Informative Paper

Informative Speech

Specific Purpose: To inform about the importance of changing the oil in your car on a regular basis.

Introduction:

I. According to famous author, E.B. White, "Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car" (Frank p52).

II. Since this has never been truer than it is today, it is important to take care of your car so you can get to that "somewhere else" you need to go.

III. In order to understand the importance of changing the oil in your car regularly it is necessary to understand what role oil plays in a car engine, why the oil in an engine needs to be changed regularly, and how often the oil needs to be changed.

Transition: First, let's take a look at what oil does in your cars engine.

Body:

I. The oil in your engine does more than one thing, it lubricates, cleans, and cools the engine.

A. First, oil lubricates the engine.

1. In his book, All About Your Car, David Kline, "All moving parts in your car have bearings. These are either in the form of ball bearings, or plate-type bearings. These bearings surround the moving parts of the car creating a small space or a friction buffer that give enough room for the oil to lubricate the moving parts. This way you never have metal directly touching metal. Oil itself is basically a type of ball bearing. If you were to look at oil under a microscope it would reveal millions of tiny balls. So, you can think of oil as a liquid ball bearing that keeps the moving engine parts moving smoothly" (p.65).

B. Second, oil cleans the engine.

1. Over time, as the oil circulates through your engine it grabs and keeps dirt suspended in it until it is either filtered or drained away when you change it.

C. Third, oil cools the engine.

1. A car engine is made up of moving metal parts. If your car engine didn't have oil, the moving parts would get so hot because of friction that they would melt together.

a. Unfortunately, once the metal parts in your engine melt together, they can't ever be fixed.

b. This means you would have to replace the engine in your car!

c. Nearly 40% of the entire job of cooling the engine is done by the oil, with the other 60% being done by the radiator/antifreeze system. The oil carries away the heat from the hot metal engine parts.

Transition: Now that you know that the oil in your car lubricates, cleans and cools your engine, lets look at why it is important to change the oil in your car on a regular basis.

II. The oil in a car engine needs to be changed regularly because it breaks down with time and gets contaminated.

A. The extreme heat from the engine causes the oil to breakdown.

B. Over time, engine oil becomes contaminated or dirty.

1. Dirty oil is not as effective because it isn't as slippery.

2. Examples of contaminates are carbon particles, metal shavings,