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1. Radtke Russell, Pam. "Investigations Expand List of BP’s Drill-Program Failures." //Construction, Building & Engineering News: ENR | McGraw-Hill Construction//. 23 June 2010. Web. 21 Feb. 2011. . 2. Where does the author work, what else has s/he written about, and what are her/his credentials? Pam Radtke Russell is a correspondent at Platts and is also an Energy Journalist at Engineering News Record Magazine, both of which she has been doing for the past three years.

3. What is the main topic or argument of the text? The main topic of the text is how engineers as well as Congress have identified flaws resulting from BP’s decision to speed up work and cut down cost rather can build according to proper specifications and regulations.

4. Describe at least three ways that the main topic or argument is fleshed out. Three ways the main topic was fleshed out was by interviewing people who worked on the oil rigs for BP, following a paperwork trail of accountability of what processes when on during the night of the explosion, as well as the design and process of installing the new well (which is under serious investigation).

5. What three quotes capture the critical import of the text? “’Time after time, BP had warning signs that this was, as one employee put it, a ‘nightmare well,’ ‘ said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich)” “Engineers asked by the National Academy of Engineering to review the incident said the blowout was ‘caused by a complex and highly improbable chain of human errors coupled with several equipment failures’ and was ‘preventable.’” “Between 8 p.m. and 9:10 p.m. on the night of the explosion, the crew noticed high unbalanced pressure in the well and then lost primary well control.”

6. Explain how the argument and evidence in the text supports your research focus. The argument in the text supports my research focus of the mechanical failures of the oil platform by giving a step-by-step process of what mechanism failed on the platform itself as well as the workers’ failure to pick up the problem in a timely manner.

7. List at least two details or references from the text that will be useful to other members of your research group. a) It seems BP made decisions that increased the risk of blowout to save the company time and expense. b) According to Michael Norton, a drilling engineer consultant, the accident was caused by a chain of events that began long before the BP explosion.