Discussion Post: Argument & Detail

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Single Point Essay English 391—Mason  

 

Audience Analysis

My audience is a commercial fisherman named Haku, who is 25 years old and lives in

Honolulu, Hawaii. He graduated from Moanaluna High School in 2011, but he did not choose to

attend college. Instead, he wanted to take over his father’s fishing business immediately after

graduation. He has been a fisherman for about 7 years and works as a commercial fisherman in

the Port of Honolulu. Haku is aware about the topic of my essay because he has experienced

first-hand how plastic waste has been harming marine animals like sea turtles. In fact, he recalls

coming across a floating sea turtle while fishing in the North Pacific Ocean. The sea turtle had a

plastic straw stuck in its nose. However, the sea turtle was not moving, so his fishing crew

assumed it was probably dead. He has also seen marine debris, especially tiny plastics, floating

around at sea when he goes fishing. Haku will be mildly sympathetic towards my topic because

of his first-hand encounters of marine debris and injured marine animals, but he feels as though

there is nothing he can do about it. Based on Haku’s background information, I made my claim

very relevant to his own experiences. I chose green sea turtles because of a traumatic incident he

experienced at sea. I focused on the North Pacific Ocean not only because Hawaii is in the North

Pacific Ocean but also because some parts of the ocean is known for its marine debris pollution. I

arranged my evidence into three parts of how plastic pollution in the North Pacific Ocean harms

green sea turtles: ingestion, entanglement, and habitat degradation. I included three types of

evidence, so Haku can become more knowledgeable about how plastic hurts marine animals in

various ways. One of the evidence includes fishing with plastic/ghost nets, which Haku can

directly relate to. Fishermen typically use plastic fishing nets because of its convenience, but

many throw these fishing nets away in the ocean after they are done using it. I hope that after

Haku reads my essay, he understands the dangerous role ghost nets plays against marine animals,

and that he realizes how essential his role is in keeping marine animals safe. Since Haku lives in

an area with many beaches, my essay will inform him about the how plastic waste on land

negatively impacts turtles’ nesting areas and their eating habits in the ocean. By educating Haku

through my evidence, I hope that his sympathy can turn into a call for action in which he and his

fishermen practice safe fishing and help clean out debris in both the land and the ocean to save

Comment [1]: Thoughtful  set  up  for  the   audience.    I  appreciate  your  attention  to   detail.      

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marine animals. Lastly, my essay does not include complicated scientific jargon, so Haku (who

has a formal high school education) will be able to understand what my essay is trying to convey.

Workshop Evaluation

During the revision workshop, both of my peers who edited my essay told me that my

claim was specific and that my paper was coherent and flowed smoothly. Following the advice

given by Clark and Lanham, I used only active verbs instead of the weak “is” verbs in my paper.

I noticed how the use of active verbs and subject at the beginning of my sentences made my

essay stronger. I also used common transitions mentioned on page 35 in the Hacker reading to

make my essay more organized and coherent. I paid a lot of attention to my transitions between

paragraphs to make sure I added an effective transition sentence between each paragraph.

Following Hacker’s advice, I also paid careful attention to my topic sentences because I wanted

to make sure it captured the main idea of the paragraph. I previously thought I had to avoid all

prepositions, but after talking with Dr. Mason, I realized that the Paramedic Method tells me to

be careful about the usage of prepositions-not to exclude them completely. My peers helped me a

lot in detecting weaknesses in my writing. One of my peers told me that I repeated a lot of words

like “for example” or “such as,” so she told me to delete the words or limits their use. She also

told me to combine some of my sentences to help with my evidence arrangement. Moreover, my

peers revised a lot of my sentences to make them precise, but concise. Some of my word choices

and sentence structures can be wordy, so their revisions helped strengthen my sentence structure.

Thanks to my peers, I took their advice and made corrections in my word choices, sentence

structure, and evidence arrangement. While editing my colleagues’ papers, I noticed one of them

used “is” a lot, so I circled every “is” on her paper. On my other peer’s paper, I talked to her

about how her evidence does not always relate to her claim, so I gave her ways to organize her

evidence and relate it back to her claim. Overall, the advice that my peers gave me allowed me to

carefully look at my essay and make changes to make it a strong, coherent paper.

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Claim: Plastic waste endangers green sea turtles in the North Pacific Ocean Green sea turtles accidentally consume floating plastic debris in the North Pacific Ocean,

negatively affecting their overall health. The North Pacific Ocean contains the Great Pacific

Garbage Patch, which refers to collections of marine debris such as tiny non-biodegradable

floating plastics (“Great Pacific,” 2014). Since plastic does not biodegrade, the sun decomposes

plastic into tiny pieces called microplastics, which the green sea turtles then directly consume

(“Plastinography,” n.d.). Researchers have discovered ninety percent of green sea turtles have

ingested plastic (“Plastic Ocean,” n.d.). Often, plastic debris is attached to or mixed with their

usual diet such as seagrass and algae. For example, a study showed young green sea turtles

frequently consume plastics attached to microalgae (Nelms et al., 2015). Additionally, green sea

turtles mistaken plastic waste, like shopping bags and balloons, as food. For instance, adult green

turtles usually mis-identify soft plastics as food because they resemble the structure and behavior

of seagrasses and algae (Nelms et al., 2015). Unlike the herbivorous, adult green sea turtles,

juvenile green sea turtles eat jellyfishes. Juvenile green sea turtles also mis-identify plastic

shopping bags for jellyfish (“Ocean Plastic,” n.d.). Both adult and juvenile green sea turtles

suffer serious consequences from accidental ingestion, such as malnutrition, increased buoyancy,

and death (Nelms et al., 2015). Turtles cannot regurgitate plastic they have swallowed due to

downward facing spines in their throats. As a result, ingested plastic waste blocks green sea

turtles’ digestive tracts, leading to malnutrition and eventual death (“Why plastic,” 2018). Green

sea turtles also experience trapped gas due to the intestinal blockage from plastic. The trapped

gas leads to “bubble butts,” a sea turtle buoyancy disorder, causing sea turtles to float up and

become susceptible to starvation, predators, and human encroachment (“Why Plastic,” 2018).

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Human encroachment can occur when fishermen abandon their plastic fishing nets,

known as “ghost nets” into the ocean, exposing green sea turtles to possible entanglements.

Ghost nets have the tendency to move around and drift with the ocean currents, enabling them to

capture and injure marine animals like green sea turtles (McLendon, 2016). Since ghost nets

consist of “synthetic, non-biodegradable fibers,” they remain in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

for a long period of time (Nelms et al., 2015). Additionally, “boaters, offshore oil rigs, and large

cargo ships” discard 750,000 tons of fishing nets into the North Pacific Ocean, increasing the

potential to injure or even kill green sea turtles (McLendon, 2016). As a result, green sea turtles

suffer from lacerations, abrasions, and loss of limbs when trapped in ghost fishing nets. Mobile,

yet injured green sea turtles also struggle hunting for food and avoiding predators as they

experience increased dragging with the nets (Nelms et al., 2015). Moreover, a survey concluded

that 91 percent of entangled turtles living in all major oceans died (“Marine turtles dying,”

2017). Some sea turtles can die from starvation as they fail to escape from the ghost nets, and

some can drown as ghost nets hinder them from going to the surface for air (McLendon, 2016).

Similarly, hatchlings or baby sea turtles can also get entangled in plastic debris that surrounds

their nesting area.

Plastic waste surrounding nesting beaches threatens hatchlings as it deteriorates their

nesting areas and impedes them from returning safely to the North Pacific Ocean. Female green

sea turtles return to their birth place to lay 75 to 200 eggs in the sand, leaving the hatchlings to

fend for themselves once the mother leaves (“Green Sea Turtle,” 2010). When baby sea turtles

hatch, they need to return to the sea to avoid predators and dehydration; however, obstacles like

plastic waste prolong or prohibit their journey back to sea, increasing their chances of death

(Duncan, n.d.). Additionally, chemicals in plastic, like bisphenol A or BPA, change nesting

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beaches’ sediment permeability and temperature. For instance, a study revealed that adding

plastic to sand/sediment samples increased permeability, which explains why microplastics have

been discovered two meters beneath nesting areas (Nelms et al., 2015). The study also showed

that when female green sea turtles bury their eggs underneath plastic debris, sand temperature

decreased by 16 percent (Nelms et al., 2015). These complications affect hatchling sex ratios

because hatchling sex ratios depend on nesting areas’ temperature. Since cold temperatures

create more male hatchlings than female hatchlings, it offsets green sea turtles’ male to female

sex ratios by producing more male turtles. Without enough female green sea turtles to reproduce,

the green sea turtle population will slowly decline. Overall, North Pacific Ocean’s plastic

pollution poses a problem to green sea turtles as they ingest plastic debris, entangle in ghost nets,

and experience habitat destruction. Due to plastic pollution, green sea turtles suffer from various

external and internal injuries, which can lead to their death.

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Annotated Bibliography (APA format)

Duncan, E. (n.d.). Turtles and Plastic: The Case for More Action. Retrieved February 25, 2018, from http://seaturtlestatus.org/sites/swot/files/SWOT11_p06- 07_Turtles%20and%20Plastic.pdf

The article’s title is called “Turtles and Plastic: The Case for More Action” by Emily Duncan. This website is a pdf version of an article from the “SeaTurtleStatus.org” website. The article starts off by introducing and giving statistics to emphasize how much plastic production has increased throughout the years. It states that about four million to twelve million metric tons of plastic enter the ocean every year. The article then describes the three ways of how plastic pollution negatively affects sea turtles. The three ways are ingestion, entanglement, and habitat degradation. Under each section, the article explains how each of three ways relates to plastic pollution and harms sea turtles. Finally, the article ends with five steps we need to take in order to reduce plastic pollution. Some of these actions include recycling, supporting bans, and staying informed. This article gave me a foundation of what my evidence should consist of. It made sense to me to include these three ways as my evidence because they all support my claim. Therefore, I organized my evidence into the same three sections. This article also had significant details, which I used to support my claim. Moreover, this article was one of the only sources that explained how plastic destroys the habitats of hatchlings and female sea turtles.

Great Pacific Garbage Patch. (2014, September 09). Retrieved February 25, 2018, from https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/

The article title is called “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch” from the National Geographic website. The article begins by explicitly defining what the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is. It then gives information on the location and how it is created. In the article, it provides more scientific details on the creation of the garbage patch by including scientific terms like convergence zones and ocean gyres. I decided not to include this type of information in my essay because of who my audience is. I did use the information about how non-biodegradable plastic turns into microplastics since it is a critical point that supports my claim. If plastic biodegraded, the problem of plastic pollution would significantly reduce. But, this article effectively explains why non-biodegradable plastic poses a problem for marine animals. It also provides interesting statistics on how much marine debris the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has, which I used in my essay. Similarly to the previous source, the reading has a section called “Patching up the Patch,” describing the efforts people and organization are taking to reduce the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Overall, this website was helpful for my paper as it helped me define what the garbage patch was using non-scientific jargon.

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Green Sea Turtle. (2010, April 11). Retrieved February 25, 2018, from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/reptiles/g/green-sea-turtle/

This article is called “Green Sea Turtle” from the National Geographic website. It provides basic information about green sea turtles. At the beginning, the article lists out its common name, scientific name, size, height, type of animal, and diet. From this website, I found out that the green sea turtles are endangered, making it more important to save them from plastic pollution. The reading is divided into sections which include populations, size, diet and behavior, and breeding and conservation. By reading the article to figure out green sea turtles’ diet, I learned that baby turtles start out as omnivores but transition into herbivores. I also learned more about the breeding habits of female turtles. I incorporated information from the diet and behavior section as well as the breeding section to support my first and third evidence (ingestion and habitat destruction). This website served as a valuable resource for me because I needed to know the most basic information about green sea turtles and their lives. This website had all of the necessary topics about green sea turtles, which allowed me to connect this background information into my evidence to make my argument stronger.

Marine turtles dying after becoming entangled in plastic rubbish. (2017, December 11). Retrieved February 25, 2018, from https://phys.org/news/2017-12-marine-turtles-dying- entangled-plastic.html#jCp

The article’s title is “Marine turtles dying after becoming entangled in plastic rubbish,” which was published by University of Exeter. This article has details on how sea turtles, including hatchlings, become entangled in the ocean and on land. It introduces the rise of plastics in the ocean and provides statistics on how many turtles die due to entanglement. After giving statistics on the mortality rate, the article proceeds by listing out all of the plastic things that could trap turtles. The article especially blames “plastic rubbish” such as ghost nests for capturing and inhibiting sea turtles in the ocean. Furthermore, it talks about how hatchlings are even more vulnerable because they tend to be surrounded with land debris at their birth. I was able to connect this piece of information about hatchlings to my evidence about habitat destruction. In general, the reading had a lot of statistics, but I only ended up using the statistic of sea turtles’ mortality rate from entanglement since it served as good evidence for my essay.

McLendon, R. (2016, October 5). What is the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch? Retrieved February 25, 2018, from https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/translating-uncle- sam/stories/what-is-the-great-pacific-ocean-garbage-patch

This article is called “What is the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch?” by Russell McLendon. The reading explains what the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is and how the Garbage Patch forms. It is similar to the previous article I cited on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. But it goes into further detail by explaining the process of photodegradation that plastic goes through. This reading explained an important data point that I included in my article. The article stated that

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750k tons of marine debris is fishing nets, proving that the abundance of these nets entangles and injure green sea turtles. Overall, this data gave me an important insight on entanglement and how ghost fishing nets play a major role in endangering marine animals such as sea turtles. Along with explaining the problem of entanglement, the article focuses on birds such as albatrosses. Similar to sea turtles, albatrosses also feed plastic to their babies because they confuse the plastic as protein-filled eggs. I decided to only focus on green sea turtles instead of other marine animals like albatrosses because I wanted to be as narrow as possible with my claim.

Nelms, S. E., Duncan, E. M., Broderick, A. C., Galloway, T. S., Godfrey, M. H., Hamann, M., . . . Godley, B. J. (2015, October 09). Plastic and marine turtles: a review and call for research . Retrieved February 25, 2018, from https://academic.oup.com/icesjms/article/73/2/165/2614204#46626379

This scholarly journal is called “Plastic and marine turtles: a review and call for research.” Most of my evidence comes from this scholarly journal because it provides significant details and research about the three types of evidence I wanted to focus on. The sections on this scholarly journal are ingestion, entanglement, impacts on nesting beaches, and wider ecosystem impacts. I decided to only focus on the first three sections. Under ingestion and entanglement, the journal gives a comprehensive data table on what type of species have ingested plastic or gotten entangled in plastic. This data table is also divided into regions. After reading the whole research in this journal, I was sure that I wanted to focus on green sea turtles because it provided a lot of data and information on this species. For example, on the data table, I could look up how many percentage of green sea turtles have ingested plastic in the Pacific Ocean. A lot of specific examples and studies that I have on my essay are derived from this journal. One example would be studies that show sea turtles confusing plastic as their food and accidentally ingesting them. For my third evidence (habitat destruction), I took a majority of information from this journal because it was one of the few sources that has rich details on this topic.

Plastic Ocean - The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. (n.d.). Retrieved February 25, 2018, from https://en.reset.org/knowledge/plastic-ocean-great-pacific-garbage-patch

This article is named “Plastic Ocean-The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” This article talks about the Garbage Patch and gives information about the longevity of plastic. However, I did not include this information into my essay since I already have other sources that explains the garbage patch. One important point I derived from this reading was a specific data point about the percentage of green sea turtles who have already ingested plastic. This data point served as an effective segway in my paragraph as I went on to explain why almost all of the green sea turtle population have consumed plastic. Many of the sources I came across also gave data points about how much sea turtles in general consume plastic, but this article provided data on the specific species I was looking for. The article also contains a video about what the Garbage Patch looks like, helping me further understand why sea turtles ingest so much plastic.

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Plastinography. (n.d.). Retrieved February 25, 2018, from http://plastinography.org/lesson2/what-does-plastic-do-in-the-ocean.html

This website is not an article, but it is an interactive website that explains where plastic in the ocean comes from, such as land sources and factory waste. I had questions at the beginning of my writing process about how plastic can end up in ocean. This website helped me understand the different ways that plastic enters the ocean. One can click on different tabs to learn how plastic gets into the ocean, what type of marine debris are in the ocean, and how this debris affects marine animals. The first tab shows three circles. These three circles represent boats, factory waste, and land plastic waste. When I click on one of the circles, it gives more information about how that specific thing contributes to plastic waste. The next tab shows what happens to plastic once it ends up in the ocean. This section mainly talks about the longevity of plastic and simply explains what microplastics are. Overall, this website helped me get a better understanding of how plastic transfers with ocean currents and where plastic ends up in the ocean. But I did end up using the piece about microplastics in my paper.

Ocean Plastic & Sea Turtles . (n.d.). Retrieved February 25, 2018, from http://www.seeturtles.org/ocean-plastic/

This article is called “Ocean Plastic & Sea Turtles.” The reading talks about the sources of plastic by giving statistics on how much plastic comes from landfills and other land sources. This article is heavy with statistics on other topics as well such as how much plastic there is in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Additionally, it lists out specific types of marine debris found in the ocean, many of them are plastic debris. Lastly, it lists out several facts about different topics such as plastic production, ingestion, and plastic pollution. I used the information on plastic ingestion in my essay. The article contains a section called “Did You Know?” where it lists out random facts about plastic pollution. One bullet point that caught my eye was how sea turtles mistake plastics for jellyfish and eat it, blocking their digestive system. Other sources had mentioned the concept of accidental consumption, but this article was one of the first sources that specifically mentioned jellyfish as a food source.

Why Plastic Is a Problem for Sea Turtles and the Ocean. (2018, February 21). Retrieved February 25, 2018, from https://www.seewinter.com/plastic-problem-inside-sea-turtles/

The article’s title is “Why Plastic Is a Problem for Sea Turtles and the Ocean” from the website Clearwater Marine Aquarium. The article discusses how plastics impact sea turtles that are already endangered. It shows a few pictures of sea turtles suffering from plastic such as sea turtles ingesting balloons, helping me get a better idea of the types of injuries sea turtles face. The article also talks about the sea turtle buoyancy disorder. The information on sea turtle buoyancy disorder was a critical detail for my evidence because it strengthens my claim and

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relates to my audience’s background. Furthermore, the article goes on to talk about the land sources that cause plastic pollution in the ocean and what we can do to reduce this problem.