Reflection of Paper #4

I chose to write my fourth paper on Nigel Rothel's essay on "Zoos, The Academy and Captivity."
Prior to reading this piece, I wasn't aware of all the ambivalence people had towards them.  I haven't been to a zoo in a few years and every time I did go to one I thought of them as interesting and educating.  Zoos gave me a way to see exotic animals closely and give me an idea of how they live.  However according to Rothel's analysis of zoos, quite a few people are against zoos and their attempt to replicate an animals habitat.  Although I was leaning towards agreeing with Rothel's argument with zoos I found his approach to persuading the reader by opening up with a studying opposing his argument to be a poor choice.  He began by mentioning a study done by Ray L. Birdwhistell and how through his kiesics approach he failed to recognize the relationship through human interaction with elephants.  I think that in order to successfully persuade someone without questioning their opinion, one needs to use a strong source supporting your opinion instead of challenging it.  The challenging source should be briefly mentioned in the concluding paragraph.  Overall the paper did open my eyes to a different side to opinions on zoos which I found very intriguing and made me think differently about them.