Mindy Stull Over the past few decades the tattoo industry has grown tremendously, greatly influencing

the people involved. The tattoo industry has opened a new door of jobs for artists and has become more popular to everyday people. More and more people are getting tattoos, which raises the demand for shops and artists. Also, the speculation of what tattoos are acceptable, especially in the job market, has risen. In previous decades tattoos were considered very taboo. Now, though, everyday people have them. And the industry is still growing. Statistics show how much the industry has grown in mainstream America and throughout other cultures. Despite the risks of getting tattoos and statistics about people who have been injured, the tattoo industry is still growing. This paper looks into what drives people to get tattoos. Is it a form of self expression for most people, or do they just like the way it looks? Or are they marking their bodies to try and fit into a specific group? So first off, where do tattoos come from? Well, theyve been around for centuries and centuries, starting primarily in Asian countries. It is prevalent throughout many parts of the world, with many tribes of people marking their faces and entire bodies. In terms of tattoos on actual bodies, the earliest known examples were for a long time Egyptian and were present on several female mummies dated to c. 2000 B.C. But following the more recent discovery of the Iceman from the area of the Italian-Austrian border in 1991 and his tattoo patterns, this date has been pushed back a further thousand years when he was carbondated at around 5,200 years old (Lineberry 1). Throughout American society, tattoos used to be recognized as a mark for the misfits but now its overwhelmingly accepted. Though some people still see tattoos as taboo, most
Macowner 10/24/12 11:41 AM Comment [2]: Awkwardly structure plus incomplete sentence, suggestion: Nowadays, everyone has them, and the industry is still gorwing. Macowner 10/24/12 11:38 AM Comment [1]: Awkwardly worded, possibly make into two separate sentences.

people have come to accept tattoos simply as what they are: body modifications, and art. Now the question is: Why do people get tattoos? According to The Tattooed Engineer, the answers could be honoring a loved one, symbolizing a life changing event, for the love of art, showing your dedication to a loved one, and religion/cultural reasons (Engineer 1). The purposes of tattoos have changed in some ways from their origin to now. These permanent designssometimes plain, sometimes elaborate, always personal have served as amulets, status symbols, declarations of love, signs of religious beliefs, adornments and even forms of punishment (Lineberry 1). Now people have tattoos for some of those reasons, but surely not all. People definitely get tattoos attributing to their religion, and love, but no one would be seen getting a tattoo as a form of punishment.

Reviewed by: Amy Stegall Overall, the paper is headed in a great direction. The topic is interesting, your ideas are great, and your sources strongly support them. The only thing I noticed were a few minor details such as missing commas and some awkward sentence structuring.