Analyzing Introductions

Analyzing Introductions:

Answer the following questions for the introductions below.

1. What technique does the writer use to get the reader’s attention in the beginning of the paragraph?

2. How well do you think the technique works? Would you continue reading the article?

3. How would you describe the tone – the writer’s attitude to the topic? What words and details reveal the tone?

4. Does the introduction use the funnel concept?[pic 1]

A) Entomorphagy, or bug eating, writes David George Gordon in The Eat a Bug Cookbook, is good for the planet. It takes only a quarter as much feed to raise a pound of cockroach meat as it does to raise a pound of beef. “And consider this: Many of our common garden pests are edible. If everyone served critters such as vine weevils and tomato hornworms at the dinner table, we’d have little need for over-the-counter pesticide[s].”

Kim Hubbard, Review of The Eat a Bug Cookbook

[pic 2]

B) Since the space age began four decades ago, rockets have lifted more than 20,000 metric tons of material into orbit. Today 4,500 tons remain in the form of nearly 10,000 “resident space objects,” only five percent of which are functioning space craft. These objects are just the large ones that military radars and telescopes can track. Of increasing interest to spacecraft operators are the millions of smaller, untrackable scraps scattered into orbit through-out near-Earth space, from only a few hundred kilometers to more than 40,000 kilometers above the surface of the planet.

Nicholas L. Johnson, “Monitoring and Controlling Debris in Space,” Scientific American

Vine Weevil                                        Tomato Hornworm

[pic 3]                                [pic 4]

Answers:

A)

1. The writer begins with a startling opinion.

2. The shocking opening works well to keep the reader interested.

3.  The tone is humorous and practical, the writer sets the tone by suggesting that bugs are more efficient to raise than cattle and that we could cut down on pesticide use by eating bugs.

4. It follows the funnel pattern by moving from general information to more specific.

B)

1. The writer begins with background information on the topic.

2. It works well because it leads to the problem of untracked space debris which is an interesting and surprising topic.

3. The tone is serious; the writer uses facts to emphasize the danger for spacecraft operators.

4. Yes the funnel pattern.

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