Matthew Walsh
Carpenter, Katie Grace. “A New Way to Make Plastics Could Keep Them from Littering the Seas.” Science News for Students, 4 Jan. 2022, https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/new-way-plastics-keep-them-from-littering-the-seas.
Summary
The article talks about how scientists are trying to develop a new type of plastic that could help the ocean become less littered. It explains how the time of seawater breaking the plastic could go from decades to weeks, if their plan goes accordingly. It then gives background info, such as the fact that 90% of the oceans trash is plastic and this could at least slow the problem down. To go along with that, the article uses the opinions of people with PhDs to make the info more believable. Also, the author adds more statistics and facts to back this up.
Why this matters
The littered oceans are one of many problems in society. So much garbage and plastic kind of bonds together in the ocean allowing much of them to be in poor conditions. This matters very much because the ocean is a foundation for humanity and other life to thrive on. If the oceans become too littered, who knows how this will negatively affect us. The article does a great job putting this into perspective, noting “ As it is, most plastics appear to take centuries to fully degrade in the ocean.” This is important because the author isolates the threat and the problem at the start so people know the issue.
Critique
The article has flaws but overwhelming strengths. For example, it gives fantastic background info, highlights the problem at hand while keeping the reader interested. Additionally, the article uses a student with a PhD and more credible sources to validate it. With these great additions there are some flaws as mentioned earlier. For example, the article is really long and was a pain to read. Much of the info is recycled and it feels like the author was rambling. Also, the article didn’t add much context or make these very advanced scientific stats simpler for the non genius. I would suggest condensing the article and also making everything make more sense to the naked eye.
Isabel Haller
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
Core Chemistry 9
January 20th, 2020
Matthew Walsh’s review of the article “A New Way to Make Plastics Could Keep Them from Littering the Seas” by Katie Grace Carpenter was very informative and engaging. Its easily comprehensible nature makes the writing ideal for readers who are unfamiliar with the topic. Another accomplishment of Walsh’s is that he adds in some direct quotations from the article, boosting his credibility and putting his thoughts into the context of Carpenter’s original piece of writing. Lastly, his critique was very honest and insightful, adding exactly what he would change about the article and why, an important writing skill to have acquired.
While Walsh’s review is exceptional, it’s inevitable that there are some improvements that he could make in his writing. Firstly, he writes in a very casual tone throughout the entire piece, using phrases such as “non genius” and “a pain to read”. In the future, I would suggest to this author that he could replace some of these terms with more sophisticated synonyms, such as “uninformed” or “difficult to comprehend”. Also, Walsh could definitely have elaborated a little bit more on his beginning paragraph summarizing the original article. The two sentences used to explain an entire 21 paragraph scientific article aren’t sufficient for readers to get a good understanding of the topic.
In conclusion, Matthew’s review of the article “A New Way to Make Plastics Could Keep Them from Littering the Seas” by Katie Grace Carpenter was well-written overall, if a bit informal. Both pieces of writing gave me a better understanding of the challenges that our oceans are facing because of pollution and plastic being thrown into them. I didn’t realize that there was an alternative to the way that we manufacture plastic currently that could be better for our environment. By spreading the word about these environmentally conscious efforts, we can help make sure that our oceans are healthy for years to come.
Citations:
Deletehttps://bhscorechem.blogspot.com/2022/01/a-new-way-to-make-plastics-could-keep.html#comment-form
https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/new-way-plastics-keep-them-from-littering-the-seas.