Final Paper Project Reflection

         While writing this paper, I realized that the fight for animal rights is even more widespread than I thought. There are literally thousands of organizations fighting for animal rights and against animal cruelty worldwide yet not much progress seems to have occurred over the years. My bitterness, again, as with my DSP essay, fueled my writing and I was increasingly resolved to do more for these defenseless animals that I was writing about. I also learned that I can write about my own experiences the fastest and I am decent at using adjectives and my stories to convince readers that my opinion is the right one.

            Before writing this paper, I brainstormed what topic I could write about that I would have a strong opinion about. Since this paper was supposed to be on a social issue, the only issue I have had experience with is animal abuse or neglect and I happened to have a strong opinion on it as well so it was perfect. I then wrote up a list that described what type of information I would use to write the paper. This helped me to write my introduction and an outline detailing what I thought each paragraph should be about. I then did extensive research on specific examples of animal abuse, statistics, definitions, and ways to stop animal abuse. Lastly, I played some classical music while I wrote the paper, beginning with the second paragraph which details the definition for animal abuse. I then focused on the paragraphs that dealt with my experiences (veterinary clinic experience, humane society experience, fostering experience). Then I filled in the rest of the paper and seemed to have more trouble with the paragraphs that told why some people think animal abuse is ethically fine. That’s when I decided to use the reader’s pathos for people to draw similarities between animal abuse and human abuse.