The Assignment:

Choose a subject-an event, a phenomenon, or a trend-that invites you to speculate about its cause. Write an essay of no less than 5 pages (MLA format)  arguing for your trend, phenomenon, or event and for your proposed cause. Thus, in  this assignment, you need to do two things:

(1) Establish the existence the trend, event, or phenomenon.

(2) Establish that your proposed causal explanation is a sound conclusion.

Your ?rst task will be to demonstrate the plausibility of the existence of the trend,  event, or phenomenon you are attempting to explain.

The logic of correlations as  explored in Chapter 6 may be very helpful here. If you can give evidence that two events have happened together- and that the chance rival is implausible- you will  have shown the the two events are likely causally connected in some way.

So, as a strategy, showing that there is a signi?cant correlation between two events is a good way to demonstrate the existence of something in need of explanation. In addition, the language of Non-Trace Data type A (from the old edition of the book) and a Trace  Locating Resource (new edition of the book) are also wonderful avenues for  demonstrating that something is in need of explanation.

For example, you normally  despise reality television. You cannot stand to be in the same room where it is being  watched. Nevertheless, you ?nd that you love The Real Housewives of Atlanta. If you  can demonstrate that you normally hate reality television and that you love that  particular show, you will have shown to your reader that there really is something here to explain.

And now your argument can begin.Just as in your ?rst writing assignment, where you demonstrated the Principle of Charity through mediating your own personal disagreements, the more local and personal the trend, event, or phenomenon you attempt to explain the better.

This is because your GUS (general understanding of stuff) and your experience will enable you to reason better about the trend, event, or phenomenon.

You will also be in a better position to investigate it. In addition to the above example, you may have noticed that your workplace isn't as busy as it used to be, or that campus parking has been easier to ?nd, or even simply that you haven't been having dinner at your grandparents' house as often as you used to. These sorts of discoveries of personal events or trends make for the best topics.

The heart of the essay, though, will be providing reasons to think that your supplied explanation of the event is the correct one. In this regard, the structure of your argument will be no different that the many arguments we've studied in Chapters 4, 5, and 6. Your argument, your essay itself, will have an implicit question providing the structure.

That IQ will most likely be the question which asks why your event, trend, or phenomenon happened. Your proposed cause (explanation) will be an answer, the best answer, to that question. The support you muster for that explanation (the right answer to the implicit question) will likely include other things that the supposed cause explains (Trace Data) and it will include things which help the explanation (Non-Trace Data).

Creative and persuasive writers will use a variety of sorts of TD and NTD (LER and GER), including facts, correlations, personal anecdotes, testimony of authorities, examples, and analogies. In addition, you should anticipate your readers' objections or questions.

So you will also want to show why rival explanations are not plausible. You will, in fact, spend some time steering your reader away from otherwise plausible rivals.