19 year old girl who was on the Deans List at SMU and had never been a trouble maker. You would be shocked! This isn’t so far fetched anymore in this day an age, because nowadays ISIS is getting bigger and bigger and they are looking for new recruits that they can find easily with little effort. They have found exactly that in Social Media because It allows them to get their word out quickly to millions of people. ISIS uses Social Media in many different ways to recruit fighters to join their group. Over the years as technology has developed and become more enhanced. With that we have seen how terror organizations have changed the way they recruit on the internet and how social media sites like twitter and Facebook and many more sites have become a more prominent source for their promotion. I am trying to prove that there is a relationship between the advancements in technology and the changes major terror groups like ISIS have made to the way they recruit.

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How Terror Groups Have Changed With Technology for Decades

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Back before the advancements in technology and before Social Media was very prominent, the terror groups recruited and took responsibility for their attacks in totally different ways. Before technology had advanced to where it is today major terror groups didn’t have the luxury of choosing from multiple websites, social media sites or even where to publish a recruitment video such as on YouTube. Over the years even as technology enhanced the groups only had one or two options to choose from. In the 70’s it was mainly cassette tapes that they recorded their message of recruitment on and distributed it through the world as best as they could. That would be followed by low resolution and often blurry videos on VHS tapes when they came out in the late 70’s and that would continue all the way through the 80’s. While the internet had been around since 1969 the introduction of it to households wasn’t quite until the very late 80’s and early 90’s with the introduction of WWW or the World Wide Web. With this new found technology, terror groups could now reach further into the homes of people all over the world and especially Westerners. This was Also during the same time that one of the most notorious terror groups of all time known as Al Qaeda had begun to form. This advancement in the new internet led to the first major change into the modern day era of recruiting. In 1991 terror groups started creating websites that would soon allow the whole world to view what they wanted and various messages they wanted you to hear. Over the next decade the internet grew at an unprecedented rate and by the early 2000’s the Internet was booming. This is also when we started to see another change in the way terror groups spread their message and recruited. This is when terror groups started uploading their videos to the web in order to further increase the number of recruits they are able to connect with. “Al Qaeda was the first terror group to use this form of technology in mid 2001 with their video “The

Destruction of the American Destroyer [USS] Cole”” (Singer,Brooking, np) . The final change with how the terror groups use technology occurred just within the Last five to eight years. The terror groups (Especially ISIS) are taking social media by storm and are growing in the number of social media accounts they control or are supported by. Facebook and Youtube are two of the top sites that the groups prefer but the main Social Media outlet they are tending to use is Twitter. In May of 2015 Forbes did a study on how many Pro ISIS twitter accounts were created each year since 2006 and found that there has been around a 6 thousand percent increase in Pro ISIS accounts created each year in the past 10 years. I find it astonishing how terror groups could have grown that much in just 10 years. In the last 15 years since the 9/11 terror attacks, there has been a massive increase in attacks all over the world. In a study done by The Guardian it shows the number of deaths per year as a result of terrorism has gone up over 400% since the those attacks.

I definitely see a major comparison between the two studies that proves that the advancements in technology has effected the way terror groups recruit. The major correlation I see Is, that when technology gets better  terror groups like ISIS have more ways to recruit and that in return leads to a greater number of militants fighting for ISIS, This would explain the jump in the number attacks over the last 15 years. I would not be surprised if in the next couple of years you were to see ISIS or another terror group start to have live streaming recruiting sessions online where you would be able to chat with them and find out how to join.

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Why The Change In Technology Has Affected the Types of People Terror Groups Recruit

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Over the past decade or two the main change that I have been able to notice very clearly with regards to the enhancement in technology and how it effects the way major terror organizations recruit. That change is the type of people they seek out and actively pursue to gain support from.

Back when these terror organizations didn’t relay as much on technology to spread their word but rather just used anyone that wanted to join. The enhancement of the internet has surely changed that 100 percent. The majority of the people ISIS is trying to recruit are under the age of thirty years old. You might say oh well thats just because most Old people don’t do radical things and that the young kids wanting to do stupid stuff. While you could be right about part of that the main

reason is that younger people tend to use twitter and social media far more than elder people. A research study done by Pew Research Center earlier this year backs up my statement with hard evidence. The study shows that a whopping 88 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 29 use Facebook and 36% use Twitter. Only 72% for people between 50-64 use Facebook and Only 21% use Twitter. Only 62% of people over 65 use Facebook and only a mere 10 percent use Twitter. That is almost a big difference when it comes to how many more young people use it rather then older because most of the people over 65 make up the Baby Boomer Generation which means they have a larger group then the Millennials. ISIS knows that these people are on social media non stop and use them as their main target because even if they can get a small percentage, say 2 percent, that is a huge number because it is 2 percent of millions of people.

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Wrapping It Up

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I believe that the more and more we advance in technology the more and more terror groups like ISIS will continue to grow and grow vastly. I especially think you will see a stronger presence in the Western hemisphere over the next decade. The main solution to stop this is to have the government to hire multiple people to work hours at a time and at least one group working at every hour of the day to insure no pro terror group is allowed on the web. If we do this successfully I believe we will see a great response.

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Work Cited

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Gladstone, Rick and Goel, Vindu. “ISIS Is Adept on Twitter, Study Finds” Posted on the New York Times on 5 MAR 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/06/world/middleeast/isis-is-skilled-on-twitter-using-thousands-of-accounts-study-says.html . ACCESSED 10 NOV 2016.

O’Brian, Lauren B. “The Evolution Of Terrorism Since 9/11” Posted by the FBI on their website in late 2011. https://leb.fbi.gov/2011/september/the-evolution-of-terrorism-since-9-11 . ACCESSED 13 NOV 2016

Blaker, Lisa. “The Islamic State’s Use of Online Social Media” Article is from Scholar Commons (University of Southern Florida) http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=mca ACCESSED 8 NOV 2016

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Attention Grabber: What if you found out that a 19 year old caucasian buy next door was secretly being recruited by ISIS and was trying to become a sleeper cell for the terror group. How shocked would you be?

Well this is becoming more of a reality nowadays as ISIS is getting bigger and bigger and look for new recruits all over the world no matter what race.

Thesis: ISIS uses Social Media in many different ways to recruit fighters to join their group. Over the years as technology has has developed and become more enhanced. With that we have seen how terror organizations have changed the way they recruit on the internet and how social media sites like twitter and face book have become a more prominent source of their promotion. I am trying to prove that there is a relationship between the advancements in technology and they changes in the way major terror groups like ISIS have made to the way they recruit.

Body Paragraph 1: For the first body paragraph I am going to show my readers who ISIS is what they do and more importantly who do they recruit. (Religion, Race, Gender, Age, Country/Demographic)

Body Paragraph 2: Next I plan on using the information above to lead right into my next paragraph. I am going to go into detail about how the methods of recruiting in terror groups have changed over the years and how the internet has played a major role in doing so.

Body Paragraph 3: For my final body paragraph I plan on using some of my sources to state and compile more evidence to help me show how the internet has change the way ISIS recruits.

Conclusion: I will restate my thesis statement and sum up and make my final arguments.

Secondary Popular #1

Karam, Zenia and Sreenivasan, Hari. “How is ISIS recruiting the next generation of fighters? PBS post on July 19, 2015 at 3:26 PM EST, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/isis-recruiting-next-generation-fighters/ Accessed 7 NOV. 2016

In This article/ interview Hari Sreenivasan opens with a description of who ISIS is and what they are about. Then Zenia Karma she tells us how boys as young as their early teens had been taken by ISIS from schools, homes, Mosks and other places in the country. She also explained what the terror group tried to drill into them, that being memorizing the Koran, Training with weapons/ explosives and she says most Disturbing is the fact that they make them watch the gruesome beheadings and then have to practice doing the same things on dolls. They also go into detail about where else they find these kids and why they choose kids over adults.

For the authors the both seemed to be very credible, and also very prestigious. Hari Sreenivasan has been working in the news industry for 20+ years and has done many studies and has a lot of good reviews. Zenia Karma on the other hand I could not find anything that would verify that she is credible.

This Is a popular source because It doesn’t show any opinion rather only stating facts from the findings

PBS is a very credible source that is trusted by mostly everyone, including Very Liberal and Very Conservative people. It is also still relevant seeing that it happened in the last year and a half.

I will use this to better describe how ISIS gets insides peoples minds and how they train them to be able to do things like beheadings without it effecting them emotional. I will also use it to say what demographic and age group they tend to seek out.

Secondary Scholarly #2

Blaker, Lisa. “The Islamic State’s Use of Online Social Media” Article is from Scholar Commons (University of Southern Florida) http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=mca ACCESSED 8 NOV 2016

This Scholarly article is about who ISIS is attracted to and vice versa. Meaning who they want to recruit and who wants to join them. It also states how they use social media to recruit and goes into how they go after and who they go after per country.

The Author Lisa Blaker has a very and I mean very credible background because her profile is actually very impressive and is led by a Masters degree and two BA’s. she is also a Sr. Study director at a major co.

This is a Scholarly source because it is full of opinions and if from the university of Southern Florida which means she most likely had it edited by her peers before she actually published it.

I know that the site is very much credible because it is a college university website and they would be a very reliable web site.

I will use this to help me show evidence of how they use social media for different areas and to help explain who they target and how specifically do they go after them. But most importantly I am going to use it to show how ISIS gets people to promote violence in their communities.

Primary Popular #3

Sanchez, Ray “ISIS exploits media to make inroads in U.S.” Posted on CNN on 5 JUN 15 at 8:04 AM. http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/04/us/isis-social-media-recruits/ ACCESSED 9 NOV 2016.

This article is about how top ISIS people are trying to recruit americans and create sleeper cells over here. They also state ISIS’ call to arms through social media and It wanting people take out police officers and authority. Finally they bring up multiple messages that were sent through social media trying to crusade people to come over to the middle east and help them fight or to create a plot that would cause mass casualties back home.

This is a Popular source because its unbiased research that is strictly facts and the opinion is left out of the equation.

CNN is a very reliable news source and personally the one I like and trust the most because while its is slightly to the left it is still trusted by many people on both sides of the aisle.

I will use this are Article much like the one above in the one above in that I can shed some light on what social media sites they favor more than others and I will use this mainly to show how they try and find distraught people and take advantage of them because they are more venerable.

Popular Secondary #4

Singer, P.W., and Brooking, Emerson. “Terror on Twitter” Posted on Popular Science on December 11th, 2016. http://www.popsci.com/terror-on-twitter-how-isis-is-taking-war-to-social-media . ACCESSED 10 NOV 2016

This is by far the most information I have found in a source yet. This document is filled with useful information for my paper. This article talks about a variety of different topics about ISIS but they seem to go really in depth on the who, what, where, when, how part of ISIS and twitter. They also explain how ISIS first got thrown onto the social media stage…. That obviously being the brutal beheading of James Foley. They also talk about specific cases like San Bernardino where sleeper cells actually carried out a plot of mass casualties.

P.W Singer is a well established author and has published 4 books all in this area of research (All on homeland security or war in general). Emerson Brooking has held multiple positions in D.C and his current position is why I trust his writing so much. His current position is Research Fellow for the Council on Foreign Relations. If they trust his opinion that much then I should have no need to question it.

This is a Popular source because It is not opinion based and these two authors have done their research and have come up with a long list of solid facts and put them into what I believe a very helpful and informing piece of writing.

This one I wasn’t so sure about how I could prove It was credible until I came across an article on the BBC which is one of the top 5 most reliable unbiased sources. The article listed Popular Science in the top 5 in its category of trustworthy sources.

I will Use this website to show how exactly technology has changed the way Terror groups recruit and share their violence. The article perfectly lays out examples of this for me and It helps me understand the phases of technology and its relationship with ISIS/ Al Qaeda.

Scholarly Primary #5

Gladstone, Rick and Goel, Vindu. “ISIS Is Adept on Twitter, Study Finds” Posted on the New York Times on 5 MAR 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/06/world/middleeast/isis-is-skilled-on-twitter-using-thousands-of-accounts-study-says.html . ACCESSED 10 NOV 2016.
This article is about how the number of terrorist associated people/groups on twitter has grown
by massive numbers over the last few years. It also shows how they are taking twitter by storm and how it is almost impossible for them to deactivate all of the accounts because of the number of them.

Vindu Goel is a writer for the New York Times and focuses mostly on events in Asia and the middle east. He has been writing columns for many different websites since 1989 and graduated from Harvard University and went back and got another degree at the University of Michigan. I believe he is a very intelligent man and because of his background can be deemed extremely credible.

This really could be either a scholarly or popular but I believe it is more scholarly because the two authors collaborated and gave many facts while also giver their opinion.

The New York Times is a very well known source and is used by millions of people everyday thru out the US which for me tells me it is very credible and trustworthy.

I am going to use this source to show the amount of people that use social media in terrorist groups and how it is pretty much impossible to stop them from recruiting people to join them or inciting people to promote violence. Finally I will use it to get data to back up my points that i am trying to make, that being how they have taken social media and used it to their advantage.

Scholarly Primary

O’Brian, Lauren B. “The Evolution Of Terrorism Since 9/11” Posted by the FBI on their website in late 2011. https://leb.fbi.gov/2011/september/the-evolution-of-terrorism-since-9-11 .

This document from the Federal Bureau of Investigation explains how terror groups and attacks have changed in the years after September 11th, 2001. They go into detail and give statistics on the rise in attacks and where they come from. Such as where they give the number of attacks year by year and who and how they were occurred.

The author is a writer for Forbes and wrote this essay for FBI which I don’t think that they would allow a non credible person to write something if they didn’t believe in her or didn’t trust her.

The FBI website is one- hundred percent a credible site because it is a site run by part of the us government.

I will use this website to show how the terror groups have attacked places in the us alongside evidence from other sources to compare how the change in technology and social media have changed over the years.

I am still trying to locate a 7th source and I will update ASAP when I locate one I believe will help my paper.

ISIS uses Social Media in many different ways to recruit fighters to join their group. Over the years as technology has has developed and become more enhanced. With that we have seen how terror organizations have changed the way they recruit on the internet and how social media sites like twitter and face book have become a more prominent source of their promotion. I am trying to prove that there is a relationship between the advancements in technology and they changes in the way major terror groups like ISIS have made to the way they recruit.

Introduction Paragraph:

I will start off with a good hook to grab the readers attention. I will then give a vague description of my topic and let the reader know where I stand on this topic. Next I will lay out my thesis and wrap it up with a conclusion and any key points I feel I need to hint at.

Body Paragraphs:

I will be starting all of my body paragraphs with background info about that certain point. Then I will show any evidence that I can find and interpret that evidence for my readers and I will also look at any counter arguments and rebut them with good hard evidence while still viewing their point in a fair way.

Conclusion:

I will restate my thesis are wrap things up.

Sources: I am still working (playing around) with some sources and trying to figure out which ones I want to use.

For my Scholarly source I am using a book that I found on DELCAT Discovery called Examining ISIS support and opposition networks on Twitter. I plan reading more of this book and hopefully gain further incite on how and why ISIS use’s certain websites like twitter more than others in order to recruit.

I am going to talk about how the advancements in technology have impacted the ways that ISIS recruits figures to join them and how they do it. This article allows me to show my readers multiple different examples of how they use the internet as a place where they can call to arm.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/04/us/isis-social-media-recruits/