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Writing Assignment, Homework, and Class Activity Speculating Creatively and Systematically about Causes

When something unexpected, surprising, or odd happens, we automatically look to the past and ask, “Why did that happen?” Whether we want to have it happen again or prevent it from happening, we’ll need to understand it. We cannot predict or control that event’s occurrence without understanding what caused it. Often enough, questions about causes are relatively easy and straightforward to answer. With just a little investigation, I can discover that the puddle of water on my driveway was caused by a leaking sprinkler. With more investigation, we may discover that the increased test scores at the local school are not the result of increased homework assignments, but of a few particularly good teachers. In cases like these, our investigations can make us rather confident that we have found the cause to our surprising phenomenon. In some situations, however, the best we can do is make educated guesses. Investigations where we speculate about causes are undertaken and written about every day. Political analysts, for example, are still conjecturing about the cause of Mitt Romney’s defeat in the 2012 presidential election. Los Angeles sportswriters, to provide another example, speculate about the Lakers’ dismal record despite having a talented cast of players. Speculation about causes plays a vital role in every aspect of your life: government, business, and academia. For example, a city planner might wonder why traffic snarls at a particularly unexpected time of day in order to make commuting easier for everyone. A salesperson might wonder why an aggressive advertising campaign failed to earn more sales. If she is confident that she has the answer, she can write a memo to her regional sales manager defending her speculated cause. Before proposing changes in the reading curriculum, a school principal might appoint a committee to investigate the cause of falling test scores at the school. As we will see in Chapter 7, our ability to make recommendations and proposals is ultimately based on our ability to diagnose the causes of some phenomenon. Speculating about causes is also cornerstone of scholarship. For example, a student might read a sociology essay in which a noted scholar evaluates other scholars’ proposed causes of the increased problem of gun violence in the United States to argue for a never-before-considered cause. Or you might encounter a report conjecturing about a recent decline in murders in a particular city. The writer may not know for certain why this trend exists, but she could speculate about its possible cause —and then demonstrate the soundness of this hypothesis with the relevant support. For this assignment, you will write an essay in which you speculate about the cause of some trend, event, or phenomenon that you have witnessed. The Assignment: Choose a subject—an event, a phenomenon, or a trend—that invites you to speculate about its cause. Write an essay of no less than 5 pages (MLA format) arguing for your trend, phenomenon, or event and for your proposed cause. Thus, in this assignment, you need to do two things:

(1) Establish the existence the trend, event, or phenomenon.

(2) Establish that your proposed causal explanation is a sound conclusion.

Your first task will be to demonstrate the plausibility of the existence of the trend, event, or phenomenon you are attempting to explain. The logic of correlations as explored in Chapter 6 may be very helpful here. If you can give evidence that two events have happened together— and that the chance rival is implausible— you will have shown the the two events are likely causally connected in some way. So, as a strategy, showing that there is a significant correlation between two events is a good way to demonstrate the existence of something in need of explanation. In addition, the language of Non-Trace Data type A (from the old edition of the book) and a Trace Locating Resource (new edition of the book) are also wonderful avenues for demonstrating that something is in need of explanation. For example, you normally despise reality television. You cannot stand to be in the same room where it is being watched. Nevertheless, you find that you love The Real Housewives of Atlanta. If you can demonstrate that you normally hate reality television and that you love that particular show, you will have shown to your reader that there really is something here to explain. And now your argument can begin. Just as in your first writing assignment, where you demonstrated the Principle of Charity through mediating your own personal disagreements, the more local and personal the trend, event, or phenomenon you attempt to explain the better. This is because your GUS (general understanding of stuff) and your experience will enable you to reason better about the trend, event, or phenomenon. You will also be in a better position to investigate it. In addition to the above example, you may have noticed that your workplace isn’t as busy as it used to be, or that campus parking has been easier to find, or even simply that you haven’t been having dinner at your grandparents’ house as often as you used to. These sorts of discoveries of personal events or trends make for the best topics. The heart of the essay, though, will be providing reasons to think that your supplied explanation of the event is the correct one. In this regard, the structure of your argument will be no different that the many arguments we’ve studied in Chapters 4, 5, and 6. Your argument, your essay itself, will have an implicit question providing the structure. That IQ will most likely be the question which asks why your event, trend, or phenomenon happened. Your proposed cause (explanation) will be an answer, the best answer, to that question. The support you muster for that explanation (the right answer to the implicit question) will likely include other things that the supposed cause explains (Trace Data) and it will include things which help the explanation (Non-Trace Data). Creative and persuasive writers will use a variety of sorts of TD and NTD (LER and GER), including facts, correlations, personal anecdotes, testimony of authorities, examples, and analogies. In addition, you should anticipate your readers’ objections or questions. So you will also want to show why rival explanations are not plausible. You will, in fact, spend some time steering your reader away from otherwise plausible rivals.