Causal Arguments

Causal arguments… I learned about this in my government class. In our first test we had to write a couple of short answer responses and we had to determine what kind of argument each one was. The only one I remember was that the case of Brown vs. Board of Education let to the overturn of Plessy vs. Ferguson. The courts ruled that segregation was wrong because it denied blacks and whites equal opportunities and because it caused people to feel inferior. Anyway.. I just remembered that when I read the title of the chapter. I also remembered that issue of national geographic. My biology teacher showed it to us in class when I was a freshman in high school. According to NG, we are gaining weight because we have increased the portions of our food. They specified on what those sizes where supposed to be: A steak is supposed to be the size of a one card from a deck of cards (lengthwise), the amount of pasta you eat should be about the size of your fist, if you eat cheese with your meal it should be no bigger than a domino, and if you like to butter your roll you should only use about a die (dice). Crazy huh… I know my steak is a lot bigger than that. And my butter? I do put about a die of butter on my roll… each time i take a bite That argument was effective because I still remember that magazine article to this day (especially when I eat pasta). The article claimed that people were getting fat. They used an A causes B which causes C type of argument: we are eating bigger portions, therefore consuming more calories, therefore getting fatter. It was an effective article because it was informative, eye opening and that picture they used on the cover was scary. That woman scared me into eating smaller portions. I realized that there are causal arguments everywhere. The obesity epidemic sure likes to use them. The crazy Roth lady likes to use them as well, and even though I don’t agree with all of her methods, she did get her point across when she talked about little obese kids and how parents are responsible for their health. Every time I read a chapter from EaA I remember things that relate to it or I come across them afterwards… It’s a good read because not only does it make me relate stuff, it teaches me how to write… in this case, causal arguments.

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