Good luck with your speech, you make many good points. A few run-on sentances, perhaps you should run the spell check/grammer check on it to help pinpoint problems. (I'm working on my master's and always have to check for grammer, too) one last suggestion - It's a persuasive speech, right? You have a wonderful opening paragraph, perhaps you could incorporate it into a closing sentance or two that will ask people to think twice about "that doggie in the window", and whether they really want their dollars to support puppy mills -- pointing out that only by refusing to support this practice can it be stopped. (Persuades them to change their behavior)