Summary Of They Might Sound Gross But Intestinal Worms By William Parker

In Dr. William Parker’s article “They might sound gross, but intestinal worms can actually be good for you”, he builds an argument to persuade his audience that intestinal worms can actually be used to benefit humans. Parker uses results and statistics from scientific studies, appropriate word choice, and credibility of sources to build his argument and persuade his audience that intestinal worms can benefit humans. Parker makes use of results and statistics from scientific studies. For example, he says “In controlled studies in humans, helminths were shown to halt the progression of relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis and effectively treat many individuals with inflammatory bowel disease with report of adverse side effects.” Since most people have a negative feeling towards intestinal worms, Parker combats this negative feeling by using facts. A specific purpose of this quote is to show that helminths have already been tested on humans with positive effects, suggesting that it would be a good idea to continue using them in the future. Furthermore, by providing specific diseases

For example, throughout the article, although he uses multiple words for “intestinal worms” including “mutualists” and “rat tapeworms”, he mainly uses “helminths”. Parker makes this choice because “helminths” is a scientific term and it does not have a negative connotation, unlike the other words. This suppresses the reader’s negative thoughts about intestinal worms. Additionally, he says “But we can’t let the ick factor intestinal worms may initially inspire hold us back from further research.” Parker uses the conversational phrase “ick factor” in order to establish a better connection with the reader. This causes readers to believe that Parker understands their point of view. It prevents them from thinking that the article is simply a cold and distant series of scientific studies which are disconnected from