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Praise The Humble Beetle Summary

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“Like the rest of us, scientists gravitate toward the huggable” (Begley 257) says, Sharon Begley as she refers to animals in her article “Praise the Humble Dung Beetle.” Begley, an accomplished and award-winning science journalist, informs people on the threat of the plants and animals that are going extinct. In this article published in Newsweek, she persuades her audience that this threat of extinction is harming the environment and humankind and that it can be detrimental in many ways. In “Praise the Humble Dung Beetle,” Begley’s use of rhetorical appeals, her organization and syntax, as well as her tone, help inform her audience about the importance of insects in our ecosystem.
With her knowledge of journalism, Begley uses the resource she knows best-logos, which comes in the form of expert opinion. Begley, being an award-winning science journalist herself, calls on people well known in their field, including Sacha Spector, “who runs the invertebrate program at the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History” (Begley 256). Begley uses the expertise of Spector to help form her article to its fullest potential by incorporating Spector's knowledge as a building block from which to construct her articles claims. Begley says that “‘Plants and invertebrates are the silent majority which feed the entire planet, stabilize the soil, and make all life possible,’ says Kiernan Suckling, cofounder of the Center for Biological Diversity” (Begley

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