Causal Argument - Ch. 13 Bookwork & Essay Topic Ideas

Exercise 13.1 on 354
-Having weapons (guns) more easily accessible [will] raise crime/homicide rates.
-Not having weapons accessible [will] make emergencies more dangerous for victims.

-Smoking cigarettes effects smoker's health and the health of those around them.
-Cigarette smoking is contributing to poverty.
-Smoking cigarettes during pregnancy ensures a less healthy early life for your child.
-Warning people about the dangers of smoking will discourage them from the habit.

-If you are a friend, you will stop your friends from driving drunk.
-Lowering the drinking age will raise rates of drunk driving and related deaths.

Exercise 13.5 on 361
In the first paragraph, the cause Ephron identifies is eating chicken soup, and the result is getting a cold. More plausible causes of getting the cold are not getting enough sleep for your immune system to be strong enough to ward off the cold, and the cold already having advanced too far to be fought off.
The cause and effect from the second paragraph are breast-feeding and children developing allergies. Other causes could be a trend of slight DNA mutations in humans that make us more vulnerable to allergies, the increase in genetically modified foods, changes in diet that result in different bacteria/flora in our bodies, and a decrease in bacteria in the environments we inhabit resulting in weaker immune systems.
The third paragraph presents the use of computers as the cause of the decline in movie quality. More probable causes might be societal changes in values and entertainment preferences, the change from movies being primarily an art form to primarily money makers, the quicker current production rate of movies, and the lack of new ideas for movies since by now there have been so many already produced.
In the last paragraph, Ephron presents a twist by suggesting at the end that reading about hand-washing leads to memory loss, instead of hand-washing leading to decreased immunity in infants. Better reasons for Ephron's memory loss regarding the source of the information she read is the poor diet, poor sleeping habits, and high stress levels of Americans that work against memory, as well as the ever-increasing plethora of information we are exposed to in magazine articles, newspapers, television, ads, etc. and a low emphasis placed on remembering the exact source of information we learn.


CAUSAL ARGUMENT ESSAY IDEAS
1. Education curriculums are mostly to blame for the increasing incompetence of Americans in practical and ethical realms.
-time wasted on busy work/mastering simple skills many kids already have/will never use
-education not changing at rate appropriate to technological change
-lack of axiology and important life lessons being taught
2. Soft drinks are a major cause of obesity!
-Coke ad: "Open happiness"
3. The current thought of relative truth/"What's good for you" is breeding a generation of selfish and irresponsible people.
4. Shortcomings in the English language are largely responsible for societal confusion and irresponsibility (WC?).
-we only have 1 word for "love" -> girls' and boys' hearts get broken, children grow up with misconceptions