A prolific painter of portraits before and after the French Revolution ...

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Chapter 7
explaining
black holes cause gigantic gravitational whirlpools in outer space, but they have difficulty
explaining why black holes exist—or whether they exist at all.
In the realm of human cause and effect, determining causes and effects can be
as tricky as explaining why black holes exist. Why, for example, do some children learn
math easily while others fail? What effect does failing at math have on a child? What
are necessary and sufficient causes for divorce? What are the effects of divorce on parents
and children? Although you may not be able to explain all the causes or effects
of something, you should not be satisfied until you have considered a wide range of
possible causes and effects. Even then, you need to qualify or modify your statements,
using such words as might, usually, often, seldom, many, or most, and then giving
as much support and evidence as you can.
In the following paragraphs, Jonathan Kozol, a critic of America’s educational
system and author of Illiterate America, explains the multiple effects of a single cause:
illiteracy. Kozol supports his explanation by citing specific ways that illiteracy affects
the lives of people:
Illiterates cannot read the menu in a restaurant.
They cannot read the cost of items on the menu in the window of the
restaurant before they enter.
Illiterates cannot read the letters that their children bring home from
their teachers. They cannot study school department circulars that tell them
of the courses that their children must be taking if they hope to pass the
SAT exams. They cannot help with homework. They cannot write a letter
to the teacher. They are afraid to visit in the classroom. They do not want
to humiliate their child or themselves. . . .
Many illiterates cannot read the admonition on a pack of cigarettes.
Neither the Surgeon General’s warning nor its reproduction on the package
can alert them to the risks. Although most people learn by word of
mouth that smoking is related to a number of grave physical disorders, they
do not get the chance to read the detailed stories which can document this
danger with the vividness that turns concern into determination to resist.
They can see the handsome cowboy or the slim Virginia lady lighting up a
filter cigarette; they cannot heed the words that tell them that this product
is (not “may be”) dangerous to their health. Sixty million men and women
are condemned to be the unalerted, high-risk candidates for cancer....
Illiterates cannot travel freely. When they attempt to do so, they encounter
risks that few of us can dream of. They cannot read traffic signs and,
while they often learn to recognize and to decipher symbols, they cannot
manage street names which they haven’t seen before. The same is true for
bus and subway stops. While ingenuity can sometimes help a man or
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