Specific Purpose: To inform the audience about the Stop Online Piracy Act
Organizational Pattern:
I. Introduction:
A. Attention Getter: How many of you have ever said, “Google it!” or “look it up on YouTube”? I’m sure you’ve all said it more times than you can count, but imagine a world where neither site exists. No Google, no YouTube--weird, right? Now, imagine the Internet—one of the United State’s most robust and growing industries, without Wikipedia, Google, Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube—even harder to fathom.
B. Relevance: The Internet has changed the way we all live. It is at our disposal with many advantages and some disadvantages, piracy being one of them. The Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, was created to stop this infringement. Stephanie Condon, from CBS news, says, “The bills are intended to strengthen [the] protections against copyright infringement and intellectual property theft, but Internet advocates say [that the bills] would stifle expression on the World Wide Web.” If this bill passes, the World Wide Web, as we know it, could be changed forever.
C. Credibility: As an everyday Internet user myself, for work and for play, this topic caught my attention and I’ve done a great deal of research on it. I truly wonder what the future of the Internet would be like if this bill were passed—don’t you?
D. Thesis: The SOPA bill is very crucial to the future of the Internet, and in order to understand its full effects, we need to be educated on what is and what it does.
E. Preview: Therefore, we will first go over what SOPA is, then we will go over the pros and cons, and finally, we will learn how it will affects our future.
Transition: To begin, we will look at the bill as a whole.
II. Body A. What exactly is SOPA?
1. SOPA stands for the Stop Online Piracy Act. According to Deborah Todd, a writer from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, introduced the bill in
Links: Forbes, S. (2012, February 13). Don 't Soft-Soap SOPA. Forbes, 15-16. Condon, S. (2012, January 18). SOPA, PIPA: What you need to know [Editorial]. CBS News. Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57360665-503544/sopa-pipa-what-you-need-to-know/ Todd, D. M. (2012, January 8). The Stop Online Piracy Act: a war on theft...or free speech. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Pepitone, J. (2012, January 20). "SOPA explained: What it is and why it matters. CNN News. Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/17/technology/sopa_explained/index.htm Crowley, M. (2012, January 30). Battlefield SOPA. Time, 12. Temple, J. (2011, November 2). Innovation likely victim of bill on online piracy. San Francisco Chronicle.