D#9, HW#5, Ch.8

1. Addressing your audience's wants and needs:

1. For my research paper my audience is parents. Specifically parents with teenagers; but parents in general. I will also be writing for the teacher and my fellow classmates.
2. My main audience (the parents) values the health and safety of their children. They also value the education that their children are receiving. Also it is good to keep in mind that parents think abstinence for their children is important. Not many parents are thrilled about their teenagers having sex.
3. In terms of evidence my audience will be expecting statistics that prove abstinence-only education programs are not doing what they should be. Also information that proves these types of programs are causing more harm than good. I think the only evidence I am required to provide is reliable evidence. It does no good to make up statistics etc. I have found very good evidence that will (or should) convince my audience.
4. There are various opinions that my audience has on the issue. I believe a common belief to be that they do not want their children having sex, but at the same time most people want their children to be educated and taught how to protect themselves and be safe. I so have well formed opinions on my topic. I believe that the majority of my audience do agree with me, and there are some I'm sure adamantly disagree.

2. Developing Evaluation Criteria:

1. My target audience is parents. Specifically parents of teenagers, but parents in general would benefit from my research paper. My audience is also the professor and my classmates seeing as they will be reading my paper for evaluations etc. They want to and need to know how effective abstinence-only sex education programs are and how they cause harm to teens.
2. The purpose of this research paper is to encourage parents to start fighting for more comprehensive sex education programs. The purpose is to open peoples' eyes so they see that abstinence-only programs are not working; they are in fact causing more harm than good. I must convey why abstinence-only programs are bad in an unbiased educated way with reliable statistics and research.
3. This research project is do-able in the amount of time allotted. It could be a lot more thorough and lengthy if I had more time. Most of the information I will be using is contemporary because my issue is very contemporary and effecting people today.
4. By reading about my general topic it helped me narrow and refine my research question. Information about how abstinence-only programs teach false information, do not lower pregnancy rates, and increase STD spread among teenagers is the kind of information I will need to deliver.
5. The main issues listed above are what need to be covered. How much money is being wasted on abstinence-only sex education programs (that do not work) may be another issue I can put into my paper. I can also include how comprehensive-sex education programs that are being used in other countries are lowering their pregnancy rates etc.
6. There are a lot of interesting aspects of this topic that I can not put into the paper because it does not fit the scope. Many include religious efforts to push abstinence.

3. Clustering

• I hand drew a cluster for my topic. It was easier for me than attempting to try and learn how to use another new technology at this point. It was very useful in identifying my main arguments and the evidence I have to support them. I may try and put my hand-written cluster on the computer later this week when I have more free time to tinker and play around with it.

4. Finding Additional Resources:

• Well the two areas that my audience may disagree with are...

1. The fact that the teenage pregnancy rate has gone down over the years. but not because of abstinence-only education programs. They may have a hard time disagreeing with abstinence-only education if they see that pregnancy rates have gone down. However I found research done to say that pregnancy rates have NOT gone down due to abstinence-only programs.

2. My personal account of an abstinence-only sex education class. They may believed I am being biased because I am against them. But in actuality I will give a very unbiased account. I also found research that was conducted that supports my claims I will make when I describe what the class was like.