Edward Tufte Article

Tufte writes an article “PowerPoint does Rocket Science – and Better Techniques for Technical Reports,” and in this he points out the faults in PowerPoint presentations that can cause the audience to be mislead. Tufte explains in depth these faults and how important proper PowerPoint presentations are because even people in the aeronautics use these presentations to describe their information and put it in terms that are understandable to a general audience. Specifically, in the Columbia Shuttle disaster Tufte talks about one of the slides used in that presentation and how an overuse of certain words can cause the audience to lose concentration on the topic and the word that was used repetitively no longer has the same connotation.

In addition, Tufte talks about the main focus of a PowerPoint presentation which is organization, specifically hierarchical organization. Although these hierarchical organizations are good, the presentation could be dumped down if too much text is added to one particular slide because the information would seem superfluous. If the audience sees too much information on one slide, the presentation could easily be misinterpreted.

All in all, Tufte focuses on pointing out the main points that will help the audience from becoming unnecessarily confused. Not only does her talk about negative influences of a PowerPoint, but he also talks about that important positive aspects such as certain images or videos added to the presentation. These images and videos would help keep the audience’s attention and make it easier for them to acknowledge the information.

Annotations of Scholarly Insight on the Gardasil Vaccine

Cervical cancer has been affecting more and more women in the past thirty years. Currently cervical cancer is affecting 13,000 women and of that 13,000 approximately thirty percent of them die. Back in the 1980's it was thought that cervical cancer was cause by the herpes simplex one virus, however, today we know that it is caused by one of the four major strains of the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). The porblem with this virus is that it has over a hundred strains but only a few of those strains are capable of causing cancer of the cervix.

In 2006, the research pharmaceutical company Merck discovered the HPV vaccine and it was eventually approved by the FDA and named Gardasil. This vaccine contains "virus like particles" of the HPV strains 5,11,16 and 18 and it has been proved that types 16 and 18 have cause approximately 70 percent of cervical cancer cases. This vaccine has proved to be so great that many states in the United States are starting to mandate it for pre-teen girls, however is act is causing some parents and other gaurdians to lash out and fight against this mandation.

Many parents believe that this vaccine will promote sexual activity and promiscuity of their girls at an early age and a result refuse to get their child vaccinated. However, if they would step back and realize that young girls are going to do what they want regardless of their parents input and should vaccinate their child as a safety percaution they could prevent their child from obtain a serious form of cancer later on in their life.