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<font face="Arial, Helvetica"> After giving a general overview of the topic of cosmic strings I will <br /> present an analytic model specifically designed to address the issue of <br /> small scale structure on cosmic string networks. The model is derived from <br /> the microscopic string equations, together with a few motivated <br /> assumptions. The resulting form of the correlation between two points on a <br /> string will then be exploited to study smoothing by gravitational <br /> radiation, loop formation and lensing by cosmic strings. In addition, the <br /> properties of the small loop population and the possibility of detecting <br /> gravitational waves generated by their lowest harmonics will be discussed. </font>