The excerpt “Chatty As A Magpie,” by Hannah Holmes, discusses the similarities between human communication and that of our animal brethren. Holmes firmly believes that animals are much more intelligent than we give them credit for, and that their communication bears a remarkable resemblance to ours. She uses many types of evidence to prove this, including personal experiences, examples from nature, expert opinions, and statistics based on scientific study. His testimony is presented in an unusual form, but depending on your point of view, it can be good or bad. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Holmes's use of personal experience is one of his most controversial uses of evidence. The first personal experience she used was a story about how she was able to “talk” to her mother and send signals about what she wanted in the womb. “The only medium I had at the time was chemistry. So, with protein ink, I scribbled missives to my mother: More food, please” (Holmes, 2). Even though Holmes obviously doesn't remember what she was doing in the womb, I have no doubt that her information is based on real science. Although presenting your information in the form of a personal anecdote makes the information more interesting and makes it easier to understand by a younger audience, however, when it comes to someone who cares about data and real information, it makes the story seem trivial and less credible. Holmes later has another story from her childhood, but this one took place when she was one year old and used visual communication, such as body language and facial features, to get her message across. “There, I was a year old and I was playing protolanguage as if nothing had happened. Throw away my facial features and my hands” (Holmes, 7). Although this poses a similar problem to his previous personal testimony, this one seems more credible because rather than simply taking a fact about a child's development and claiming it was his, it could be seen by someone 'one like a parent or older sibling and could have been told to them, thus having more credibility as an actual personal experience. Along with her personal testimony, she offers an example from nature that correlates with her story from the womb. “This type of “chemo-munication” was initiated by unicellular organisms […] The eyeless and earless Amoeba proteus, for example, emits a peptide that prevents its protein counterparts from cannibalizing it” (Holmes, 2) . This evidence seems much more reliable than personal evidence for two main reasons. The first is that she's presenting a more honest statement since she's not trying to fool us into thinking this is her own story, and two of the many things she says seem too obscure to be random statements about the single-celled organism. creature in nature. While this helps his case, there is still no clear citation of an article reporting these facts, so you have to believe him on his merit alone. Expert opinion is one of the most reliable forms of evidence, and this is where Holmes lost some of the credibility she lost through her personal anecdotes. During this section, she explains that prairie dogs have very complex vocal communication, similar to humans. "the prairie dog calls out specific words for