A GUIDE ON HOW TO WRITE AN EFFECTIVE CAUSE-EFFECT ESSAY

Here is a helpful guide on how to write a 4-paragraph cause /effect essay.

WHAT IS A CAUSE/EFFECT ESSAY?

In a cause/effect essay, writers focus on what causes something (why it happens) or what the

effects are (the results). The focus of your essay should be sharp so that your reader will be able to

clearly see the relationship between the causes and effects you are presenting.

METHODS OF ORGANIZATION

You can organize a cause/effect essay according to the information that you want to present.

 You can focus on only the causes of something leading to one effect.

 You can focus on the effects resulting from one cause.

PREWRITING

The first step is to carefully consider the assigned topic. You have to identify the cause and

effects for a focus-on-effect essay and the effect and the causes for a focus-on-cause essay. Before

you start writing, you need to brainstorm ideas for your body paragraphs. You can use the following

charts as ways to organize your thoughts.

Focus-on-Cause chart:

Causes Effect

1. __________________________

2. __________________________ → _________________________

3.___________________________

 After you have listed all of the causes you can think of in 5-10 minutes, select

the two general causes that you want to develop in your essay.

Focus-on-Effect chart:

Cause Effects

1. _____________________________
_________________ → 2. _____________________________

3. ______________________________ 2

 After you have listed all of the effects you can think of in 5-10 minutes, select

the two general effects that you want to develop in your essay.

THESIS

For a focus-on-cause essay, you should state that you are going to write a cause essay

and the effect that results from those causes. You may choose to mention the causes, but that

is optional. The thesis can be implied or stated.

Implied Example: Young people join the military for many reasons.

Stated Example: Young people join the military for many reasons, such as

getting away from home and serving their country.

For a focus-on-effects essay, you should state that you are going to write an effect essay and

the cause that lead to the effects. You may choose to mention the effects, but that is optional.

The thesis can be implied or stated.

Implied Example: Unemployment t can have terrible effects on individuals.

Stated Example: Unemployment can have terrible effects on individuals,

including financial and psychological difficulties.

THE BODY PARAGRAPHS

Focus-on-cause essay: Each body paragraph should discuss one of the causes you selected in

your prewriting or in your stated thesis. You need to have a topic sentence as the first sentence

of your paragraph that states the effect and the cause you are going to develop in the body.

Example Topic Sentence: One major reason young people join the military is to get

away from home.

Focus-on-effect essay: Each body paragraph should discuss one of the effects you selected in

your prewriting or in your stated thesis. You need to have a topic sentence as the first sentence

of your paragraph that states the cause and the effect you are going to develop in the body.

Example Topic Sentence: One of the major effects of unemployment on individuals

Is financial difficulties.

To sum Up: The following is a brief summary of the steps for writing this essay.

Prewriting: Make a chart and choose the causes or effects you are going to develop in your

essay. Be sure to attach your prewriting to the last page of your essay.

Essay:

 Introduction: Hook, Connecting Sentences, Thesis

 Body: Topic sentence, 2 supporting ideas with examples, concluding sentence

 Conclusion: Concluding signal, restatement of the thesis, summary of the main points,

and a final comment about the topic

The Cause / Effect Mode

Definition of Cause and Effect
Another of the several ways to examine a topic is the cause-
effect mode. To use this mode, you either discuss the
causes of a particular situation, or you discuss the effects of
that situation. A more complex approach is to discuss both
causes and effects; yet more complex is to discuss a chain
of causes and effects, where a particular effect is seen to be
the cause of another effect, and so forth.
What I recommend to you is that you simplify your task by
dealing with either causes or effects, but not both. That can
become too confusing for a first attempt at this type of
essay.
Features of the Cause-Effect Mode
If there is a mode this one might be confused with, it would
be the first mode you used, which I called the Example or
the Persuasive mode. Actually, that was oversimpliiied: that
first essay featured examples of reasons for a particular
thesis, so it was part example mode, and part
argumentative or persuasive mode. But it is easy to confuse
reasons and causes, so please note the difference: As used
in your first essay, a reason is a logical support or
justification for an opinion (your thesis). In contrast, a cause
is some force or ctrcumstance which brought about a
particular situation. Another distinction is that there is no
time element in regards to a reason; a reason exists in the
reality of logic, not time. On the other hand, a cause does
exist in time: a cause, by definition, happens before the
situation which it brings about.
Here's an example. If my topic is having children and my
thesis is that no one in his right mind should pass up the
opportunity to raise children, one reason supporting that
thesis might be that raising kids gives a person a chance to
leave something of himself in this world when he dies. But a
cause for that thesis might be my own parents; I have seen
the pleasure my own parents get from watching me mature
and reflect some of their teachings in my own life. See the
difference?
Let's look further at that time element. Causes always come
first, before effects. That's simple enough. But then things
become more complicated rapidly, because that effect
becomes, in turn, the cause of another effect. Visualize a
line of dominoes standing on edge toppling, and you get the
picture. When one domino falls it's the effect of the
previous domino falling, but it immediately becomes the
cause of the next domino falling. What this means is that
any given situation in life is both effect (of some previous
situation) and cause (of some subsequent situation).
Now things get even more complicated. Life would still be
simple if everything had only one cause and one effect, but
unfortunately that's never the case. All things have various
causes, major and minor, and various effects, major and
minor. So a more accurate image would be a net or web of
linked causes and effects, not a row of dominoes.
Take a car wreck, for example. The most obvious cause
might be that I didn't stop my car soon enough. But why
not? Maybe because my brakes were bad, I was going too
fast, and I wasn't paying attention. To pick just one of those
causes, why wasn't I paying attention? Perhaps because I
just had a fight with my wife and I was busy thinking, "I
shoulda said..." Already we have three progressive layers of
causes. As for effects, maybe three main ones are that I'm
seriously injured, I have no car to drive, and I learn a lesson
about watching the road. In an essay on this car wreck, you
probably would not want to discuss both causes and effects,
but rather one or the other. That's a complicated enough
task.
So in doing a cause-effect essay, my strongest advice is to
pick your topic and then decide on either causes or effects
as your focus, your angle; it's generally not a good idea to
try to fully discuss both. And as you work, keep asking
yourself whether you're mixing up causes and effects,
because that's an easy mistake to make.
However, having given that advice, I also have to add that
it's not always possible to completely ignore the side you're
not focusing on. This is particularly true if you're writing an
essay focusing on the effects of something. Before any
discussion of effects will make sense, you have to lay out
the basic situation they stem from. This of course means
discussing causes, at least briefly. For example, if you want
to discuss the effects of that car wreck, first you have to
describe the car wreck. The way to do that is as background
information in the introduction. Keep it brief and keep it out
of the main body. Then state your thesis-for instance, that
there might be a lesson learned from all this-preview the
effects you will discuss, and begin that discussion in the
main body. Notice that you are sticking with the natural
time sequence of all this: first causes, then effects.
If you are dealing with causes, that time sequence has to be
bent out of shape a little bit. Before you can discuss causes
of the car wreck in a way that will make sense, again you
have to first describe the car wreck in the intro, and then
"flash back" in the body to discuss prior circumstances
which brought about the wreck. In such an essay, there's
probably no reason to discuss effects at all. If you feel you
must, perhaps to "finish the story," so to speak, then the
place to do it is in the conclusion, and very briefly.
Different situations have different numbers of major causes
and effects, but for the purposes of this class, three is a
good number. I don't want less than three, because that
implies insufficient thought on the topic in most cases. You
really don't need more than three in most cases (just stick
to the major causes or effects), but you probably want to
avoid dealing with more than four. Remember that however
many causes or effects you choose to deal with, dealing
with more than three doesn't mean that you can get away
with writing less thoroughly on each one. By choosing more
than three, you're obligating yourself to a longer essay.
With three, the length should be about three full pages ("A"
essays usually run longer), assuming a standard font size,
standard margins, and double spacing. In terms of word
count, this translates to perhaps 1000 to 1200 words.

Outline for a Cause or Effect

Essay
This is the point at which I like to give my students more
leeway. Those who want to try to make their essays reflect
some complex chain of causes and effects may do so, and of
course this would call for a different outline than a simpler
approach dealing with, say, the three main causes of
whatever situation. But before you ambitiously tackle the
more complex approach, remember that most of my
students do not, and furthermore, it is entirely possible to
write a strong "A" essay using that simpler approach.
If you do choose the simpler approach, your outline is quite
easy: You simply use the original Three-Part outline as in
the first essay, but instead of reasons you substitute either
causes or effects, depending on which you've chosen to
work with.
It would look like this:
I. INTRODUCTION
A. BACKGROUND INFO: Describe the situation, belief, etc.,
which you will discuss the causes or effects of. This could be
somewhat lengthy depending on your topic, and if so, you
might even want to make it a separate paragraph.
B. THESIS: In general, this is as always your opinion about
the topic you're writing on. You might reread my earlier
example of childrearing to see a sample.
C. PREVIEW: List your causes or effects. (A note on
sequencing: If there is no obvious time sequence you need
to follow, a good rule of thumb is to place your strongest
cause or effect last and your weakest, least interesting one
in the middle. This also goes for other modes, as well.)
II. MAIN BODY
A. FIRST CAUSE (OR EFFECT)
1. TS
2. GE
 3. SE
4. CS
B. SECOND CAUSE (OR EFFECT)
1. TS
2. GE
3. SE
4. CS
C. THIRD CAUSE (OR EFFECT)
1. TS
2. GE
3. SE
4. CS
III. CONCLUSION
A. SUMMARY OF CAUSES (OR EFFECTS)
B. RESTATEMENT OF THESIS

Smple of outline for a cause-and-effect essay about Fast

Food Popularity and Danger it is caused.

I. Thesis: Fast food is dangerous.

A. Changes of people food consumption from past to present

and its effect.

II. Reasons why fast food has become so popular.

A. It is affordable.

i. It has a lower price then healthy food

ii. Fast food restaurants have appeared in large quantities

all around the world.

B. Lifestyle

i. There is no time for preparing the food because of

working, kids, everyday duties etc.
 ii. Young people come out to meet friends and at the same
time eat together.

C. Modern Life

i. Modern people spend their lives less time with family.

ii. New things, new places desire for change.

III. The fast food consumption has had serious effects.

A. Health

i. Obesity

ii. Some disease

iii. Low energy

B. Family