Desalination Outline

Sample Persuasive Outline using Monroe’s Motivated Sequence
Desalination in the Middle East
Specific Purpose: To persuade my audience that desalination in the Middle East as a water supplement is much needed. I. Attention
 Imagine seeing a small child in the street who is starving. If you don’t help this child obtain nutrition, she will turn to crime to get money for food. You must help her. This child is like the Middle East and its need for water.
II. Need
A. Middle Easterners are currently getting their water from underground aquifers and from area rivers and streams
(show visual aid).
B. The existing water supply is dwindling fast. In a 1994 article in Audubon, Bruce Stutz says that the region’s aquifers and rivers are drying
out.
C. According to P. J. Vesilind of National Geographic, the area will soon break out in “water wars” because water is now more precious than oil.
In the same article in Audubon, Bruce Stutz (1994) says that there can be no peace in the area until the water crisis is solved.
D. As the world’s “police force” and the nation that supplies most of the human power to the United Nations’ operations, the United States may soon be involved in these wars as well. Take, for example, the Persian
Gulf War.
(Transition: Now that we see there is such a problem, we need to find a solution.)
III. Satisfaction
A. Middle Easterners need more usable water, as well as the technology to clean up existing polluted waters.
B. Irwin Ploss and Jonathan Rubinstein of The New Republic said in 1992 that desalination was the only real source of new fresh water in that region.
C. Desalination is like reverse osmosis – it takes out salts and other pollutants.
D. The United States has the technology to do this now, and it is improving all the time. Desalination is currently being used in Florida and parts of California to increase water supply.
E. The Middle East has the capability and the desire for change – the technology is already being implemented. F. It is good for the environment.
(Transition: Now that we know there is a solution to the problem, why should we as Americans get involved
and what can we as individuals do about it?)
IV. Visualization
A. The United States doesn’t want to be involved in any more wars in that region.
B.
We can prevent wars from happening.
C. It will cost money to help the Middle East with desalination, but it will be less expensive in the long run because war is so expensive.
(Transition: Now what can we as Americans do to help implement this process of maintaining peace?)
V. Action


There is a water shortage. Middle Easterners are willing to go to war over this shortage. Desalination can prevent water wars by eliminating the water shortage. Write your congressperson to tell him or her to support peace in the Middle East. By doing this you are helping the Middle East survive without violence or crime. Desalination is the key, and now you know how you can help the poor starving child to survive.

Works Cited
Budiansky, S. (1995, April 9). Another obstacle to peace. U.S. News & World Report, 60-62.
Desalination. (Publication No. 33.10:91-5). Washington. D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Ploss, I., & Rubinstein, J. (1992, September 7-14). Water for peace. The New Republic, 20-22.
Science Reference Section, Science and Technology Division, LOC. (1991).
Stutz, B. (1994, September). Water and peace. Audubon, 66-76.
Vesilind, P. J. (1993, May). The Middle East’s water: A critical resource. National Geographic,
38-71.