Introduction to Causal Narrative

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The Causal Chain / Cloud

• Concerned with more than just what. Answers the five w’s:
  • who?
  • what?
  • where?
  • why?
  • when? → especially important. elucidating the historical context that generated a phenomenon can be a powerful analytic tool.
• causal analysis articulates a chain or a cloud of possible causes that contributed to the rise of an idea.
• either way you conceptualize it, causal analysis argues for the few events / incidents / data points selected as the cause of the phenomenon. In this way, the causal analysis is highly rhetorical.
• Extrapolating from this point, you can begin to (maybe) see that History is actually a rhetorical construct. While things clearly happened, answering the five w’s (and writing them down in a textbook, for instance) argues for a specific, thesis-driven perspective on the past.
• You don’t have to be exhaustive. While there are usually hundreds of things that could have caused a specific phenomenon, you need to highlight the few that are important to you.

From Cause to Effect

• For this assignment, you want to think about a present technology and construct a causal chain from things occurring in the present that suggest a future event. In other words, instead of modeling a chain of events that contributed to the occurrence of something in the past, I want you to build a causal chain for something you think will happen in the future.
• Constructing the future is inherently rhetorical, in fact, I would argue that all persuasion is about constructing a hypothetical future and arguing for its validity (think about asking someone out on a date).
• In this way, you need to have some things in mind when choosing a topic:
  1. History of device
  2. A possible future consequence of this device (isolation because of iPods; obesity because of computers)
  3. Aspects of the device that lead to this future.

Researching the Causal Analysis

• You need to have three sources for this paper. What can they be?
  1. Popular press accounts. Any new technology is going to be handled by mass media. For instance, Twitter was in USA Today yesterday; Facebook on the cover of Atlantic Monthly.
  2. Statistics. If you arguing that a technology is going to save / end the world, you need to have proof that it is as pervasive as you suggest. Sales statistics.
  3. Trade Journals / Manuals. These primary sources can give you some choose quotes about what manufacturers intend for their products.
• You will be required, in this course, to use the MLA citation standard, but we’ll talk more about how to do that later this week (Thursday, more than likely).

Thesis

• Thesis is going to be of the form: “Continued usage of x is going to cause y” where x is a technology and y is a future.
• Could also provide a blueprint for the rest of the essay: “Because of a, b, and c, x is causing y”. This form of the thesis gives readers more of a roadmap for where they are going.

A Possible Outline

• Introduction: Narrative or Summary of Phenomenon. Thesis here!
• History and Background of product: company, inventor, marketing. How to use it, if complicated.
• Choose 3 Elements of Technology. Describe how it affects the user psychologically, emotionally.
• Immediate Effects on the User that comes from all three things.
• Future Effects. Where is this going? A second effect, long term, social in nature (vs. individual for immediate).
• (optional) Evaluative paragraph. Why is this good or bad? Why should we care?
• Conclusion: What must be done.
• Counterargument: wherever it belongs in the argument.