Paragraph Structure: The Hidden Costs of Cheap Meat 廉價肉類的隱藏代價（作文結構）

The Hidden Costs of Cheap Meat

{1} Meat produced by factory farming seems much cheaper than meat from traditional farms, but in the long run, are we really saving so much money? Let’s look at the hidden costs. {2-5} Factory farm animals are very crowded: artificial hormones make them grow faster and antibiotics are used to keep them healthy. Tons of farm waste pollute the water and the air, thereby sickening farm workers and people living nearby. What’s more, the water from these farms makes germs very strong, so many antibiotics have already stopped working. Incurable diseases are a heavy price to pay for cheap meat. {6-8} To further increase their profits, some farm companies feed parts of dead animals to the live ones. Sooner or later, crowding causes health problems. These bad conditions can lead to strange new kinds of sickness such as mad cow disease, H5N1 and other kinds of bird flu. {9-10} Nowadays, meat is certainly less expensive than it was 100 years ago, but  is a high price to pay. Viewed in this light, was meat from traditional farms really so expensive?

Some longer words above can be cut up into short, easy-to-understand parts:

antibiotic	ANTI	BIO	TIC	抗生素
	against	life	[NOUN]
artificial	ART	FIC	IAL	人工
	skill	make	[ADJ]
incurable	IN	CURE	ABLE	不可醫治
	not	make sickness OK	CAN
sicken	SICK	EN		使生病
	sick	make	~ darken, thicken …

Florida Chicken House (Public Domain Image)

Notice how this short persuasive composition begins and ends with questions to make the reader think. Sentence 1, the topic sentence, introduces the idea that "cheap" meat is not really cheap. Sentences 2-8 provide examples of hidden health costs, and the composition finishes by concluding that poor health makes "cheap" meat seem expensive. Perhaps the old ways were better.

Look below to see other ways that the writer makes different parts of this composition fit together:

Paragraph Structure (Old MacDonald VS Factory Farms)

Write a short paragraph to explain which is better: Traditional farms or Factory farms? This short video (a review of the ideas in The Meatrix) can give you some ideas:


The Old MacDonalds and the Factory Farm from WSPA Canada on Vimeo.

Paragraphs in English usually have three parts:

(1) A topic sentence. This explains what you want to talk about.

(2) Supporting sentences. These sentences give examples or proof. Try to make sure the sentences fit together and help each other.

(3) A closing sentence. This sentence repeats the ideas of the topic sentence, but uses different words.

Here is an example of a paragraph about Canada (adapted from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Formal_Paragraph_Writing, CC--BY-SA Wikibooks):

There are three reasons why Canada is a great country. First of all, Canada has an excellent health care system. Every Canadian can receive quality medical care for a low price. Secondly, Canada is a good place to earn a living. Jobs are easy to find, and people are paid well for their work. Finally, Canada has an excellent system of education. Students are encouraged to learn and continue studying at university. As a result, Canada is a highly desirable place to live.

A paragraph explaining why Canada is a great country (CC--BY-SA Wikibooks)

Notice how the writer uses a number ("three") and three adverbs/adverbial phrases ("first of all, secondly, finally") to link the topic sentence with each of the supporting sentences. The closing sentence uses the phrase "as a result" to link all three supporting sentences with the topic sentence:

Remember to take notes when you watch The Meatrix and the Old MacDonalds video you see above. At least six problems are mentioned:

#	Problem	Description
1	Animal cruelty	The farm companies don’t treat the animals kindly
2	Antibiotic resistant germs	The water from these farms makes germs too strong, so some medicines don't work anymore
3	massive pollution	The air and water from these farms makes the neighbors sick
4	destroyed communities	Rich companies buy off lawmakers and put small farmers out of business
5	Artificial hormones	These man-made hormones stay in the meat and make people sick
6	Mad cow disease	To increase their profits, some farm companies feed dead animals to live animals. This could also make people sick.

Procedure:
Write all three sections BY HAND (don't use a computer). Make at least three drafts of your composition on 26-hole looseleaf notebook paper (standard B5 paper). Number each draft #1, #2 and #3.

(1) The first time, don't worry about vocabulary, grammar or spelling. Write as fast as you can, and don't stop to check a dictionary. When you finish, you will see probably see a mess: draft #1. Don't worry! Even professional writers work like this.

(2) Clean up the mistakes and missing words in your first draft. You now have your draft #2. Show it to a classmate or a friend. Ask that person to comment on the ideas and the organization. Is the main idea of the composition clear? Do the different parts (topic sentence, support, closing) seem to help each other?

(3) Use your friend's suggestions to make a cleaned-up version. This is your draft #3. Keep all three drafts to show your teacher.

(4) Use the PC (http://www.gingersoftware.com/grammarcheck) or Android version of Ginger (http://www.gingersoftware.com/android-keyboard-page) to check your grammar and spelling. Upload the final cleaned-up version section by section to the Composition web form: http://tinyurl.com/CUTe-Composition

Better Farming Methods
Young people can make a difference. Growing food using sustainable methods is personally rewarding and very important for society. Something to think about!

Cheap Meat, Cheat Meat (The Meatrix) 便宜沒好『肉』（駭肉任務）

The Matrix is a famous science fiction movie (Wikipedia: English & Chinese). Near the beginning of the movie, Neo meets Morpheus. Morpheus tells him that nothing he sees is real. He offers to show Leo the Matrix:

The Red Pill, Blue Pill scene has been adapted to make a flash video called The Meatrix. This video shows consumers the reality about the cheap meat that they eat.

The Meatrix characters (from left to right): Leo, Moofeus, Chickity and Smith

In The Meatrix I, Leo meets Moofeus (Cows go "moo,", so "Morpheus" = "Moofeus"). When Leo takes the red pill, he sees where meat, milk and eggs really come from:

A few years later, The Meatrix II came out:

Twelve years after the original Meatrix film, the Matrix Relaunched came out. Click on [CC] to watch this short video with English captions (no Chinese is available yet):

Unfortunately, the people who translated the Chinese subtitles for the Meatrix II (http://www.vegtomato.org/issue25/traditional/veg_special_report25.htm) made some mistakes. Here is a corrected version, with mistakes and key words marked in red:

Simple English Composition

If you want to write well, you don't need to use many difficult words, but you do need to make  your sentences seem to belong together. One way to do this is by using related words to talk about a topic.

The composition below uses three groups of words:

(1) Words to Refer to a City Beijing, this city, the capital, there

(2) Words to Refer to Breathinga problem breathing, coughing, lungs, air pollution

(3) Words to Refer to Doctors and Medicinelung specialist, doctor, prescription, medicine, pharmacy, get well


Many people want to live in Beijing, but this city has a very serious problem with air pollution. Mr Wang had been living in the capital for ten years. Like many people there, he had a problem breathing.

Last year, Mr Wang was coughing so hard that he decided to get some help. He visited a famous lung specialist who told Mr Wang that his lungs were not working well. The doctor then wrote Mr Wang a prescription for some medicine. "This medicine will definitely help you," he said.

Mr Wang went to a nearby pharmacy. "Can you fill this prescription for me?" he asked. "No problem. This medicine is very popular. I hope you get well soon," said the pharmacist.

Mr Wang took the medicine home. The air was just as polluted as before, but Mr Wang trusted his doctor, so he was full of hope. Mr Wang took all of the medicine, but he still didn't get well. Finally, he decided to move to a small town in a remote area, with fresh air and clean water.

How do you say 食人族 in English? (syntax tree)

[Updated 25 April, 2017]
English vocabulary is often a problem for foreign students. Many college students worry if they can't say or write a word in English. They sometimes ask their teacher questions such as "How do you say 食人族 [ShyrRenTzwu (GR) ShiRenZu (Pinyin)] in English?"

Please stop worrying about such problems. Many years ago, you learned lots of useful words in junior high school. Now you can use these old words in new ways! Also remember that in English we like to put together pairs of nouns to make compound nouns, such as "English teacher" (somebody who teaches English) and "truck driver" (somebody who drives a truck). Now you can answer the 食人族 question by yourself:

How do you say 食? Eat.
How do you say 人? People.
So how do you say 食人族? People eater!

Yes, there is also a special word that means "people eater," but foreigners don't care if you use exactly the right word. If they know what you mean, that's usually enough, so STOP worrying about vocabulary! Try to make new words from old words.

Actually, there is a funny song that uses the compound noun "people eater." This is one of my favorite silly songs: The One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People Eater. Enjoy:

The singer says he is afraid of the purple people eater, but on line 11 the monster explains that he doesn't really eat all kinds of people, only purple people. In other words, the singer thinks that this monster is purple and it eats people 吃人肉的紫色怪物!("Uh, oh! Please don't eat me, Mr Monster!")

A people eater who is purple: [NP [ADJP [ADJ purple]] [NP [N people] [N eater]]]

The monster explains that he only eats purple people, so the singer is safe ("I only eat purple people, and you are white, so I don't want to eat you!") 放心！我不吃白色人種，我只吃紫色人種啊！

A monster that eats purple people: [NP [NP [ADJ purple] [N people]] [NP [N eater] ]]

[NP = Noun Phrase, a group of words with a noun as its most important word;

ADJP = Adjective Phrase, a group of words with an adjective as its most important word]

Some of the lyrics are explained below:

Kinetic Typography: Language (Stephen Fry Comments) (Syntax Tree)

"Kinetic typography uses groups of words and short phrases to make a movie"

This sentence is a little bit long, but we can break it into smaller chunks. Each piece is much easier to understand.

[Syntax Tree] "Kinetic typography uses groups of words and short phrases to make a movie." This long sentence is made of two shorter sentences as shown above (S = sentence, NP = noun phrase, VP = verb phrase). Here is an analysis of the sentence: [S [S [NP Kinetic typography] [VP [V uses] [NP groups of words and short phrases]] ] [S [VP [TO to] [VP make a movie]] ] ]

Below is a delightful kinetic typography video made by a clever graphic artist called Matthew Rogers. Please notice that the movie includes closed captions in Russian (just click on CC to turn them on or off):

Kinetic Typography: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Here is a magnificent example of kinetic typography by Seth Brau.The English is not very difficult (I have glossed some words below the break), and the ideas are very important.


The Universal Declaration of Human Rights from Seth Brau on Vimeo.

The complete 1948 declaration is long and a little difficult. This video shortens the text and makes it a little easier to understand by adding beautiful pictures and music.


Below is the complete text and some notes to help you understand the words in the video, You can also find links in Chinese, Russian, Spanish and French: