Revised Introduction

In this blog post, I will be redoing my introduction from my first draft in hopes of improvement after my peers edited it.

I believe my new introduction is better than my old one because I got rid of the first couple of sentences that don't grab my readers' attentions or define what my topic is. I think the statistic I have as my hook now is much more effective. I didn't have to change anything else really because the rest was my thesis statement.

Altmann, Gerd. "Road Start Beginning". 1/17/06 via Pixabay. CC0 Public Domain License.

Old Version:

The world is full of controversy and it’s basically our job as members of American society to keep ourselves in the loop. With controversy in the scientific world, it is taken to another level. It’s not for everyone and those who are interested ought to not only appreciate the arguments of both sides regardless of their personal opinion, but also recognize how to analyze those arguments. Hydraulic fracturing or fracking, a process in which water is pumped into the ground to break apart rocks and release natural gas, has been sparking debate for some time. Andrew C. Revkin, the author of New York Times article "More Views on the Gas Rush and Hydraulic Fracking", cleverly used rhetoric to inform and spark the thoughts of his readers on this controversial topic. By presenting different points of view other than his own which included personal stories that support the counterargument, Revkin was effective in building up his credibility removing his own bias-not completely, but when presenting counterarguments-from his article. Based on the context and audience of the controversy, he succeeded in provoking thought and encouraging them to develop their own opinions about hydraulic fracking.

New Version:

How many of us were aware that over the past 10 years, there has been a 5,100% increase in chemical contamination in the soil and water supply in the US? Now...how many of us were aware that the bulk of this increase in contamination came from a process in which water is pumped into the ground to break apart rocks and release natural gas, or hydraulic fracturing? The controversy regarding this process has been going on for decades becuase of those shocking statistics. Andrew C. Revkin, the author of New York Times article "More Views on the Gas Rush and Hydraulic Fracking", cleverly used rhetoric to inform and spark the thoughts of his readers on this controversial topic. By presenting different points of view other than his own which included personal stories that support the counterargument, Revkin was effective in building up his credibility removing his own bias-not completely, but when presenting counterarguments-from his article. Based on the context and audience of the controversy, he succeeded in provoking thought and encouraging them to develop their own opinions about hydraulic fracking.