"I think slapping a fine on a parent doesn't necessarily get to the root of the problem and doesn't necessarily do anything about it, " she said.

BBC: Kent parents fined most for child school absence

And Dan Stein of the Federation for American Immigration Reform says it doesn't get to the root of the problem, that employers use illegal immigrants to undercut US workers.

NPR: Kennedy, McCain Introduce Immigration, Guest Worker Bill

Representative TANCREDO: It does but it certainly also is hoping to get to the real root of the problem and the root of the problem is, of course, the magnet that is created by the employers who are, who are offering the jobs that people are taking and people who are here illegally are taking.

NPR: Colorado Congressman Fights Illegal Immigration

The researchers specifically tried to get to the root of the chicken-or-egg problem -- do children become more aggressive after playing video games or are aggressive kids more attracted to violent videos?

CNN: Violent video games linked to child aggression

In fact, Salnoske, leveraging his skills as an expert in diagnosing problems to identify that the company needed someone who would oversee a broader variety of divisions of the company to get to the root cause of an issue that had been labeled as an operations problem, as he explains at some length herein.

FORBES: CIO-plus Series: Interview with Karl Salnoske, the EVP of Service Delivery and CIO of GXS

Doctors have to get patients to list their symptoms, describe their behaviour, make a diagnosis and work out whether the root of the problem is at work, home, or in something as vague as fear of crime, all within ten minutes, says Mary Church, a Lanarkshire doctor.

ECONOMIST: Why so many people are off sick while the economy is healthy