Comparing viewpoints

Author’s viewpoint

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You have now read two articles about animal testing. Each has a clear viewpoint so we’re going to look at how each author conveys that viewpoint through their language.

Re-read the second handout:
Is it really worth all the suffering?

Comparing viewpoints

Reorder the text on the right to match the response to the most appropriate quote.

Language from the passage
How the author conveys their viewpoint

      Comparing viewpoints

      A different viewpoint

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      Now re-read the first handout:
      Why we need animal testing

      Consider how the author conveys his viewpoint and what is similar or different from the other article

      Comparing viewpoints

      Study the language from the passage and discuss what you think the author was trying to convey before revealing the suggestions.

      Language from the passage How the author conveys their viewpoint
      “Every day you use products on your skin and body that have gone through extensive testing, to ensure they are safe for human use…” The author plays on the reader’s safety fears by explaining how products could be potentially unsafe without testing and indicates how numerous and detailed the tests are by describing them as “extensive” to make us feel sure the products have been checked thoroughly.
      Poison control centres receive almost 1.6 million phone calls each year related to accidental poisonings The author states the huge number of people, “1.6 million” who accidentally poison themselves with household products, reminding us how easily it can happen so we agree that it is important to make these products as safe as possible through testing.
      Poison control centres receive more than 40,000 calls about animal poisoning, mostly involving family pets The author reminds the reader that their beloved pets can be easily harmed by products too and encourages them to want to prevent this.
      Only a few decades ago, people were regularly using products that hadn’t been tested and therefore weren’t safe. Use of these products… sometimes even resulted in blindness and death. The author explains the seriousness that could result from not testing products such as “blindness and death”, playing on the reader’s fears and suggesting they are lucky that nowadays testing is always done on products.
      “alternatives to animal testing… cannot reliably predict the effect of a chemical on the combined organ systems of a human body.” The author indicates that using something other than animals for the tests would be unreliable and therefore unsafe, again playing on the reader’s fears of safety.
      “without animal research, virtually every medical breakthrough of the past century would not have been possible… vaccinations for diseases such as polio, we know how to transplant organs, we know how to transfuse blood and we know how to deal with patients involved in serious trauma, such as a car accident… how to prevent cancer and heart attack simply through nutrition and exercise. The creation of insulin for diabetics, hip replacement surgery, and dialysis for kidney patients have all come from animal research. The author ends by encouraging the reader to think of the bigger picture. Yes a few animals may be hurt during the tests but the medical discoveries made far outweigh this. By listing a variety of illnesses that can now be cured or diseases that can now be better managed, the author is allowing for a personal understanding as the reader may know someone who has suffered from one of these and therefore now consider how thankful they should be for the testing.

      Comparing viewpoints

      Comparing writer’s ideas and perspectives

      Even if authors appear to have different viewpoints, they often use similar topics, themes, ideas or techniques to express them.

      Extract One: Why we need animal testing

      Poison control centres receive more than 40,000 calls about animal poisoning, mostly involving family pets The author reminds the reader that their beloved pets can be easily harmed by products too and encourages them to want to prevent this.

      Extract Two: Is it really worth all the suffering?

      “Every year thousands of cats and dogs suffer and die in British laboratories” The author uses “cats” and “dogs” to remind the reader that these experiments are happening on animals that are usually our beloved pets.
      He also uses emotive words like “suffer” to remind us just how much pain they have to endure.