Writing Introductions and Conclusions – Handout #2
Topic: Water
Purpose:
I want my readers to know that plastic water bottles are hazardous because they do not break down like organic
trash does. Also, most plastic water bottles are not recycled. Also, plastic water bottles require more water to
create than they actually contain for someone to drink, and therefore waste water.
Type of Assignment: Informative essay
Methods of Development
Possible Ways to Write the
Story (anecdote) – could be
I helped with a trail clean-up along the Mogollon Rim in 2005. The single most prevalent
objects: wrappers from packaged foods like Slim Jims and candy and water bottles!
During our half-day clean-up, the group I was with collected nearly 200 water bottles,
along with food wrappers, metal cans and other trash left by hikers and campers in less
than a four- square mile area.
historical, imaginary (“what if”
scenario), scene from a book, play
or motion picture
Opening Paragraph
Description of a person or place
In the 1970s, television networks ran what became a famous series of public service
announcements (PSAs) featuring a Native American man in traditional dress observing
pollution from industry along riverbanks or on highways. The advertisement had a tag
line: “People start pollution. People can stop it.” It closed with a close-up of the man’s
face and a tear forming at the edge of one eye. As the age of environmental awareness
began, this was an effective reminder. What could possibly make an impact today?
Fact or statistic (surprising,
amazing, or even unbelievable!)
According to Answers.com, the average water bottle takes 450-1000 years to fully
biodegrade! If a “generation” is about 30 years, then one Dasani water bottle will
basically outlive fifteen generations of human beings. What a sobering statistic!
Image, object, piece of art
(painting, sculpture, etc.) or an
image/symbol of some kind
On February 17, 2010, the Plastiki—a catamaran built from twelve thousand reclaimed
water bottles—began a voyage from San Francisco CA to Sydney, Australia.
Environmentalist and founder of Adventure Ecology, David De Rothschild, is using the
voyage to get everyone to think seriously about recycling water bottles. He hopes that
people will see the Plastiki as a statement about the growing problem of plastic trash.
Quotation (please don’t “orphan”
Beth Terry started a blog called www.fakeplasticfish.com in 2007. She seeks to
encourage her readers to use less plastic in their lives. On February 1, 2010 she blogged:
“it’s only after looking at our own waste and trying very hard to find alternatives that we
can see clearly where the limits are and what companies we need to target or civil
actions to engage in.”
the quotation; it needs to be related
to the subject of your paper
somehow)
Newspaper article (historical or
modern)
Anything more?
Valerie.rehrer@cgcmail.maricopa.edu
The California State Department of Conservation reported on May 29, 2003 that “nearly
3 million empty water bottles *are+ going to the trash EVERY day.” That translates into
“$26 million in unclaimed California Refund Value (CRV) deposits every year.”
Writing Introductions and Conclusions – Handout #2
Topic: Water
Purpose:
I want my readers to know that plastic water bottles are hazardous because they do not break down like organic
trash does. Also, most plastic water bottles are not recycled. Also, plastic water bottles require more water to
create than they actually contain for someone to drink, and therefore waste water.
Type of Assignment: Informative essay
Methods of Development
Possible Ways to Write the Closing
Paragraph,
by enriching the opening paragraph’s idea
Story (anecdote) – could be
historical, imaginary (“what if”
scenario), scene from a book, play
or motion picture
Back in 2005, I did the service project to spend time with family and friends.
However, all of us were transformed by what we collected, and what it amounted to.
I can still smell the grunge of those 200 water bottles, left to rot in the national
forest. It will take everyone who visits the parks to commit to keeping them clean if
the next generations will see the beauty of our nation, or simply the trash others
have left behind.
Description of a person or place
There are many reasons to recycle water bottles. And it’s clear who needs to do it. As
the 1970s PSA stated, “People start pollution. People can stop it.” The real question
remains unanswered: Will we?
Fact or statistic (surprising,
amazing, or even unbelievable!)
If there had been plastic water bottles in Elizabethan England, and if Queen Elizabeth
I of England had sipped from a Dasani bottle and then tossed it into the bushes on
her palace grounds, that bottle would only now degrading! That’s roughly twice the
time our nation has existed. It seems like far too long a time.
Image, object, piece of art
(painting, sculpture, etc.) or an
image/symbol of some kind
The Plastiki’s voyage is but one way, among many, that we have to rethink “waste”
and turn it into a “resource”. Only by re-imagining what’s possible will we finally
discover how to “reduce, re-use, recycle and rethink” the plastic water bottles that
are clogging our landfills and killing our planet.
Quotation (please don’t “orphan”
Few of us will ever be as passionate about plastic waste as Beth Terry. But learning
about what our waste means to our health and the health of our planet is sobering.
She may be right—it may be time to identify those actions our society can reasonably
take, and those companies whose illegal or immoral behaviors require scrutiny….
the quotation; it needs to be related
to the subject of your paper
somehow)
Newspaper article (historical or
modern)
Anything more?
Valerie.rehrer@cgcmail.maricopa.edu
The environmental cost of not recycling plastic water bottles is high. But even higher
costs—not only environmental, but economic—are now apparent. As everyone
knows from their physics classes, “every action has an equal and opposite reaction”.
The question is: can we live with it?