6 Responses to Causal Rewrite- MochaAtrain

1. mochaatrain says:

   November 10, 2022 at 8:08 AM

   I’m inclined to believe that this essay is more about correlation and causation. I don’t know if that’s the case fully because I tried to make a causal argument, but every time I’m doing research I find myself just trying to form the argument around the sources I find. So can you help identify whether this is more correlation or causal? If it’s in a bad direction how can I fix it?

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2. mochaatrain says:

   November 10, 2022 at 9:07 AM

   Some of the sources are not in my white paper right now, but I will put them in soon.

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3. davidbdale says:

   November 27, 2022 at 4:46 PM

   From growing, food for livestock to the consumption of cheap fast food comes irreversible damage such as water and air pollution, increased health care expenses, and increased risk of disease. Through the fast food industry’s high demand for meat production, they increase the use of pesticides and fertilizers used to raise feed for livestock, while also increasing the use of petroleum in transportation. The process itself is not the only worry as fast food consumers suffer from obesity and chronic disease like diabetes.
   —Mocha, I don’t know if you’re trying to sound academic, or if you haven’t figured out how to identify your real Subjects and Verbs, but your first three sentences are hard to follow even when I know what you’re getting at.
   —Do you mind if I help you simplify as a model?

   New First Sentence to set up the entire set of consequences:
   —Fast food is cheap for customers at the drive-thru, but its costs to the society are undeniable.

   The rest of the paragraph simplified.
   —Food crops grown for livestock pollute our air and water irreversibly with pesticides and fertilizers. Transporting meat from distant continents burns vast amounts of petroleum. And the high-calorie, low-nutrition junk foods themselves inflict obesity, diabetes, and billions of dollars in health care costs on their customers.

   Notice the new Subject/Verb combinations:
   Crops pollute our air
   Transporting meat burns petroleum
   Junk Foods inflict diseases and costs.

   Compare those to your Subject/Verb combinations:
   Irreversible damage comes from growing fast food.
   They increase the use of pesticides.
   The process is not the only worry.

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4. davidbdale says:

   November 27, 2022 at 5:36 PM

   The fast food industry has multiple steps that make it run.
   —Again, “the industry has steps” creates zero urgency for a reader to continue.
   —We know from the rest of the paragraph, eventually, that each step inflicts damage or cost on our society.
   —Why delay that claim?

   The growing of crops, the fattening of livestock, the production of products, the transportation of food, and the consumption of food.
   —Naming the steps without identifying their costs sanitizes them, Mocha. They sound innocuous as you’ve described them; in fact, they all sound like very positive contributions to the food-production-and-delivery system that keeps us all healthy and alive.

   There are probably many more steps that are required for a restaurant like McDonald’s to work, but that’s the simple breakdown.
   —Irrelevant until you’re ready to tell us the other hazards created by McDonalds in their specific practices.

   In each of these steps comes a few side effects that result in its completion, harming us both indirectly and directly.
   —”comes a few side effects” is how we would describe hoarseness we experience the day after we scream our heads off cheering for our championship team.
   —the “side effects” you’re hinting at are pollution, disease, rainforest depletion, global warming, and slow painful death.

   Whether it be pollution or extra health care expenses, the fast food industry is the source of these consequences.
   —It’s hard to tell you care.

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5. davidbdale says:

   November 27, 2022 at 6:24 PM

   OK. I’ve beat you up enough over phrasing your claims.
   You specifically asked me whether your argument was causal or correlational.
   I’ll restrict my remaining comments to answering that question.

   To start off fast food’s domino effect is farming crops. The cultivation of feed grains is the base on which the staggering numbers of livestock are fed. Thousands of acres are tilted and prepped to grow crops that will be tended to while being subjected to pesticides and fertilizers. These pesticides, while minuscule at first, continue to become the runoff that goes into the water or gets absorbed into the soil affecting future wildlife and plant growth. The love of using pesticides is from the food industry’s popularity. Crops need to have efficient yields to keep up with the demand for food. The purpose pesticides serve is staggeringly positive. Pesticides are the reason why major crop yields have tripled in the span of the last forty years. They do their job but are sloppy in cleaning up the mess made on the way to work.
   —You’re working on a causal chain, but the terms are not clear, and the sequence is hard to follow.
   1. Cheap meat drives the fast food industry.
   2. Meat production requires cheap production of massive amounts of livestock grain.
   3. High grain yields depend on overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
   4. The chemicals devastate the land and water.
   5. Ten times as many people could feed on vegetables and grains as are fed by the meat produced when the produce is fed to cattle.
   6. Food subsidies supported by tax dollars keep the food cheap, but cost billions in government spending that could go to other uses.

   Pesticides are used to protect crops, not humans. In the process of applying the pesticides, only one percent of the pesticides used actually hit their target. And the rest continues to get soaked up by the environment. Whether it be air or water, pesticides can manage to reach people. Agricultural areas especially, increase the risk to other individuals through spraying pesticides which can be carried through the air. And according to “Pesticides, Environmental Pollution, and Health” high pesticide exposures are likely to result in prostate or lung cancer as well as an increase in neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
   —Pesticides protect crops from pests, but their runoff and blowoff slowly kill humans and other animals.
   —Once you make your bold introductory claim, the rest of your paragraph follows nicely.
   —You continue to choose the oddest subjects: “Agricultural areas increase risk”?
   —You haven’t mentioned fertilizers in this paragraph, but you could and probably should. Runoff carries most of it into the waterways, fouling streams and eventually the bays and lakes into which it empties, devastating aquatic animals and destroying the aquaculture.

   Along the way to getting food products to restaurants is global warming. Obviously, transportation contributes to the carbon dioxide pollution that contributes to global warming. Affecting everyone as global warming affects the weather, wildlife, sea levels, and much more. Food Transportation amounts to about eleven percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Though eleven isn’t the biggest percentage, any amount that contributes to global warming is money. The actual process of fixing global warming problems takes billions of dollars. Eleven percent of just a billion dollars is $110,000,000.
   —Please rephrase “Along the way is global warming.”
   —Your “affecting” sentence fragment is illegal.
   —Eleven percent of WHAT emissions? Eleven percent of all Transportation emissions? Eleven percent of all greenhouse gas emissions of all types?
   —If you don’t like the percentage, don’t use it. Use the total tonnage of carbon emitted in a year and compare it to something smaller, like eight times as much as all annual Amazon deliveries.

   Now in direct correlation with our health, fast food may just cost us our lives. The ingredients and high portions of the food served are the breeding grounds for obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and shortened lifespan. Obesity itself comes with its own set of increased risks and fast food that is filled with saturated fats, oils, and refined carbohydrates is just there to clog our arteries and attack our hearts. And the journal “The Hidden Dangers of Fast and Processed Food” agrees so far as to say that anything cooked with oil should be considered fast food. The author Joel Fuhrman continues in this journal to attack fast foods and the numerous dangerous aspects that threaten human health.
   —The content is fine. I’m going to stop complaining about the phrasing.
   —I don’t think “The Hidden Dangers . . . ” is a journal. It might be a journal article.

   “One serving of French fries or fried chicken that is cooked in a fast food restaurant has 100 times the level of aldehydes designated as safe by the World Health Organization. Even the fumes are so toxic they increase the risk of cancer. People working in restaurants that fry the food, or those working in a movie theater making popcorn, have a heightened risk of lung and other cancers, even if they don’t eat any of the fried foods.”
   —To be fair, you’d need to specify the offending oils here, Mocha. Discerning readers will not accept that using olive oil categorically creates dangerous junk food, for example.
   —But since your complaints are with the fast food industry, the citation is fair.
   —Make it MORE effective by noting that to keep costs down, chains use the cheapest and most dangerous fats.

   As the risks rise in obesity so does healthcare. Fast food basically costs more than consumers bargained for when they are paying more for health insurance. The simple way fast food affects people’s health insurance is that the food increases weight gain and gets people closer to obesity. As the gap between being non-obese and obese shrinks, the risks of contracting a chronic disease grow. When dealing with chronic diseases like diabetes, people have to spend around $9,000 more annually on medical expenditures. Though just gaining weight can increase the number of times a person needs to be seen by a doctor due to weight-related problems which in turn increases medical costs.
   —You skipped a causal step in your first sentence.
   —MY eating fast food doesn’t raise MY health insurance costs (premiums, deductibles, and co-pays), but it DOES contribute to massive national spending on health care overall. And THAT raises everybody’s insurance costs.
   —As for the individual, very likely you’re correct that personal care costs more, not necessarily insurance. So far, insurance companies don’t charge higher premiums on obese insureds.

   The most significant consequence of all is the years taken off our life. Studies show that the more obese a person becomes the more time they have taken off their lifespan. According to “A Heavy Burden” morbidly obese people have around four to five years robbed. Take the money that would be earned within those years and flush it down the toilet. Cheap food is deceiving and will return to take your wallet.
   —Good to hear some straight talk!

   The fast food industry is breaking world records in obesity rates and social consequences. Pesticides promote cancer among people, The meat production process is unarguably polluting the environment, food transportation contributes to global warming, and the items on restaurant menus cause people to take the full blast of obesity. Each of these steps is costing the government and fast food consumers money. Governments spend money fixing pollution and global warming, and consumers are paying with and for their health.
   —”breaking world records” is cheesy, Mocha. Meaningless rhetoric.
   —”items” don’t cause anyone to “take a full blast.”
   —It’s good to conclude with a recap of the costs.

   I think it’s causal.
   You don’t actually provide strong evidence that
   1. There’s a massive calorie loss feeding cows to feed people
   2. There’s a need to transport fast food that is different—and more onerous—than the cost of transporting other foods
   3. A heavy diet of fast food leads to obesity. You SAY it, but . . . .
   4. others

   So, I wouldn’t say the problem is a failure to be causal; it’s a failure to come up with the goods to back up your claims.

   Provisionally graded. This post is always eligible for a Regrade following significant Revisions.

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6. mochaatrain says:

   November 29, 2022 at 8:33 PM

   Thank you for the feedback, you answered my question thoroughly. I’ll fix the bad phrasing throughout the whole essay and I’ll try to look for better evidence. Finding evidence has been a struggle for me, but I’ll see what I can find.

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