Reading Response 1 (Fast Food Nation) February 11, 2008

The book that I chose to read first is the book Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. This book is full of examples of research and how it is used to write a novel. It is important to know and understand this because it is what we will be using to write our research papers.The statistic on the book cover states “This year, Americans will spend more money on fast food than on higher education,” (Schlosser). I feel that this is a good example of research because it is a statistic that was taken by a study/poll. He then took the statistic and placed it into the novel. Tuberose is stating that in the year 2000 Americans spent more than $110 billion on fast food alone which is many times higher than in 1970 when it was $6 billion. (Tuberose, paragraph 4)

I also thought that on page 172 when it was informing the readers about all of the injuries that happens on the factory line for meat workers, was a large part of research. This is something that is not publicized by meat factories because it is a negative and a possible health concern/hazard. There was an article about how the speed is increased in meat factories so that production rates can be higher. This leads to a lot of injuries due to the increased production. It has been found that instead of decreasing accients in the workplace, it was increased 24% in a few years. (Working Environment Authority Requires Reduced Working Hours in Meat Factories, para 5)

In the book Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlossar, there are many examples of research and how it is very important to be able to tie the information you find into a story line (such as one for a novel or research paper). His use of statics and unknown facts allow readers to be informed yet not bored by a lot of information in one certain spot.

Works Cited:

Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation.  New York: Harper Perennial. 2002.

“Fast Food.” Tuberose.  <http://tuberose.com/Fast_Food.html>

Jørgensen, Carsten. “Working Environment Authority Requires Reduced Working Hours in Meat Factories.”  EirOnline.

29, September 2000. <http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/eiro/2000/09/feature/dk0009198f.htm>