Hamad Mohammad

UWRT 1102
31 March 2016
Research Log
Citation:

WAXLER, ADAM. "Why Do People Smoke Cigarettes?" Why Do

People Smoke Cigarettes? Web. 31 Mar. 2016.

Date Accessed:

3/31/16

Type of Source:

Secondary Source, website Article

Inquiry Questions
Answered:

Keywords:
Summary +
Commentary:

Further Questions:

a. Why do people smoke even though it is warned (on packets) that it

causes sever health problem?
b. Why is it difficult to quit smoking cold turkey?
c. Why do smokers smoke?

Smoking, effects, Quit

Summary: The Author Adam Waxler is basically talking about the effects
of smoking on health and how it causes deadly diseases like lungs cancer
etc. Then he mentioned a brief history of smoking. After that He pointed
out that Nicotine is more addictive than alcohol and cocaine. Leaves the
smoker with pleased after he smokes, which releases hormones that make
it even more difficult to quit smoking.
Commentary: After reading the authors article, it made me think about
even more evidences that answer my questions, specially the question
about why smokers still smoke regardless the deadly effects on their
health. Even the answer to the second question is convenient, because
addiction is hard to quit, which we all know and have read about, For
example how quitting cocaine and other addictive substances and
chemicals is extremely hard since the body has already adapted to the
chemical.
Are there any other reasons why people smoke ? is there something else
about smoking that made people addicted to it ?

Citation:

"The 4 Stages of Nicotine Addiction." Nihi.auckland.ac.nz. The University of Auckland New Z

Web. 6 Apr. 2016.
<https://nihi.auckland.ac.nz/sites/nihi.auckland.ac.nz/files/difranza/Difranza_Stages_Flyer_PD

Date
Accessed:
Type of
Source:
Inquiry
Questions
Answered:
Keywords:

4/6/16

Summary +
Commentary
:

Summary: This source is from made by the university of Auckland New Zealand. Its about stag
smokers based on their addiction to smoking. The first stage are those beginner smokers who d
get addicted to smoking yet, those who are okay with stop smoking. Second stage are those wh
experience a slight desire to smoke after staying a long time without smoking, the desire is eas
ignored and does not cause physical or psychological effect to the smoker. The third stage are t
who spent a long time without smoking and have a stronger desire than those from stage 2, this
to smoke is followed by psychological affect on the smoking (thoughts) and it is difficult to ign
The fourth and last stage are those who have stage 2 and three effects plus it is extremely hard
them to quit their desire to smoke and also they will feel unwell and are in need of nicotine in o
feel good and calm.
Commentary: This source gave me a good background about smokers and how there are differ
stages of smoking based on the level of addiction (habits) and the level of nicotine exist in thei
bodies. I experienced the second stage, which exactly explains how does it feel. The source an
my question perfectly and in details. Now after reading this source I can categorize smokers be
different stages and know how smokers they really are.

Further
Questions:

Could there be a more sever stage than the 4th one? Are people who tried to smoke once listed
number one stage ?

Secondary Source,website University research

a. Are there any different levels of smokers?

Stages, smoking, habits.

Citation:

Wanjek, Christopher. "5 Health Benefits of Smoking." LiveScience.

TechMedia Network, 19 July 2011. Web. 06 Apr. 2016.

Date Accessed:

4/6/16

Type of Source:

Secondary Source, website article

Inquiry Questions
Answered:
Keywords:
Summary +
Commentary:

Further Questions:

a. Could smoking affect our social lives positively?

Smoking, positive effects.

Summary: The author is pointing out positive effects of smoking on the
life of a smoker and one of them is that smoking lowers risk of obesity.
Thats because smoking is an appetite suppressant meaning that it
weakens the smokers appetite to eat.
Commentary: This is the only source I could find to answer my question
which makes a little bit of sense because there are people who are
struggling with their appetite and that is causing them to be over weight.
Smoking in this case could be a factor that will affect their social live
positively because if they became thinner as they wish, they will be more
confident about their look and therefore their social life would be better
based on this theory.
Are there any Other Good side of smoking? Are there relationships
started because of smoking breaks? Did smoking ever saved someones
life?

Citation:

"What Your Cigarette Says About You!" What Your Cigarette Says
About You! (First Post from the New Guy). 9 Dec. 2010. Web. 06 Apr.
2016.

Date Accessed:

4/6/16

Type of Source:

Secondary Source, website blog

Inquiry Questions
Answered:
Keywords:

Does brand/type of cigarette affects smokers identity?

Summary +
Commentary:

Summary: The author is talking about about The cigarette Brands and
what does it say about the smoker who smokes them and thats based on
his experience of working in a convenience store. He listed a lot of
cigarette brands and made connection between the buyers identity and
the brand of cigarette they bought. He noticed that people who buy the
same brand have couple of things in common and he wanted to share
them in this blog.
Commentary: This blog gave me a brief idea about the idenitiy of the
smoker and their selected cigarette brand, some of them are buying
expensive cigarette brands just to show off and the author noted that the
person who bought the expensive brand is as he said a pretentious prick
from his personality. Other brands also define the persons stage as a
smoker, for example people who smoke light cigarettes or menthol
cigarettes are more like stage 1 or 2 smokers.

Further Questions:

Does the same brand say something else about the smoker if its in
another country or culture ?

Smoking, Brands, Identity.

Citation:
Date Accessed:

Algamdi, Waleed. Interview, 6 April 2016

4/6/16

Type of Source:

Primary Source, interview

Inquiry Questions
Answered:

A. How does gender affect the identity of the smoker?

B. How Different societies and culture look at smoking?
C. How does age effect the smoker identity?

Keywords:

Interview, culture, society, perception.

Summary +
Commentary:

In the interview the interviewee answered the questions I asked him

which some of them were about Inquiry questions and some of them
were about his personal life as a smoker. I asked him a question that is
similar to the Question A and he answered by saying that yes he looks at
the girl who smokes differently than a guy who smokes and its not
acceptable in his culture for a girl to smoke or even buy cigarettes. I also
asked him about how did smoking at a young age affected his identity, he
answered by saying that it didnt affect him that much but what he
noticed is that some of his friends stopped talking to him as they used to
and also he said that when his parents knew, they grounded him for a
month.
Commentary: I chose this friend of mine as an interviewee because he is
from a different culture and because he now lives in America he can tell

me about what he noticed from differences between both cultures.From

the interview, my friends answered three of my inquiry questions which
are A,B and C listed above. He told me his opinion about what is it like
for a girl to smoke in his culture, which is really bad and not acceptable.
We can make connection by the difference between cultures and how
both of them look at a side of smoking in a different way. In American
culture its okay for a women to buy a pack of cigarette but In my friends
culture it is not acceptable and is not allowed for markets to sell
cigarettes to women, this answered the second question about different
cultures and smoking. Lastly about age, if my friend started smoking at
his age right now, his parents wont ground him as they did when he was
younger because now he is an adult and can proceed with his life and
with his choices as he wishes. Also Smoking at a young age also made
some of his friends to stay away from him, because our parents used to
teach use and tell us that kids who smoke are bad and not the kind of kids
we want to be friends with, so we need to stay away from them.
Further Questions:

Are there things the interviewee didnt say about his experience as a
smoker? Was there something to hid?

Citation:

Spitzer, Joel. "Proud To Be A Smoker?" Proud To Be A Smoker? Web. 06

Apr. 2016.

Date Accessed:

4/6/16

Type of Source:

Secondary Source, website article

Inquiry Questions
Answered:
Keywords:

Do any smokers have pride in smoking?

Summary +
Commentary:

Summary: The author is basically talking about how smokers were proud
of themselves smoking in 25 years ago because it was a way of showing

Pride, smoker.

Further Questions:

them selves to be stylish, mature, smart and bright. Also that smoking
was something you would share with half the men in and one third of the
women in America. But after 25 years everything became different and
people died because of smoking and researches that were done on
smoking all proved that its a bad habit. Therefore now smokers wont be
as proud as they would be 25 years ago.
Commentary: From this article we can say that it answered my question
and also it taught me thing about smoking before. I didnt know that
smokers used to have a great reputation before and that smoking
represented them as Glamorous and clever. But now its different and I
believe the number of smokers who are proud of their addiction has
dramatically decreased since then.
Are there any smoker who is proud about his addiction these day?

Reflection:
Out of the all the sources that I mentioned in this research, The strongest and effective 3 sources
are: #1 the interview, because it is good sources since the person who I interviewed is from a
different culture than the American culture and he got to live in both of them and say what he
noticed. Plus, he is a smoker and he shared his experience as one to me. #2 is the second source
because it basically made it more clear to me that there are stages of smokers and how every
stage is identified so I can apply it on people in my life to know which smoker stage the are in.
#3 Is the first one, because it explains the experience of a smoker and how do they feel if they
stopped smoking, which gives us a deeper understanding about why is I difficult for them to quit
smoking because its even more addictive than cocaine and alcohol. Those sources will help me
form what I want to say about my topic because they pretty much identifies smokers and also
explains how culture and smoking are related to each other and that smoking is viewed
differently from a place to another.
The most successful methods I used in this research are the internet and interviewing. Using
internet is successful because it gave me a lot of answered to my questions and a lot of sources
from university researches and even blogs written by regular people. The interview was also
successful because it right from the sources which gave me the choice to ask even more question.
The questions I used in the interview were straight clear question and not yes/no question which
helped me to get even more information about the interviewee it also helped me to generate even
more question based on the answers I was getting from him.
The process of this research was making a final list of the questions I wanted us as inquiry
questions and then I did the research using sources from the internet and then I did an interview
with a friend of mine. If I would change the process I would also use a survey resource method
to see what people in my community ( university ) think about my topic.