Cause & Effect
Guidelines, Hints, and Tips
Always think about the purpose and scope of your essay, so that you won't make the mistake of thinking that a 5-paragraph structure is the best way to organize your essays. Instead, student writers should see that the form of an essay (its organization) needs to match the purpose of the essay.
Explaining Cause and Effect
Often writers are asked to explain how certain conditions or events are related to the occurrence of other conditions or events. When a writer argues that "one thing leads to another," he or she is making a cause-and-effect argument. For example, in an Economics class, students might be asked to explain the impact of increasing oil prices on the nation’s economy. Inherent in the question is the assumption that increasing oil prices is a cause, which produces specific effects in the rest of the economy. So, higher oil prices produce higher gasoline prices raising the cost of shipping goods. Higher oil prices produce higher jet fuel costs raising the cost of travel, and so on. "Higher oil prices" is the cause, and increased shipping costs and travel expenses are among the effects.
Writing tasks involving cause and effect analysis usually take one of two forms:
Finally, the writer needs to explain what this cause-and-effect relationship means.
This type of essay, then, has five parts (not paragraphs!), with each part corresponding to a specific task the writer needs to perform, and each part consisting of one or more paragraphs.
Guidelines, Hints, and Tips
(part 1)
Not all essays follow a 5-paragraph structure. Cause and Effect Essays are an example where this is the case.
It is important to understand that the five-paragraph essay is not necessarily bad. [It is simply a starting point for young writers.] However, most student writers are led to believe or rather, falsely believe, that all essays must follow the five-paragraph essay format. Just a little thought makes clear that format is very limiting and limited and does not provide an adequate organization for many types of writing assignments, especially at the higher academic levels. Always think about the purpose and scope of your essay, so that you won't make the mistake of thinking that a 5-paragraph structure is the best way to organize your essays. Instead, student writers should see that the form of an essay (its organization) needs to match the purpose of the essay.
Explaining Cause and Effect
Often writers are asked to explain how certain conditions or events are related to the occurrence of other conditions or events. When a writer argues that "one thing leads to another," he or she is making a cause-and-effect argument. For example, in an Economics class, students might be asked to explain the impact of increasing oil prices on the nation’s economy. Inherent in the question is the assumption that increasing oil prices is a cause, which produces specific effects in the rest of the economy. So, higher oil prices produce higher gasoline prices raising the cost of shipping goods. Higher oil prices produce higher jet fuel costs raising the cost of travel, and so on. "Higher oil prices" is the cause, and increased shipping costs and travel expenses are among the effects.Writing tasks involving cause and effect analysis usually take one of two forms:
1. explaining how a known cause produces specific effects. This type of analysis is what the Essay 3 topic requires.
2. explaining how specific effects are produced by a previously unknown cause (which the writer has discovered). This type of analysis is commonly referred to as root-cause analysis.
To argue that certain conditions will lead to other conditions (that the loss of privacy will lead to something else or that social media will have a profound impact with detrimental ramifications), first the writer needs to define clearly what those conditions are, and then the writer needs to make clear how those conditions lead to other conditions. Finally, the writer needs to explain what this cause-and-effect relationship means.
This type of essay, then, has five parts (not paragraphs!), with each part corresponding to a specific task the writer needs to perform, and each part consisting of one or more paragraphs.
Content for this handout was modified using the Cause and Effect Argument Overview handout.
The original document was provided to The Study Library to assist students with writing.
You can find the original document at this address https://studylib.net/doc/6835548/cause-and-effect-essays
Content approved for download and usage 10.26.2018.
© 2018 by Jeanette L. H. Dick
Cause and Effect Argument Overview
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