"It's a research report, not your senior thesis," my stepmother remarked when I told her I was up to 12 pages single-spaced. The following is a research paper I did for my English class. I was lucky enough to have an instructor who allowed us to pick any topic we wanted, and this gave me an excuse to thoroughly research a topic that's interested me for years- animal rights. This is a huge topic to tackle, as it affects every animal-related field or hobby. I chose to focus on providing some background information on the movement, how it affects aviculture and where the movement seems to be heading. However, it was an impossible amount of information to cram into the 5-10 double-spaced pages that my instructor had asked for. The version I turned in was cut down to 16 double-spaced pages, and I only achieved that by removing huge sections and single-spacing the larger citations. [Fellow students: Never go over the assigned length without consulting your instructor first. Some instructors will simply give the paper right back to you, others will be irritated at the length and mark you down for it. They have other papers to grade, a limited amount of time to grade them, and a life outside of the classroom. Give them a break and ask first.]

What you read here is the final, uncut version. It is very long, but well worth the read. You may not want to take it all in one sitting, however, so I've broken it into smaller sections. This should also make the load times faster. So grab a snack, invite your bird for a head scratch, and remember that ergonomists recommend taking a break from computer usage every twenty minutes.

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