Can anyone give feedback on english oral draft?

[Parthyyy]

English Draft
Introduction
A dolphin in the Great Pacific Patch, is grasping for breath, the dolphin cannot jump out of the water being blocked by the heavy plastic, and she pushes and pushes accidentally ingesting more micro plastics but fails to jump over. The dolphin tries again but this time succeeding but consuming even more plastic. Will we just sit on our sofas and watch these animals struggle? Will we only care about our yourselves and not innocent animals? We can spend money on branded clothes but not donate a penny to these animals?

Good Morning, fellow Students today I will be presenting arguments about our wasteful society and its excessive use of using plastic, the detrimental dangers to our society of microplastics, and innovations or researches occurring to find an effective solution.

The rise in today’s plastic excessive consumption and lack of effective and modern solutions has led to unfortunate impacts. An example of such plastic is, Microplastics. To describe microplastics in one adjective. I’d say “rampant.” Micro plastics are small pieces of plastic formed either by biodegradation of large plastics or micro plastics produced by manufacturers for their products. Micro plastics are less than five millimetres and unfortunately find their way to our oceans.

Argument 1

A wasteful society is a society which over-consumes on goods and services for a short-term satisfaction, and those products are replaced with new ones increasing landfill and wasted resources. This applies to Australia where we replace clothes on a weekly basis, shoes semi-yearly, and phones yearly. For what? For some short-term satisfaction, how absurd! The clothes you purchase and wash in the washing machine, there is a release of plastic microfibers who travel to a nearby wastewater treatment plant, and are disposed to nearby lakes, rivers, and oceans harming marine-life. Still don’t care about Microplastics? Well, cosmetics such as face wash and shampoo, also contain microbeads that are then dispersed back into the rivers and oceans. Now imagine that, in this world where so many people use such cosmetics and shampoo everyday... every minute… every second. Now you care, since it personally affects us? This is our mentality today and it’s doing serious damages. There is too much harm being done to our earth because of our lifestyle. Our lifestyle, especially in developed countries is unhealthy, and it's not too late we can change by simply using natural alternatives, we deserve to change, we must change. Lastly, a common example we all see today is our never-ending thirst for plastic water bottles and we all assume that they are recycled after use. That is completely wrong, as one million plastic bottles are bought every minute around the globe, and according to the guardian “the annual sales of plastic bottles will shockingly reach one trillion.”  These bottles end up in the ocean and biodegrade into microplastics where they are then accidentally consumed by marine life. The damage we are doing because of our lifestyle is huge, don’t undermine it and change.

Argument 2
People think dangers to our society, as murders, robberies or other mythical fantasies. However, why can’t we see live issues occurring that our damaging our society? Why are we so orientated on unnecessary issues? Why is there not enough of being done to prevent plastics? Plastic is huge epidemic to our society today and is causing more harm than good. An example of this is The Pacific Garbage Patch is the biggest accumulation of plastics across five different zones in the Pacific Ocean. According to, Theoceancleanup which conducted an aerial analysis of the patch, that Patch covers 1.6 million KM^2 and is covered with more than 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic. Furthermore, it's been estimated that there are 10,000 tonnes of microplastics in the Great Pacific Patch. You still don't see this as a threat to society? Microplastics, are interfering with the food chain, such as filter-feeding animals such as manta rays and whale sharks and become a source of toxins on the bottom of the food chain, so they spread to nearly all marine-life causing damage to their bodies. Microplastics have been found in human faeces, suggesting that they are potentially in the seafood we eat and according to the World Health Organisation, 90% of bottled water contain microplastics as of 2018. How does it feel to know that you’re consuming microplastic on a regular basis? Microplastic is like the universe, endless unless something happens. Thus, there is a lot of damage been done to our society through microplastics and now i will discuss the ways we could stop it.

Argument 3

Hope is not lost; we can mitigate further impacts through our daily actions and new technology.  Private enterprises are playing a key role in modern innovation, for our world today. Companies are attempting to innovate new technologies, in order to find efficient and effective solutions to recycle plastic or convert plastic to something useful. An example is a company called, Renewlogy, which found a way to convert plastic waste to fuel and enables this process to occur by creating no emissions. Lastly, us humans collectively can make a major impact. We can stop using plastic bags and find different alternatives, we can cut down our consumption of synthetic clothing and avoid unnecessary laundries leading to less microfibers, and simply don’t litter. It's alright if we just sit on our chairs and don’t do anything, it's not like we have 12 years to make changes before it all becomes irreversible according to the UN’s report in 2018.

Conclusion

Our excessive consumption of goods and services must be stopped, as it contradicts our beliefs and damages marine life, causing unfortunate deaths. Secondly, the detrimental dangers to our society are not looked upon such as Microplastics and are not considered significant, this should change as it harms us humans and marine-life. Lastly, we might not be able to fully reverse the damage, but we can still change through our actions and new technologies. Our earth needs us more than ever, we have to take care of our home, and we must do this as a whole.

Statement of Intention:

Plastic is being debated widely and at a large scale nowadays, especially in Australia after the ban of free-plastic bags in the supermarkets creating multiple views within people. This led to me to explore another issue that is not highly broadcasted or discussed about, Microplastics. I chose to convey the oral speech in a persuasive essay format to persuade people to agree with my views of the “detrimental dangers to our society of microplastics.”

I have written from the first-person perspective in order to express my arguments and thoughts freely. My speech heavily uses the techniques of inclusive language, repetition, rhetorical questions, emotive language, sarcasm and more. I chose to use these particular tools as i aim to establish a common ground between me and my audience and position the audience to agree with my arguments. Furthermore, using these techniques appeals to the fair-side of my audience increasing its relevance and reinforces the impacts of microplastics on society. My speech starts off with an aggressive tone to engage my audience and emphasise my contention, then moving to an optimistic tone towards the end to establish that a solution for microplastics is possible.

My target audience are my classmates and teachers, as they are a part of society, and being humans have a positive and negative role with the use and future solutions of microplastics.

The purpose of this speech is to convey and convince my audience, regarding the “impacts through our daily actions,” of microplastics by being a wasteful society, undermining the danger of microplastics and innovations and preventive strategies we can practise to reduce microplastic waste in our oceans, food, and water. Microplastics, have had a huge impact on our world today and have affected marine-life and humans due to their frequent indigestion ranging from marine-life accidently consuming it or humans from seafood and bottled water. 

Plastic is known to be one of the most controversial issues in our society and is highly focused on in a global scale. However, recently the media has covered the, “detrimental dangers to our society of microplastics,” and its causes. The recent scientific breakthrough in microplastics and their adverse effects has factored the media coverage and my contention.

If you read to the end, thank you so much, i appericate it so much. Thanks

[Bri MT]

Hey,

First of all, as someone studying conservation biology (& who is very environmentally focused) it's great to see that you care about plastic and microplastic pollution.

One thing I would say is that your contention is unclear.  Yes,  we are all part of the problem,  but the closest proposed solution seems to be asking for donations in the intro? It would be great if there was a clear call to action (eg. Check whether products contain microplastic before buying and/or support businesses who use alternatives to plastic).

Secondly,  in your opening you refer to a dolphin gasping for breath and swallowing plastic in the process. This may confuse some given that dolphins have blowholes. I'd suggest using a different animal as your example (eg albatross eating plastic and feeding it to its chicks, small fish eat it -> bigger fish eat them -> humans eat the bigger fish, turtle -> choking on macroplastics & brain damage from microplastics etc.) to avoid this ambiguity.

Sometimes you come across as angry with the audience, when instead if you're going to be angry it should be at the problem.  Otherwise you risk alienating the audience and pushing them further away.

I suggest reviewing the last sentence of each of your paragraphs for fluency with the rest of your speech. Overall, the "flow" of the speech could use some work. 

Note: it's great that you mention human consumption of microplastics - leave that in

Good luck & keep fighting the good fight!

[Parthyyy]

Hey,

First of all, as someone studying conservation biology (& who is very environmentally focused) it's great to see that you care about plastic and microplastic pollution.

One thing I would say is that your contention is unclear.  Yes,  we are all part of the problem,  but the closest proposed solution seems to be asking for donations in the intro? It would be great if there was a clear call to action (eg. Check whether products contain microplastic before buying and/or support businesses who use alternatives to plastic).

Secondly,  in your opening you refer to a dolphin gasping for breath and swallowing plastic in the process. This may confuse some given that dolphins have blowholes. I'd suggest using a different animal as your example (eg albatross eating plastic and feeding it to its chicks, small fish eat it -> bigger fish eat them -> humans eat the bigger fish, turtle -> choking on macroplastics & brain damage from microplastics etc.) to avoid this ambiguity.

Sometimes you come across as angry with the audience, when instead if you're going to be angry it should be at the problem.  Otherwise you risk alienating the audience and pushing them further away.

I suggest reviewing the last sentence of each of your paragraphs for fluency with the rest of your speech. Overall, the "flow" of the speech could use some work. 

Note: it's great that you mention human consumption of microplastics - leave that in

Good luck & keep fighting the good fight!

Thank you so much for a detailed reply and I appreciate you doing that.
I am trying to establish an agressive tone at the start and end with an optimistic one.
I guess I need to improve my flow, and I’ll work in improving my contention. Thanks

[Bri MT]

Thank you so much for a detailed reply and I appreciate you doing that.
I am trying to establish an agressive tone at the start and end with an optimistic one.
I guess I need to improve my flow, and I’ll work in improving my contention. Thanks

No worries!
re: tone    yeah starting with anger makes sense  (and it's great that you've explained this in your statement of intention). My perspective comes somewhat from leadership training and science communication training I've had which would suggest that saying 'you're the problem' often leads to people shutting down and becoming defensive (even - or maybe especially - when true). On the other hand it's important for people to know that their actions are a problem & they should do what they can to fix it; it's a hard balance to strike and you certainly don't have to draw the lines in the same places I do (afterall it's your speech and you should believe what you're saying). If it was me, I'd redirect more of the anger to the people's actions rather than themselves. It may seem an arbitrary difference but it can have a significant impact on how people respond.

re: flow   I could be reading into your reply wrong, but if you're unsure how to improve it here's what I'd look at:
- your arguments/paragraphs are very separate whereas ideally they'd lend into each other a bit more
- check what the main point of each argument is and whether the first and last sentence are strongly linked to that. (Eg. the first paragraph seems to mainly focus on the scope of the problem but the last sentence refers to damage, when you haven't shown that microplastics are damaging (just that there's lots))

eg making some adjustments to para 1

A wasteful society is a society which over-consumes on goods and services for a short-term satisfaction, and those products are replaced with new ones increasing landfill and wasted resources. This applies to Australia where wemany of us [I certainly don't and others who don't may 'tune out' if they think this means they aren't part of the problem] replace clothes on a weekly basis, shoes semi-yearly, and phones yearly. For what? For some short-term satisfaction, how absurd! The clothes you we [more inclusive, suggests you don't think you're better than them (reducing defensiveness)] purchase and wash in the washing machine, there is a release of plastic microfibers who travel to a nearby wastewater treatment plant, and are disposed to nearby lakes, rivers, and oceans harming marine-life. Still don’t care about Microplastics? Well, cosmetics such as face wash and shampoo, also contain microbeads that are then dispersed back into the rivers and oceans. Now imagine that, in this world where so many people use such cosmetics and shampoo everyday... every minute… every second. Now youwill people [less personal, not targeted] care, since it personally affects us? [flow: you haven't yet demonstrated that it personally affects us, only that it's a big issue we contribute to] This is our mentality today and it’s doing serious damages. There is too much harm being done to our earth because of our lifestyle. Our lifestyle, especially in developed countries is unhealthy, and it's not too late we can change by simply using natural alternatives, we deserve to change, we must change. Lastly, a common example we all see today is our never-ending thirst for plastic water bottles and we all assume that they are recycled after use. That is completely wrong, as one million plastic bottles are bought every minute around the globe, and according to the guardian “the annual sales of plastic bottles will shockingly reach one trillion.”  These bottles end up in the ocean and biodegrade into microplastics where they are then accidentally consumed by marine life. The damage we are doing because of our lifestyle is huge, don’t undermine it and change
Since you've already introduced the concept of change, it would be better to frame this as 'opportunity to make an impact' rather than more evidence for unsustainable lifestyle [to improve flow]. (eg: "A major example of where we could make change is by reducing ..."). Alternatively you could shift the optimism/change introduction to later in the speech. Also:  "don’t undermine it and change" is unclear - don't undermine the damage? 

In the end, if you disagree with what I've said at all you're better off speaking a speech you believe in since if you don't have conviction it'll be hard to make others believe & care - just thought I'd clarify some of my suggestions