Transcript Lecture3_Cause_and_Effect_Hypothesizing

PROVIDENCE UNIVERSITY
College of Management
Cause and Effect &
Hypothesizing
Wu-Lin Chen ([email protected])
Department of Computer Science and
Information Management
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Cause and Effect
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Purposes of Cause and Effect Essay
• Persuade your audience to approve or
disapprove of something
• Inform your audience
– EX: newspaper or magazine type essay
• Speculate about cause and effect
relationships
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Consider Your Audience
• Explain any unfamiliar processes or terms that
are part of the cause and effect relationship you
are presenting (Inform type essay)
• Do not pretend your cause and effect
relationship is anything more than speculative if
you are trying to persuade your audience with a
speculative cause and effect essay
– After all, it is not a fact
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Two Questions in Cause and Effect
• Cause and effect analysis seeks answers
for the following two questions:
– Why (or how) did something happen?
(Causes)
– What were the results? (Effects)
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Cause and Effect in English
• Cause explain why something happens and effect describe outcomes.
– …a wavelength of 400 nanometers (nm) causes us to see violet.
• CAUSE: wavelength of 400 nm
• EFFECT: we see violet
• Sentence pattern: the cause precedes the effect.
– The color brown is induced by the mixing of wavelengths.
• EFFECT: the color brown
• CAUSE: a mixing of wavelengths
• Sentence pattern: the effect precedes the cause.
– Yellow can be produced by either its own wavelength or a mixture of the
wavelengths for red and green.
• EFFECT: yellow
• CAUSE 1: its own wavelength or
• CAUSE 2: a mixture if the wavelengths for red and green.
– Wavelengths shorter than that of violet produce ultraviolet light that can
damage skin cells.
• CAUSE: wavelengths shorter than that of violet
• EFFECT/CAUSE: ultraviolet light
• EFFECT: damaged skin cells
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Sentence Patterns
Cause
A mixing of all wavelengths
causes
results in
produces
induces
Effect
White light is
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Effect
a white light.
Cause
caused by
due to
induced by
a result of
produced by
a mixing of wavelengths.
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Sentence Patterns (cont.)
Cause
If
When
As
Effect
all the wavelengths are mixed, a white light is produced.
Effect
Cause
A white light is produced
if
when
as
all the wavelengths are mixed.
Note: If effects are also predictions, it can be expressed with the future tense.
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Subordinations
• Using subordination to focus on the
important part of the sentence
– putting the focus in a main clause
– following by the less important idea in the
subordination or secondary clause
– EX: Human beings cannot live on the moon
because there is no air or water there.
Subordination: It is a dependent
sentence and depends on the main
clause.
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Main clause: It is a independent
sentence and stands alone as a
sentence.
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Organizing the Cause and Effect Essay
• Proceed from a cause to an effect
• Give an effect and then discuss the
possible reasons or causes for that effect
– Connection between the effect and the cause
may be speculative and beyond proof
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Organizing the Cause and Effect Essay
• Tips
– Start with what you want to emphasize
– If you are dealing with more than one cause or one
effect, you could
• first discuss all the causes then all the effects
• or alternate them
• or discuss one set of cause and effect relationships, then a
second set, …and so on
– DO NOT confuse your reader, make sure your
presentation is clear about which cause is related to
which effect
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Reasoning
• Should not give your audience any reason to
question your logic
• Before writing,
– list the cause and their effects next to each other
– Examine each cause and effect relationship and label
it speculative or proved
– Start with proved relationship and then proceed to
speculative ones, or only discuss the speculative
– Make sure these cause and effect relationships fit into
your paper and help you make your points
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Reasoning (Cont.)
• DO NOT oversimplify cause and effect
relationships
• DO NOT mistake simple coincidence for a cause
and effect relationship (i.e. Do not jump to
conclusion)
• EX: Firing the football coach at the end of the
poor season does not mean he was the cause of
the team’s poor record, nor does hiring a new
coach mean the team will have a good season.
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Writing Skills
• Patterns of Organization
– Time (chronology)
– Space
– Logic
• Move from the general to the specific (deductive)
• Move from the specific to the general (inductive)
• Move from the simple to the complex (never the
reverse!)
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Writing Skills (Cont.)
• Effect to cause
– Try to answer why (or how) did something
happen. (the effect is already known)
– Discuss possible causes
• Cause to effect
– Try to answer what were the results? (the
cause is already known)
– Discuss possible effects
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Hypothesizing
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Definition
• Hypothesis
– a tentative or temporary solution to a science problem
or an explanation for why something happens
• Theory
– a hypothesis becomes accepted in the science world
• Principle or natural law
– a theory explains or unifies a great deal of information
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Hypothesis in English
• Aristotle’s hypotheses
– Objects fall with a speed proportional to their
weight.
– The natural state of an object is to be at rest
and a force is necessary to keep an object in
motion
• The hypothesis is always in the form of a
complete sentence, not a sentence
fragment or a question
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Hypothesis in English (Cont.)
• Galileo’s hypotheses
– All bodies fall at equal rates.
– If an object does not meet with resistance, it will
continue to move at a constant speed even if no force
is applied.
• Many hypotheses are stated in the present
simple tense
• Sometimes, a hypothesis is expressed as a
prediction, using the future tense with will
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Expressing Probability in Hypotheses
• Hypotheses are often expressed with words that
indicate their tentative nature or unproven status
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
There is life on Jupiter.
There must be life on Jupiter.
There is probably life on Jupiter.
There may be life on Jupiter.
There could be life on Jupiter.
There might be life on Jupiter.
It is unlikely that there is life on Jupiter.
It is impossible for there to be life on Jupiter.
There is no life on Jupiter.
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Strong
Weak
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Modal
• A group of auxiliary verbs that modify
verbs
• Modals of expressing probability
– must
– may
– could
– might
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Writing Skills
• Writing conclusions
– Restate the main point for emphasis
– Summary the information to review or clarify it
– Relate the significant of what was written
• Transition words for writing a conclusion
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
therefore
as a result
for this reason
thus
hence
consequently
so
because of this
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