Identifying Causes and Effects
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For sample essays and advice on writing a cause-and-effect essay, see Ch. 8.
From the time we are children, we ask why. Why can’t I go out and play? Why is the sky blue? Why did my goldfish die? Seeking causes and effects continues into adulthood, so it’s a common method of development. To explain causal relationships successfully, think about the subject critically, gather evidence, draw judicious conclusions, and clarify relationships.
In the following passage from “On the Origin of Celebrity” (Nautilus, Issue 5), Professor Robert Sapolsky brings his background in biology and neurology to his topic.
We all feel the magnetic pull of celebrities—we track them, know their net worth, their tastes in furniture, the absurd names of their pets and children. We go under the knives of cosmetic surgeons to look like them. We feel personal connections with them, are let down by their moral failings, care about their tragedies. As I write, my family of musical fanatics is mourning the death of Cory Monteith. We not only feel for the pointless loss of a talented young actor, and for his girlfriend, Lea Michele, but in some confused, inchoate way, also feel heartbroken for Finn and Rachel, the characters they play on Glee.
Why the obsession? Because we’re primates with vested interests in tracking social hierarchies and patterns of social affiliation. And celebrities provide our primate minds with stimulating gyrations of hierarchy and affiliation (who is sleeping with, feuding with, out-earning whom). Celebrities also reflect the peculiar distance we have traveled culturally since our hominid past, and reveal how distorted our minds can become in our virtual world. We obsess over celebrities because, for better or worse, we feel a deep personal sense of connection with people who aren’t real.
Instead of focusing on causes or effects, often writers trace a chain of cause-and-effect relationships, as Charles C. Mann and Mark L. Plummer do in “The Butterfly Problem” (The Atlantic, January 1992).
More generally, the web of species around us helps generate soil, regulate freshwater supplies, dispose of waste, and maintain the quality of the atmosphere. Pillaging nature to the point where it cannot perform these functions is dangerously foolish. Simple self-protection is thus a second motive for preserving biodiversity. When DDT was sprayed in Borneo, the biologists Paul and Anne Ehrlich relate in their book Extinction (1981), it killed all the houseflies. The gecko lizards that preyed on the flies ate their pesticide-filled corpses and died. House cats consumed the dying lizards; they died too. Rats descended on the villages, bringing bubonic plague. Incredibly, the housefly in this case was part of an intricate system that controlled human disease. To make up for its absence, the government was forced to parachute cats into the area.
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DISCOVERY CHECKLIST
Do you clearly tie your use of cause and effect to your main idea or thesis?
Have you identified actual causes? Have you supplied persuasive evidence to support them?
Have you identified actual effects, or are they conjecture? If conjecture, are they logical possibilities? What persuasive evidence supports them?
For more on faulty thinking and logical fallacies, see Learning by Writing in Ch. 9.
Have you judiciously drawn conclusions about causes and effects? Have you avoided faulty thinking and logical fallacies?
Have you presented your points clearly and logically so that your readers can follow them easily?
Have you considered other causes or effects, immediate or long-term, that readers might find relevant?
Learning by Doing Identifying Causes and Effects
Learning by Doing
Identifying Causes and Effects
Identify some of the causes of five of the following. Then discuss possible causes with your classmates.
failing an exam ordering take-out stress moving losing/winning a game pollution poor/good health animal extinction recycling Identify some of the effects of five of the following. Then discuss possible effects with your classmates.
a compliment global warming passing a test dieting graduating spending time outdoors driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol having a sick family member or friend suicide Identify some of the causes and effects of one of the following, doing a little research as needed. How might you use the chain of causes and effects in an essay? Discuss your findings with your classmates.
the online shopping boom the Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage the attacks of September 11, 2001 the uses of solar energy the discovery of atomic energy global climate change civil rights protest racial tension recycling
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Learning by Doing Reflecting on Developing
Learning by Doing
Reflecting on Developing
Think back to the methods of development that you have used in recent papers. How do you generally develop your papers? What new approaches have you tried or might you try? How do you decide which method to use and where? How do you know when you have developed a section effectively, so that a reader would find it clear and compelling? Working with a classmate or small group, explain your best method, pointing out its advantages and disadvantages.