CauseEffect Rhetorical Patterns

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Cause/Effect Rhetorical Patterns

• Exploring Connections between the past and the
  future

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Rhetorical summary of Church and State

• In Church and State, Montana writer Judy Blunt
  invites an audience of those who have lived less
  hard-scrabbled lives than she has into a story of
  how she and her sister encountered a wider, and
  somehow scary, world beyond that of their country
  school. Her narrative begins with details that
  conveyed simplicity of all aspects of educational
  lifedesks that were shifted from school to
  school to accommodate the size of the students,
  cup brought from home to hold water hauled in by
  volunteer fathers, and teachers ranging from

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More rhetorical summary

• those who knew their authority and wielded it
  well and those who did not. More than anything,
  this essay tells the story of a series of clues
  that caused Judy and her sister to realize that
  their teacher Mr. Saxton had crossed a boundary
  they hadnt known existed when he took them on a
  field trip to his Catholic Church and then to a
  Cary Grant movie. His attention to them alone was
  enough to make them uncomfortable, but there was
  more.

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More rhetorical summary.

• It wasnt just that that the practices of Mr.
  Saxtons faith were new to them. There was
  morehis treatment of them as intimates through
  touch and gestures that they couldnt imagine
  their other teachers making and his keeping them
  out far longer than they or their parents had
  imagined. For the first time, the girls agreed
  later in life, they realized the People We
  Trust arent always to be trusted.

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Your task

• Your goal today is to write a brief story about
  your entry into the wider or a newer worlda
  situation that shows how something that happened
  to you made you feel uncomfortable or threatened
  and caused you to feel distrust or fear.
• OR Write a brief story that shows how something
  that happened to you made you feel comfortable or
  safe or caused you to trust a situation or person
  new to you.

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When you might find cause/effect patterns helpful

• When you are interested in the connection between
  past events and their present or future effects
• When you want to argue that X causes/does not
  cause Y
• When you want to argue that doing things
  differently will have a positive effect

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Questions useful in thinking about cause/effect
relationships

• What caused/is causing _____?
• What was the history of _____?
• What was the purpose of ____?
• Why ______ happened?
• What happened before _____?
• What happened after ______?
• What could have/should have been done to make the
  situation turn out differently?

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Cause/Effect logical fallacies

• Over-simplification
• Beware of identifying ONE cause when SEVERAL
  causes might be working together to have a
  certain effect
• This falls increase in enrollment at Dixie
  caused slowing growth in SUUs student population.

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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc(after this, therefore
because of this)

• Dont confuse sequence with cause Just because
  one thing happens after another, it doesnt
  always mean that the first thing causes the
  second
• My friend didnt wave at me he must be angry at
  me.

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Hasty generalization

• Be sure that you can have enough evidence to make
  a causal claimand that you can establish the
  link between cause and effect.
• That person with a tattooed face did well on his
  exam. Getting tattoos must make people smart.

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Failing to consider remote causes

• Be sure that you understand that causes can have
  causes
• Her diabetes was caused by eating too much sugar
  during her first semester in college.
• (Diabetes can be caused by a combination of
  genetics and long-term diet.)

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Outlining cause/effect essaysemphasis on causes

• Introduce the problem or situation to be
  explained and show why it is indeed
  problematical.
• Write a thesis that asserts that this situation
  is caused (X) by past events, which you list.
• Explain each link in turn, taking care to
  indicate how each event leads to the next one

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Outlining cause/effect essaysemphasis on effects

• Introduce a situation
• Assert a thesis that argues that the situation
  leads to certain problems OR argue that the
  situation does NOT lead to the effects commonly
  blamed on it.
• One by one, assert or reject the consequences of
  the situation

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One more thing

• Use AFFECT when the word means influenced
• The film affected me by making me sad.
• Use EFFECT when the word means the result
• The effect of the film was to make them cry.