Cause & Effect Guidelines, Hints, and Tips (part 3)

Cause & Effect 
Guidelines, Hints, and Tips 

(part 3)

How do I choose a topic and get started? Try choosing a major event, either in your own life or an event of historical significance. For example, The Great Depression.

Cause of The Great Depression: stock market crash

How would we elaborate? We'd discuss the behaviors, carelessness, errors, and even cultural attitudes that led to the crash—explaining why it was devastating.

Effects of the Great Depression: joblessness & poverty

What should we say about the effects?

·         Businesses went under—explain HOW the crash caused this

·         Describe poverty in detail—explain how this could’ve been handled more efficiently or even avoided

Narrowing a Large Topic

In a short essay, it might be difficult to tackle the cause and all of the many effects of a big event like the Great Depression. To narrow a cause and effect topic down to a manageable size, ask yourself…

1.      What's the main (most important) cause? Most people attribute it to the stock market crash, so that's a good place to start.

2.     Can I break the different types of effects down into categories? Yes! I'll break my ideas down into categories like: economic, social, employment, practical, and morale effects. (example below)

3.     Which category interests me the most? "Practical effects" is the most interesting. I'll narrow the topic of my paper down so that my essay will now be about how the stock market crash affected the practical ways that people lived their lives during the Great Depression.

Can that category be broken down even further to make the topic more manageable? I'm actually interested in the ways that the Great Depression affected the farming industry. I want to talk about the new skills and methods that farmers were forced to learn and implement, as a result of their difficult situation.

Narrowing a Large Topic - Example

Can I break the different types of effects down into categories? Yes! I'll break my ideas down into categories like: economic, social, employment, practical, and morale effects.

Economic	Social	Employment	Practical	Morale
money loses value	poverty increases	jobs eliminated	public resourcefulness increases	low self-esteem
companies lose value	homelessness increases	employers pay lower wages	farming techniques change	men emasculated by job loss
banks lose the public's trust	orphanages fill up	forced to work longer hours	public wastes less, finds creative ways to save	patriotism declines

  [<<PART 2]                           [PART 4>>]

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