Well, friends, completely disregard my previous blog post! Animal consciousness/pain/emotion is not, in fact, a workable topic. Excessive writing about philosophy would be involved, so it's a good thing I'm dropping this topic because for one thing, it's very difficult to write a research paper about philosophy, and second, philosophy can get really boring. My intent was to focus on scientific research and base my arguments off of that, but I did not realize what I was getting myself into. So, I'm back to hunting for topics.

Part of the reason I wanted to do a "weird" topic like animal consciousness was because I wanted to avoid writing a general paper about animal testing, especially since more than half the class is writing about something related to that topic. I am almost positive that animal testing will be a major component of the topic I choose—what better topic for making an argument involving animals and technology? There are solid arguments on both sides, plenty of existing research available, and I can make clear arguments based off of hard facts. However, I will try to narrow my studies to a specific field within animal testing.

I haven't done any real research in this yet (I've only just discarded my old topic), so I can't say what the research process will be like. If I find an abundance of articles in a narrow field of animal testing—say, cosmetics testing, or drug testing—then perhaps I could narrow my topic there. Otherwise, I should attempt to make a conclusion with more depth than "therefore, animal testing is okay!" or "it's bad!" I will make a more qualified argument, such as "Animal testing can be acceptable, provided that..." or perhaps a conclusion from a different perspective, such as "This organization is not doing enough to stop the cruelty going on in..."

I know I should have a definite topic by now, but I want to discuss my ideas on Tuesday before I make anything official (again). I'll be doing plenty of preliminary research this week, so stay tuned.