Preparation Outline

I emailed you a much better formatted version of this outline and my speaking outline.

Color Blindness
By Tiffany Shepherd

Specific Purpose: To inform my audience about color blindness.
Thesis Statement: Color blindness is a common color vision deficiency comes in different and results in many day to day complications.

Introduction
I. What color shirt am I wearing? (catch attention)
A. Most of you are probably wondering why I asked you that question. Everyone here probably knows I am wearing a green shirt.
B. For color blind individuals, this question would be almost impossible to answer.
II. I will try to describe color blindness as well as possible so that we all gain a better understanding of this disability.
A. My own interest in the subject began 6 years ago when I met someone who lives his day to day life dealing with the complications of color blindness.
B. Since then, I have extensively researched to subject finding that it is a very unique and complicated disorder.
III. Today I plan to inform you on what colorblindness is, the different types of color blindness, and the frustrations connected with color blindness.
Body
I. Color blindness is the inability to distinguish between some colors.
A. The term “color blind” is very misleading.
1. When most people here this term, they think that being color blind means that they can’t see any color, like in a black and white movie.
2. This is actually very uncommon.
3. In most cases, the individuals cannot see or differentiate between 1 or 2 colors.
B. Color blindness is genetically inherited from mutations on the X chromosome and is more common in males.
1. According to Erickson, this is because women have to X chromosomes and men only have one X chromosome. So if males have a mutation on the X chromosome, it will be expressed.
2. It is the most common sex linked inherited disorder. Actually 8 to 12% of males and less than 1% of females are color blind. These are estimates by Gretchen Bailey.

Transition: Now that we know what color blindness is, I would like to go more in depth on the different types of color blindness.
II. Roger Shepard of Psychological Science writes that color blindness can be either total color blind or partial color blind.
A. Total color blindness, monochromacy, is the lack of ability to distinguish colors.
1. These individuals see everything in shades of gray.
2. This is extremely uncommon and make up less than1% of the cases.
B. Partial color blindness is when then individual cannot distinguish between two colors.
1. The most common type of partial is red-green color blindness. According to Neitz, this type makes up 99% of all cases. These patients cannot differentiate between red and green.
2. Another type of partial is yellow-blue color blindness. These individuals cannot see the difference between yellow and blue.

Transition: Now let’s take a deeper look into the frustrations resulting from the different types of color blindness.

III. Color blind individuals constantly encounter challenges in their day to day lives because we live in a world full of colors and often times we use colors to communicate with one another.
A. For example, we use traffic lights and weather maps constantly.
1. Color blind people cannot see between red and green on traffic lights. They tell by the position. In some states, the lights are positions horizontally. This makes it impossible for the color blind person to tell whether to stop or go.
2. Also weather maps. Many use shades of red and green to show the weather.
B. Being color blind can also make cooking and shopping very difficult. George Wald describes some examples.
1. They cannot tell if their meat is cooked.
2. They cannot tell difference between ripe and green tomatoes or red and green apples.
3. They also cannot tell see the difference between ketchup and chocolate syrup.

Conclusion
I. As we have seen today, color blindness is a common color vision deficiency that ranges from partial to total color blindness.
A. It is more common than most people think.
B. It results in day to day complication.
II. So the next time you see a rainbow. Don’t take it for granted. Stop and admire the colors because not everyone has this opportunity.

Works Cited
Bailey, Gretchyn. “Color Blindness.” All About Vision. Accessed July 21, 2009. www.allaboutvision.com.
Erickson, M.H. “The induction of Color Blindness”. Journal of General Psychology. 20:61-89.
Neitz, M. “Spectral Tuning of Pigments Underlying Red-Green Color.” Science Magazine. Accessed July 21, 2009. www.sciencemagazine.com.
Shepard, Roger. “Representation of Colors in Blind, Color Blind, and Normal Sighted.” Psychological Science. 3: 97-104.
Wald, George. “The Receptors of Human Color vision.” Science Magazine. Accessed July 21, 2009. www.sciencemagazine.com .