I agree with the Affirmative side on this topic because she made it clear to me that students taking these pills are harming themselves by becoming addicted to this medication in the future or by harming them in other physical things. I also felt like the Negative side did not have a lot of facts on why she thought students should use the pills. I agree that students are becoming lazy and they do not want to work too hard for their success in school. I was also confused about whether were they were discussing that these pills should be banned completely or only to those people who did not have a prescription.

While both arguments were well written, I have to agree with the affirmative on this topic. Ana makes it clear that individuals who take Ritalin and Adderall are causing harm to themselves as well as becoming addicted. She then supports this claim with credible data from the U.S. National Library of Medicine, thus establishing ethos in her argument. She then introduces pathos by describing that students who take these medications are cheating, a point she made in a excellent way by comparing students taking Ritalin and Adderall to athletes taking steroids. Sara’s argument didn’t have a balance of the persuasive appeals, it was mostly pathos. She makes her argument by telling the story of a particular student who owes his academic success to taking “study buddy pills”. The problem with her argument is the fact that she only had this one isolated example, and did not present any conflicting views. Another problem with her argument, was that she didn’t many statistics or other types of “hard evidence” to support her claim. So in summary, Ana’s argument appealed to me more because it was driven by pathos, ethos and logos. Wile Sarah’s argument was driven mostly by pathos. While both arguments were well written, I found Ana’s argument more persuasive.

The article isn’t about students who have problems concentrating and being prescribed pills, it’s about students who don’t have problems concentrating and abusing pills.

I feel like our generation doesn’t want to work anymore. Nobody wants to handle their problems. I understand college is stressful, but who ever said college was suppose to be a day at the beach? It’s an honor to get a degree, and drug abusers are making a mockery out of it.

It’s also unfair to other students. Other students are facing the stress and getting their assignments done without drugs, and they lose scholarships and financial aid to drug abusers.

The university has a reputation to hold, and punishing students who are abusing drugs with a slap on the wrist will lose the university’s reputation and eventually cost lots of money on students who are participating in academic dishonesty

Bottom line, abusing drugs isn’t the answer.

After reading this article, many questions came to mind that should have been answered as facts from either side. Why was a statement describing CSUN’s zero policy not included? What is the definition of drug abuse? The example given by a student taking one pill one time is abuse? I do not agree that drug enhancement for attention is the same as an athlete taking steroids (as mentioned by Ana). With these missing definitions it is understandable why the reader above, Lisa, became so heated after reading this article. I do want to say to her however, this is talking about substance abuse, not about those of us who have ADHD and use the medication medicinally. I think Sarah won this argument because she had such greater facts that backed up and validated her point, whereas Ana only had what seemed to be her opinion written down. I am still not sold that people who are drug abusers should be expelled because neither arguer said what drug abuse was and how it would affect me, as a student, around these so called drug abusers. This article has only brought up more questions and I do not agree with either side because neither presented their side of the argument with good hard facts that would persuade me to want to support their side.