THIS IS A NOTE ON METHODOLOGY AND RHETORIC, NOT THE MESSAGE. SIgned, the
owner of four neutered, indoor, not-allowed-outdoors cats.

>>Let's say right now we are not anti-cat. We are simply strongly pro-bird.
> > And this is not propaganda.
>
> > Since there are over 60 million pet cats in this country, these studies
> > indicate that these pets kill an estimated 1,560 million birds each year.

While I agree completely with the message and am glad to see research, I
just finished a lecture to my research writing class on the dangers of
the above two statements. The first, stating that you're not doing
something, sets forth a message of danger in case you make the mistake of
the second. In the second, as the class discussed, the extrapolation is
flawed because it assumes that every cat owner is irresponsible enough to
let their beats run around willy-nilly eating birds. We came up with
several examples of cats which don't fall into this category and which
hurt the extrapolation, whose flawed logic hurts an otherwise fine
research presentation.
The lesson: be careful when you say that you are not going to do
something--you might end up doing it accidentally. Bad extrapolation
would be considered propaganda, especially by those not agreeing with
your cause. In our fields, with the polarity of opinion and emotion,
such statements inflame.
I thank the original forwarder for posting this--changed my
lesson plan for the day. If someone still has the entire piece, if you
could forward a copy to me at the address below, I'd appreciate it so I
can use this again in the future.
Find many birds this weekend and let us know about them. If
you've been lurking, let us know what's in your nook of the world. RK
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Ray Korpi "One could do worse than be a swinger of birches."
Hm: Portland, OR --from "Birches"
Wk: Clark College by Robert Frost
Vancouver, WA
rkorpi at clark.edu