Patterns Plus

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Chapter 8 / Cause and Effect

Why Eat Junk Food?

Judith Wurtman

Each day, Americans eat 50 million pounds of sugar, 3 million gallons of ice cream, and 5.8 million pounds of chocolate candy. Yet junk foods, as they are commonly known, contain few if any of the nutrients needed to maintain good health. Why, then, do people eat so much junk food? In the following paragraph, taken from Eating Your Way Through Life, Judith Wurtman suggests two reasons.

Words to Know

confectionaries sweets, candies

depicted shown, represented

euphoria a feeling of well-being

w.e crunch and chew our way through vast quantities of snacks and confectionaries and relieve our thirst with multicolored, flavored soft drinks, with and without calories, for two basic reasons. The first is simple: the food tastes good, and we enjoy the sensation of eating it. Second, we associate these foods, often without being aware of it, with the highly pleasurable experiences depicted in the advertisements used to promote their sale. Current television advertisements demonstrate this point: people turn from grumpiness to euphoria after crunching a corn chip. Others water ski into the sunset with their loved ones while drinking a popular soft drink. People entertain on the patio with friends, cook over campfires without mosquitoes, or go to carnivals with granddad munching away at the latest candy or snack food. The people portrayed in these scenarios are all healthy, vigorous, and good looking; one wonders how popular the food they convince us to eat would be if they would crunch or drink away while complaining about low back pain or clogged sinuses.

Questions About the Reading

1.Why do people consume snacks and soft drinks?

2.How do television advertisements portray people eating snack foods?

3.What do you think would happen if television advertisements showed people complaining about poor health while eating snack foods?

Questions About the Writer's Strategies

1. Is the topic of this paragraph stated directly or implied? If it is stated directly, where is it located? If it is implied, state it in your own words.

2.Identify the cause-and-effect elements of this essay.

3.Explain the ways in which commercials use cause and effect to create false or misleading impressions.

Writing Assignments

Write a paragraph or an essay in which you describe the long-term ill effects of a poor diet—one that includes too much junk food or, in a quite different case, one that leads to undernourishment owing to hunger. You may want to research this topic in the library.

2.Think of a time when you consumed way too much of something— caffeine, cake or ice cream, spicy chili, or pizza or spaghetti. In a paragraph, describe the effects of your overindulgence.

3.Write a paragraph in which you identify some of the effects on your body of some activity in which you participate—for instance, jogging, tennis, yoga, or dance.

Scourge of the Budworm

Tracy Kidder

Modern civilization has come up with any number of ways to rid itself of insect pests. Or has it? In this paragraph from his book House, Tracy Kidder points out how "controlled" insects may in the end do more damage than if they had been left alone.

Words to Know

forage food

virulent severely destructive

X n the natural regime, budworm epidemics besiege the Maine woods every thirty to fifty years. Left to run its course, an outbreak kills some 40 percent of the fir and the red and white spruce in its path. Then the moths subside. Spraying the woods with insecticides began in the 1950s and has continued intermittently. Chemicals have prevented a lot of damage, but in doing so they have also kept alive enough forage for the budworm population to remain at the verge of an outbreak more widespread and virulent than if there had been no spraying. In this way, spraying has made more spraying inevitable. Insecticides now represent the only barrier against truly catastrophic losses of Maine's spruce and fir, but spraying cannot prevent substantial losses. The budworm has already eaten its way through large sections of spruce and fir. In the worst areas, evergreen canopies now stand all gray and powdery. For a time, industries in the Maine woods will have at their disposal more dead and dying trees than they can use, and then, probably, a time will come when there will be less of the right kinds of wood in the forest than the various mills are designed to handle. For the Maine woods, there seem to be no ways around the budworm that won't have unpleasant consequences, both economic and environmental.

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Questions About the Reading

|. In the natural cycle, why do budworms subside?

2.How has spraying created a situation in which the budworm is able to avoid its cyclical decline?

3.What point is the writer making about human intervention in ecological systems?

Questions About the Writer's Strategies

1.What primary mode of development does the writer use for his description of cause and effect?

2.One could identify either spraying or the budworms as the main cause in the paragraph. Which is the cause in your view? Why?

3.Is this paragraph written objectively or subjectively? Describe other aspects of the writer's tone and how they contribute to the impression of objectivity or subjectivity.

Writing Assignments

1. Think of a time when you behaved impulsively or acted in panic without thinking. Write a paragraph describing the causes and effects of your actions.

2.Most of us have had experiences with pests of some kind. Describe such an experience in a paragraph. Explain what damage or inconvenience the pest caused and what you did about it? What were the effects of what you did?

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Chapter 8 / Cause and Effect

Bonding at Birth

Douglas A. Bernstein, Edward]. Roy,

Thomas K. Srull, and Christopher Wickens

Cause-and-effeddevelopmentoffersausefulformatforobjective,informativewriting.In thisparagraphfromapsychologytextbook,noticehowthewritersusecauseandeffect tosummarize,clearlyandconcisely,thepointtobelearned.

Words to Know

pediatricians doctors who specialize in the care of children

J. n 1976 a book called Maternal-Infant Bonding was published. It changed the way that newborn infants are treated from the moment of birth. The authors, pediatricians Marshall Klaus and John Kennell, had observed mothers and their newborns and found that, during the first hour or so after birth, babies are usually awake and will gaze at the mother's face while the mother gazes at and touches the infant. The importance of this early contact was demonstrated by Klaus and Kennell's experiments on the effect of leaving mothers and newborns together for the hour after birth or giving them extra opportunities to be together during their hospital stay. They found that women who were given early and extended contact with their babies were later more emotionally attached to them than mothers given only the routine contact allowed by usual hospital procedures. Further, mothers given early and extended contact with their infants felt more competent and were more reluctant to leave their infants with another person. They stayed closer to their infants, often gazing into their eyes, touching and soothing them, and fondling and kissing them. This difference occurred in the hospital and lasted for a year or more (Hales et al., 1977; Kennell et al., 1974).

Questions About the Reading

1.How are newborn infants now treated? How do you think they were treated formerly?

2.How did Klaus and Kennell arrive at their findings? Make up a more detailed description of how you think the actual activities in their experiment went.

3.Procedures surrounding what fathers do during delivery have also changed in recent years. Judging from this paragraph, what do you think fathers should be doing while the baby is being born and just afterward?

Questions About the Writers' Strategies

1.What is the cause in this paragraph? Is there more than one cause?

2.What is the effect? Is there more than one?

3.Is there a topic sentence in this paragraph? If so, where is it? If not, state the main idea in your own words.

4.The paragraph describes observed behavior but not underlying internal causes of that behavior. Why?

Writing Assignments

1.Look at the bonding effect from a different angle. Write a paragraph in which you speculate about the psychological causes of the effect. That is, discuss possible reasons why early contact strengthens bonding.

2.Have you ever known anyone who experienced an unwanted pregnancy? Using unwanted pregnancy as your cause, write a paragraph describing its effects. Illustrate with examples, if you can.

2 7 8

Chapter 8 / Cause and Effect

On Being Unemployed

Nelliejean Smith (Student)

In the paragraph that follows, we learn of the many effects that unemployment can have on a person's life. The writer makes us see—and feel with her—that unemployment is a traumatic experience. Nelliejean Smith has proven, however, that she can cope, for she wrote this paragraph as a student at Cuyahoga Community College.

Words to Know

bureaucracy government marked by spread of authority among numerous offices, inflexible rules of operation, and unwieldy administration

evoke to summon or call forth, elicit

D e i ng unemployed creates many problems for my family and me. First of all, there are financial problems. We have cut back on the quality of groceries we purchase. We now buy two pounds of hamburger in place of two pounds of sirloin. This hamburger is also divided into quantities sufficient for three meals: one may be Creole beef, one chili, and the other spaghetti. There is also less money for clothing. Dresses must be altered and made into blouses; pants make nice skirts after some alteration. I have two more very sticky problems. I've fallen behind in the rental payments for our apartment, and now I am experiencing difficulties trying to pay the back rent. The other sticky problem is my son's tuition payments. There does not seem to be any way that I can send a complete payment to his college. These are not the only problems I face. I also have psychological problems as a result of unemployment. Often I wonder why this has happened to me. Then depression and confusion take over, and I feel drained of all my abilities.

The one question that fills my mind most often is the following: Why can't I get employment? This question evokes in me a lack of self-confi- dence and self-worth. I am haunted by an overall feeling of uselessness. My other problems center on trying to cope with the bureaucracy of the Employment Bureau. Once I get to the Employment Bureau, I stand in line to sign up. I then wait in another line to which I must report. Once I go through all of this, I am sent out for job interviews, only to find that the employer wants someone with more experience. To top everything off, I had to wait almost six months to receive my first unemployment check. As you can see, there is often a frustrating-

ly long delay in receiving benefits. My family and I have suffered through many problems because of my unemployment.

Questions About the Reading

1. What do you think makes the inability to pay rent and her son's tuition particularly "sticky" problems for the writer?

2.What makes the writer feel "drained of her abilities?"

3.What psychological effects do you think the writer's unsuccessful job interviews have on her?

Questions About the Writer's Strategies

1. What is the main idea of this paragraph? Where is this idea first introduced? Where is it repeated?

2.Transitional words and expressions provide a bridge between points in this paragraph. Identify the writer's transitions.

3.The writer uses many examples to illustrate the effects of unemployment she names. Identify any two effects that are mentioned. Then identify two examples for each of these effects.

4.What order does the writer use in discussing the problems?

Writing Assignments

1. Is the Employment Bureau the writer describes doing a good job? In a paragraph, describe the effects of the bureau's procedures.

2.What are the effects unemployment has had on the American people as a whole? Do you think it has changed our image of ourselves as a nation? Write a cause-and-effect paragraph or essay in which you indicate some of the social effects of unemployment. You may want to read some articles on this topic in the library before you write.

3.Although being employed has more positive than negative effects, work does have effects that may not always be pleasant. Write a paragraph on how a particular job or certain types of jobs can have negative effects.

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It Took This Night to Make Us Know

Bob Greene

Eleven Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany. The news shocked and horrified the world. It also made at least one man—Chicago newspaper columnist Bob Greene—look deep inside himself and think, for perhaps the first time, about where he came from, who he was, and what it means to be born Jewish in today's world.

Words to Know

abstraction a general idea representing a physical concept

were Jews, and that is why on this night there are so many of us starting to realize for the first time what that means.

It is not supposed to be very strong in us, for we cannot remember. 10 We grew up laughing at the solemn old Jewish phrases that sounded so mournful and outmoded and out of date in the second half of the twentieth century. Ancient, outmoded phrases from the temples, phrases like "Let my people go." Phrases that we chose to let mean nothing, because it is not supposed to be very strong in us.

Questions About the Reading

1. Why, according to the writer, are young Jews embarrassed to be around old Jews with "tortured faces?"

2.Why is the writer having difficulty writing a story about a presidential campaign?

3.What effect does the killing of several Jewish men at the Olympics have on the young Jewish people living in the United States?

4.What "is not supposed to be very strong" in young American Jews?

5.Consider the title of the essay. What is it that the writer and his contemporaries now know?

Questions About the Writer's Strategies

1. In your own words, express the main idea or thesis of the essay. Does the writer ever state this idea explicitly in a single sentence or must the reader infer it?

2.What is the writer's tone in the essay? What attitude does he have toward the event described—and toward himself and his friends as a result of the event?

3.Identify the cause-and-effect elements in the essay.

4.How does the writer use repetition in the essay? What is its effect?

Writing Assignments

1. Write an essay in which you discuss what you perceive to be the causes of racial violence and their effects on society.

2.Do the Olympic Games decrease tensions among people of different nations, cultures, and races? Write a cause-and-effect essay on this topic.

3.Recall an incident in which you were ridiculed, harassed, or mistreated for no apparent reason other than groundless hostility. If you have never experienced anything like this, maybe someone among your friends could describe such an incident for you. Using the incident as your cause, write an essay about how it affected you or your friend.

The Whoomper Factor

Nathan Cobb

Like it or not, almost nothing affects our lives so much as the weather. In February 1978, a massive blizzard paralyzed the entire northeastern United States. Three feet of snow fell on New England in two days, and the state of Massachusetts closed down for a week to recover. Nathan Cobb, a columnist for the Boston Globe, found that the blizzard had an unusual effect on him and his fellow Bostonians.

The point is, whoompers teach us a lesson. Or rather several lessons. 4 For one thing, here are all these city folk who pride themselves on their instinct for survival, and suddenly they cannot bear to venture into the streets because they are afraid of being swallowed up. Virtual pris-

But enough of this. There's a whoomper outside tonight, and it re10 quires my presence.

Questions About the Reading

1. What do the italicized words in the first paragraph refer to? What does the writer mean by "mere local disablement?"

2.How do "whoompers keep us in our place?"

3."City folks tend not to believe in anything they can't hear with their own ears." Analyze this statement. What does the writer mean? Is he right, in your opinion?

4.How do whoompers affect the way city people treat one another?

Questions About the Writer's Strategies

1.The writer uses definition as an important strategy in this essay. Where and how is it used?

2.What mode of development does the writer use in paragraph 9? What idea is developed in the paragraph?

3.How many effects does the writer describe in the essay? Briefly state each effect.

4.In the third paragraph, identify the simile. What does the simile indicate about the writer's attitude toward the subway?

5.Identify the metaphor in paragraph 5. What does the metaphor

mean:

Writing Assignments

1.Write an essay in which you choose one extreme weather event— such as a blizzard, flood, drought, hurricane, or tornado—and explain the effects that it had on your family.

2.In the essay, the writer discusses the idea that people feel they have some control over weather conditions. Write an essay in which you discuss what has caused people to feel this way; discuss such things as scientific forecasting, radar, and satellites.

3.Write an essay describing the effects of a snowstorm on young children and why it has these effects. If you are from a northern climate, include examples from your own experience. If you are from a southern climate, imagine that you are a child seeing snow for the first time.

My First Lesson in How to

Live as a Negro

Richard Wright

Richard Wright is one of the most important black American writers. Born in Mississippi in 1908, Wright left school after the ninth grade and moved to Chicago, where he worked as a postal clerk. In 1946, he moved to Paris, where he lived until his death in I960. In the essay, taken from Wright's Uncle Tom's Children, he describes his first lesson in what it meant to be a young black in the United States in the early part of this century.

of a barrel

I V l y first lesson in how to live as a Negro came when I was quite 1 small. We were living in Arkansas. Our house stood behind the railroad tracks. Its skimpy yard was paved with black cinders. Nothing green ever grew in that yard. The only touch of green we could see was far away, beyond the tracks, over where the white folks lived. But cinders were good enough for me and I never missed the green growing things. And anyhow cinders were fine weapons. You could always have a nice hot war with huge black cinders. All you had to do was crouch behind the brick pillars of a house with your hands full of gritty ammunition. And the first woolly black head you saw pop out from behind another row of pillars was your target. You tried your very best to knock it off. It was great fun.

I never fully realized the appalling disadvantages of a cinder envi- 2 ronment till one day the gang to which I belonged found itself engaged in a war with the white boys who lived beyond the tracks. As usual we laid down our cinder barrage, thinking that this would wipe the

Chapter 8 / Cause and Effect

From that time on, the charm of my cinder yard was gone. The green trees, the trimmed hedges, the cropped lawns grew very meaningful, became a symbol. Even today when I think of white folks, the hard, sharp outlines of white houses surrounded by trees, lawns, and hedges are present somewhere in the background of my mind. Through the years they grew into an overreaching symbol of fear.

Questions About the Reading

1. What was the difference between fighting with cinders and fighting with broken bottles?

2. Why do you think Wright expected his mother to understand what had happened? Why do you think she beat him instead?

3. Why did the green trees, trimmed hedges, and cropped lawns become a symbol of fear for Wright?

Questions About the Writer's Strategies

1. Does this essay have a direct thesis statement? If so, what is it and where is it located? If not, state it in your own words.

2.What two modes of development are used to develop the thesis?

3.Identify the cause-and-effect elements of the essay.

4.Compare the first and last paragraphs of the essay, and explain the purpose of each.

Writing Assignments

1. Recall an incident from your childhood that has had a long-lasting effect on you. Write an essay that describes that incident and its effects.

2. Have you ever been involved in a fight or an argument that you knew you couldn't win? Describe the incident and discuss its effects on you.

3. Try to recall an incident that brought home to you the painful meaning of discrimination or prejudice. Write an essay describing the incident and its effects on you.

The Bounty of the Sea

Jacques Cousteau

Jacques Cousteau, the famous French oceanographer, has brought the world of the oceans to us through his books and television documentaries. His love for the oceans has extended to a lifelong concern for protecting and conserving the marine environment. In the following essay, written in the mid-1960s, he vividly describes the sickening of the ocean and the effects that the death of the oceans would have on humankind.

Words to Know

buffer something that protects cheek by jowl very dose together effluents sewage

insupportable unbearable

plankton algae microscopic plant life that floats in water

remorseless without regret or pity stench stink, bad smell

teemed swarmed

trawlers fishing boats that drag large nets along the bottom of the ocean

During the past thirty years, I have observed and studied the oceans closely, and with my own two eyes I have seen them sicken. Certain reefs that teemed with fish only ten years ago are now almost lifeless. The ocean bottom has been raped by trawlers. Priceless wetlands have been destroyed by landfill. And everywhere are sticky globs of oil, plastic refuse, and unseen clouds of poisonous effluents. Often, when I describe the symptoms of the oceans' sickness, I hear remarks like "they're only fish" or "they're only whales" or "they're only birds." But I assure you that our destinies are linked with theirs in the most profound and fundamental manner. For if the oceans should die—by which I mean that all life in the sea would finally cease—this would signal the end not only for marine life but for all other animals and plants of this earth, including man.

With life departed, the ocean would become, in effect, one enormous cesspool. Billions of decaying bodies, large and small, would create such an insupportable stench that man would be forced to leave all the coastal regions. But far worse would follow.

Questions About the Reading

1. How does Cousteau know that the oceans are sick? What evidence does he give?

2.What is the "greenhouse effect?"

3.What is CO2?

Questions About the Writer's Strategies

1. What is the thesis of this essay? Is it directly stated or implied? If it is directly stated, where in the essay is it stated?

2.Identify the cause-and-effect elements of this essay.

3.Apart from cause and effect, does the writer use any other modes of development?

4.How is the reader affected by the use of such words as "scummed over," "thick film of decayed matter," and "cesspool" to describe the ocean?

Writing Assignments

1. Write an essay discussing some of the causes and effects of air pollution. You may want to do some reading in the library before you write.

2.What personal steps can you take to stop pollution? Write an essay that describes what you as an individual can do and what effects you think your actions would have.

3.Why do people pollute? Write an essay identifying some of the things that cause people to harm the environment and the types of pollution that result.