Organising Essays

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Organising Essays - Introductions & Conclusions

Aim: To describe the next stage in essay writing: developing organized ideas into an essay structure - introduction, body, conclusion.

1.      Ways to start writing your Essay - Rough Drafts

2.      First Drafts
•   Introduction "contract with the reader"   topic, focus, approach taken, outline of structure.
•   Body "fulfils contract"
•   Conclusion "wraps up contract"

3.      Ways of Starting Your Introduction

•   an interesting fact
"Twenty-eight percent of all occupations that will be available to children born in 1976 were not in existence when those children were born"
•   a quotation
•   a question
•   an illustration/example
•   a definition
•   an overview
•   a problem

4.  The Body of your Essay

5.  Conclusion - forceful, interesting.

(Adapted from HBH. rev 12th  ed. p. 374)

INTRODUCTIONS ARE like funnels.

Read the article by Rasmussen before you come to class.

Rasmussen, Chris. "A Great Tradition". In C.S. Clegg and M.M. Wheeler (eds.) Students Writing Across the Disciplines. Fort Worth: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1991. p.174-177.

A Great Tradition

Chris Rasmussen's essay opposes scientific research that uses animals for toxicity studies. Appealing to the conscience of a general reader, Rasmussen's essay, while scientifically accurate, considers the implications of science rather than scientific studies. The essay's approach parallels the one Andrea Jahn uses in her position paper for a biology class, but Rasmussen wrote this for a writing course.

Introduction           

"Suds-o Detergent will get your whole wash clean and fresh smelling too!! This product brought to you through the deaths of three million animals. Now we will return to our movie already in progress,...". Did that commercial sound a little bit out of the ordinary to you? Perhaps it's because you've never seen how many wasteful deaths are caused to bring a product to you. As you can imagine, it does not make the best marketing technique.

2.      The deaths I'm talking about are due to a liquid diet that approximately 2,700 animals are put on every day, to ensure product safety for consumers. This diet may include motor oil, detergents, food additives, cosmetics and many other appetising items. In scientific circles it is called the "LD50" or Lethal Dose 50% or Median Lethal Dose. I call it just plain "torture".
Body of Text

3       Scientifically it is defined as the traditional "technique for assessing acute toxicity of new substances". The LD50 seeks to discover the amount of a substance, administered in a single dose that will kill half a test group of animals within a specified time period. More directly, half a group of 40-100 animals are deliberately poisoned for up to 2 weeks until they die.

4.      Generally this custom is performed on any new products which are going to be marketed or which will cross state lines. The procedure goes like this: three groups of at least 10 animals (one per dose level) are administered excessive doses of the substance in question. It is either inhaled, painted on their skins or forced down their throats. They then suffer the effects until half their number die. The survivors are killed and dissected. The LD50 is derived from the number of deaths occurring at each dose level. I've never been a guinea pig, but I can see where this might be a painful experience.

5.      Researchers generally try to defend their time-honoured practice of the LD50 by saying that they only do so to satisfy government regulations. They do not realise that many agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PMA), are now protesting its use.

6.      Linda A. Grassie, a spokesperson for the FDA, said that "although the FDA requires acute toxicity data, it has no regulations requiring the use of the LD50 test." She went on to say, "There is general agreement that the LD50 test is often credited with greater quantitative and scientific accuracy than it merits." At a FDA workshop in D.C. one scientist stated that "the only reason the LD50 is still being used, although most agree it is an anachronism, is tradition." Yet despite this, the Department of Health, strangely not the government department under whose jurisdiction the animal tests are controlled, and many other agencies still requires the tradition to be passed on.

7.      The LD50 is generally recognised as bad science because the results can vary significantly, whether due to the animal's age, sex, diet, species, lab conditions etc,. Even if we could control all of these factors, there is still the problem of applying these results to humans. No matter how specific the LD50 value might be, it cannot be directly applied to man. The value given is basically the dose it would take to commit suicide. It requires extrapolation to be useful to man; this is just another chance for error.

8.      Another fault of the LD50 is its inability to project long-term effects of the material tested. As we have seen through our often disastrous history (for example with asbestos, Agent Orange, or thalidomide) it is long-term exposure that can be most dangerous for humans. Even with this auspicious test, we are still not adequately protected- Every year thousands of consumers are injured by products tested on animals. Lung lesions due to talc products, blindness from mascara and hair loss due to hair colouring have all resulted from faulty testing.

TRANSITIONAL PARAGRAPH

9.      If the results are so questionable and the reasons for its use so weak, why is it still handed down through the years like some treasured heirloom? It is not because there are not any replacement tests. The fact is, due to recent advances in modem technology, there are many new alternatives.

10.     The "in vitro" technique, or the use of toxicity testing on "out of animal" cell, tissue or
organ cultures has shown promising results. More recent substitutes are computer and mathematical models to study the LD50. These are simply any physical, chemical or conceptual systems that faithfully reproduce the responses of an organism to a specific substance. Assay techniques use the living material to detect or measure the effect of harmful substances on animals. If these aren't acceptable to the world of science, there are tests that involve fewer animals and are sufficient for most toxicity testing.  The "Limit Test" requires the single administration of some preselected dose. Interpreting the results is easy, if no deaths or ill effects occur, no further testing is needed. The "LD50 Approximation" uses carefully controlled observation of the signs of toxicity and determination of the target organs. Still there are those who maintain the ritual. The government has proposed that the severity of an experiment should be balanced against its potential benefits. According to this definition, the amount of pain suffered by an animal subjected to the LD50 should be fulfilling some great purpose. This is just not the case. The

LD50 is used in testing many generics or copies for products already on the market. This introduction of new items is purely for commercial reasons rather than for any real need. If it is not for science, nor for medicine, are commercial profits an allowable excuse for the deaths of 2-4 million animals per year?

11.     The assessment of suffering in a lab animal is often difficult due to their relatively limited ability to talk. Pain is a sensation experienced by everyone, large or small, young or old, but seemingly not by animals. In their case it is just not readily observable. It is therefore left to the researcher to decide, and he is clearly most interested in having his practices unhindered. The researchers are not required to seek accreditation for their experiments at any bureau or agency. This probably explains the abundant repeat testing. The labs are not required to follow any specific regulations. They are however encouraged to follow guidelines for care of laboratory animals published by the National Institutes of Health.

12. The Federal laws regulating the use of animals in research are a little lacking. The current Federal Animal Welfare Act fails to actually cover the treatment of animals during the experiment. In addition "the majority of USDA inspectors that are in charge of the administration of the act have no special training in animal welfare and are unfamiliar with the lab setting".

13.     The anti-cruelty laws in existence vary from state to state. A number of these were modelled after the Model Penal Code provision that deals with animal cruelty and does not apply to activities carried out for scientific research. Many laws can only be enforced after the mistreatment has occurred, and it can be difficult to remedy death. Often the offender has to be proven to have had purposeful intent in the act for any legal action to lake place. It is fairly difficult to establish Fred the researcher's inherent dislike for white bunnies. Any fines paid, rather than going to further animal research, are given to the state to salt the roads in the winter. Finally your local policeman is not really interested in investigating some fanatic's alleged mistreatment of animals.

Conclusion:           

The safety of our future generation should be ensured and testing products which will directly affect our lives should be continued, but not at the cost of so much useless destruction. I suggest that instead, we pass down a reverence and respect for life, because the LD50 is one tradition we can do without.

Questions:

1. What does an introduction do?

2. What do good introductions contain? What don't they contain?

3. What does a conclusion aim to do?