Writing Homework Help

If you haven’t already done so, review Using Facts and Stats. Then dive into Workshop 4…

There is an article on Oprah.com called “11 Surprising Facts About the Things We Throw Away.” The writer didn’t take this 100W course. Seems like a worthwhile article, but in my opinion, it’s filled with boring statistics. That’s where you come in. Workshop 4 doesn’t require a lot of writing, but it asks you to put in a lot of creativity to make stats meaningful to your readers.

For Workshop 4:

Choose an intended reader or audience and list this reader/audience at the top of your submission

Rewrite one of the statistics from the article (the statistics from the article are pasted below). Like the Boring/Better examples in Using Facts and Stats, do something to contextualize the numbers to help your reader understand the numbers. (e.g. How can you help someone understand 33 billion cans? Maybe compare it to something that your audience would understand.)

The stats (choose one to rewrite):

• More than 350 million pairs of shoes end up in landfills annually, according to Shoes
  for the Cure.

More than 20,000 tons of used tennis balls end up in landfills annually, according to
reBonus.

• More than 10 million bikes are dumped into American and European landfills
  annually, according to Bicycles for Humanity.

More than four million pairs of eyeglasses are trashed annually, according to Unite for
Sight.

An estimated 32.7 billion aluminum cans were tossed out in 2011.

• 22.3 billion pounds of textiles, including clothing, were thrown away in 2010.

According to the Rubber Manufacturers of America, 1.3 billion pounds of tires wound up in landfills in 2009.

15.8 million tons of reading material (books, magazines) and other paper products were trashed in 2010.