 |
| 'gfpeck.' "Extra, Extra!" 7/30/2010 via flickr Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic License. |
1. Connect the issue to your audience's world view:
This should be easy, because I'm trying to target people who currently think that the Earth is in too bad of a shape to fund space exploration. I can start off by acknowledging that point, and saying, "yes, it absolutely is, and people need to do stuff about it." But also, I can list off some of the ways space exploration has helped people in the past.
Body:
1. List out the major supporting arguments:
NASA's allowance is under one and a half a percent of the national budget (most people probably think it is a lot more).
There are other government programs, despite the amount of money they receive, that most would argue are more wasteful than NASA (so going after NASA is a bad place to start).
The nature of how the money is spent (off earth, whereas there are problems on earth), while rhetorically appealing (it sounds cool to say "why spend money in space when there are problems on Earth?"), doesn't matter.
2. List down major criticisms:
I honestly can't think of any beyond the emotional appeal of "it doesn't help those in dire need of help."
I guess someone could say that they really don't have any interest in anything beyond Earth, which is a valid opinion.
17 billion dollars a year is a lot of money.
3. Select your key support and rebuttal points.
I'll include all of them. They are all pretty important, and the rebuttal points I have there are all I could think of.
4. Write out a tentative topic sentence for each point:
+
NASA's annual budget is far lower than most people think.
NASA is not the program to cut.
We need to keep in mind what really matters when it comes to spending.
-
Absolutely, there are people in need of help, and money can go a lot of the way in helping.
It's possible that some think space exploration is a waste of time for no other reason than that it doesn't interest them.
NASA costs a lot of money to run.
5. Gather evidence:
Global crises:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-global-crisis-food-water-and-fuel-three-fundamental-necessities-of-life-in-jeopardy/9191
National budget:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2015/assets/budget.pdf
6. Map
 |
| This is the coggle map I made to guide my writing of project 3 |
4. Common ground:
Definitely common ground, because I absolutely agree that people need to do something about the rampant poverty, hunger, war, etc. that humans face. It's only that I don't think that cutting space exploration is the way to get the money for that.
Scott, I think the first claim you had was the most effective out of the three. I would maybe take another look at the others to see if I could find a more concise way to address them. For instance, stating that the amount of money spent on the program could potentially be spent to help battle the sufferings of mankind ("poverty, hunger, war, etc.") but you don't think NASA's budget should be used to help, weakens your argument because there's no explanation as to why you believe this and why your audience should believe it either. I would probably focus more on emphasizing the importance and relevance of the NASA program.
ReplyDelete