Cause-Effect: The Generation Gap

    To put it in simple terms, the generation gap-a broad difference between one generation and another, especially between young people and their parents-leads to a problem which is as old as the hills. One may wonder why this problem has been unresolved throughout the ages. There are some reasons for that.


    Psychologists believe that most young people experience conflict during their adolescence. They are neither children anymore nor yet adults, but individuals who are desperately searching for self-identity. As they grow up, they adopt values that differ from those held by their parents, and develop an unfavorable attitude toward the adult world because it symbolizes “the skin they hope to shed away.”

    Conflicts actually arise because young people feel that they have a right to be independent. They look at parents as “enemies” who do not let them live the way they want to-staying out late, wearing fashionable clothes, or choosing their own friends. What makes things even worse is that teenagers suffer a sense of incapability and rage as they realize that financially they still depend on their parents, and they would not have a nice party or a holiday without their parents’ approval and support.

    The period of adolescence is closely connected to making important life decisions, such as choosing a career path. That is precisely where the trouble lies. Young people are told that they have the world at their feet, that dazzling future opportunities are just waiting to be seized. However, when they finally decide that they want to work, say, as music players instead of majoring in medicine or law, their parents tear out hair and seem to be heartbroken.

    Difficulties in relationships with parents may in certain cause lead to such serious problems as drinking alcohol or taking drugs, refusing to attend school, running away from home, or even turning to violence. In such cases, parental threatening and yelling usually don’t work. It seems that the best way to put matters straight is to take a middle course. Parents should take the initiative to start a calm, serious discussion with their children in which they treat the latter more or less as “partners” in decision-making. They should also keep in mind that if teenagers feel neglected in the most agitated time of their lives, they may lose them altogether.

Paragraph Unity and Coherence

Paragraphs should have both coherence and unity. A paragraph with unity develops a single idea thoroughly and links it to the rest of the paper. Paragraph coherence is achieved when sentences are ordered in a logical manner and when clear transitions link sentences.

Paragraph unity:

  • Develop a paragraph around a major idea. Express this idea in the topic sentence.
  • Make the relationship between the main idea of the paragraph and the thesis of the paper clear. Don’t assume that the reader will “get it.” Spell it out for him/her. 
  • Support the main idea of the paragraph with details.
  • Create separate paragraphs for those details that explore your topic from different perspectives.
  • Eliminate sentences that do not support the main idea. Alternately, you may revise the main idea to include those sentences.

Look at the following examples from a paper that has the thesis: “Despite the amount of foreign aid pouring in, social conditions in Zeeland remain bleak because the aid is used for military purposes.”

Example 1 (without unity)
Robert Bee wrote, “The Zeeland massacre illustrates the need for greater control and vigilance.” This is related to the thesis. Some 20,000 people disappeared from the villages. Financial mishandling can lead to great misfortune. Corruption in the government was exposed repeatedly to no avail. A police force, under orders to eliminate suspected terrorists, grabbed political dissidents and their families.

Example 2 (unified)
The pogrom of May 3, 1987 exemplifies how foreign aid funds were appropriated for repressive rather than social development purposes. On that day, some 20,000 people were abducted from villages in the countryside, charged as traitors and summarily executed. Then governor-for-life Zeely Zeelafsun had recently used $5 billion in aid to create a standing paramilitary police force. Without some restrictive control over the aid, human rights organizations were unable to prevent the buildup and unleashing of this disaster. Robert Bee, the director of the Development as Freedom Foundation wrote, “The Zeeland massacre illustrates the need for greater control and vigilance.”


In the first paragraph it is hard to tell what the topic sentence is, let alone how all the sentences belong together. The reader is not informed who Robert Bee is. The words “related to” in the second sentence don’t give the reader any sense of what the relationship is. The second paragraph provides a tight topic sentence that links the main idea of the paragraph to the central argument of the paper. It eliminates details that do not fall under the topic and adds details that are relevant to the reader’s understanding of the events and their relation to foreign aid.


Paragraph coherence:

Decide on an order for your sentences that will best develop the paragraph’s main idea. Your supporting sentences are raw materials. They will not make sense to a reader unless they are put in order.

This order could be based on several factors:
  • Chronological sequence. This is useful for describing a sequence of events.
  • Modified chronology. Sometimes a major idea presented early in a paragraph can be supplemented with necessary background information.
  • Spatial position of different objects. This method is useful for description. ‘Conversation’ between different experts. By moving between a series of key positions, a writer can establish a sense of dialogue and develop a complex argument.
  • Logical form of argument. Some form of logical proof, like a syllogism, can serve as the basis for order.

Once you have put your sentences in order, express the connections between them with transitional words or phrases. Think of these as signposts to guide the reader through your paragraph. They should be clear.

Examples (transitions in bold):


1) Chronological sequence
Topic sentence: Our journey was filled with misfortune and luck.
  • After the car broke, we had to walk several miles.
  • Having eaten little for lunch, we were soon wearied. 
  • While we wanted to continue toward town, we had to rest. 
  • It was at that moment that a trucker offered us a ride.

2) Expert Conversation
Topic sentence: Karl Marx and Michel Foucault produced influential and superficially similar but ultimately conflicting understandings of the way that power struggles determine truth.
  • Marx, writing in the mid-nineteenth century, asserted that truth was the product of conflicts between classes, or groups of people positioned differently in historical economic power arrangements.          
  • While agreeing with Marx’s recognition of the way that power struggles and history alter truth, Foucault was more skeptical about Marx’s identification of classes as the primary actors in the struggle.
  • Instead, Foucault suggested that an examination of the claims made about sexuality and appropriate punishments revealed a complex give and take between various social groups and interests, all of which sought to establish dominance by controlling meaning.
  • Marxist critics of Foucault argue in response that removing the focus from class eliminates a broad view of social conflict necessary to seeing how economic and political changes shape our everyday understanding.