How to Write a Cause and Effect Essay: Suggestions and Recommendations
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If you are born to be a detective, a cause and effect essay will not puzzle you a lot. But if you lack critical and analytical thinking skills and cannot boast of building logical chains and noticing details like Sherlock Holmes, we will be pleased to help you here and now!
Moreover, suppose you want to try on yourself the role of a previously unknown essay-typewriter. In that case, we may give you several useful tips to advance your skills and practice cause and effect essay writing following qualified guidance.
What Is a Cause and Effect Essay?
A cause and effect essay is quite similar to an argumentative essay and mainly focuses on precise analysis and reasons that caused an event. It demonstrates the relationship between two issues, one of which is the cause and the second is a consequence. In such writings, an author showcases how one thing, idea, person, or event resulted in another and its direct impact.
Writing a qualitative cause and effect essay may be time and effort-consuming since it requires research and background knowledge to trace the process from the beginning to the end and share your observations and conclusions with an audience.
Purpose for Cause and Effect Essay Writing
Such assignments are quite popular at schools and colleges because they are targeted at developing children’s critical thinking and analytical abilities, which are important skills for adult life. For example, a cause and effect essay may be a counterpart of a laboratory report or research and develops students’ logic, attentiveness to details, and capability to unite all the facts and conclude. This writing makes children think and analyze, not only re-write or search. Moreover, it allows thinking outside the box and demonstrates a creative approach to standard issues.
How to Bring Cause and Effect in Writing: Creation Steps
Following the writing strategy, you may cope with an assignment effortlessly and turn it into fun and pleasure. So, you must be attentive and stick to a checked step-by-step guide to demonstrate your awareness, expertise level, and non-standard thinking skills. So, what should you start with after getting instructions from your tutor?
- Ideas brainstorming. A good cause and effect essay requires precise observation and possible cause analysis. A writer must find a distinct correlation between two issues by researching their phenomena and interdependence.
- State a thesis. Defining a thesis statement, remember that it may have one or multiple relationships. For instance, one issue may cause a single and numerous effects. In addition, in your paper, you may also focus on the phenomena of several products caused by one reason.
- Make a draft of the body part. Your body may include several paragraphs, so each should reveal a different idea that is fully analyzed and concluded. So, make quick notes of what you will illustrate and the connections between the subject and cause.
- Collect arguments. Each idea should be backed with strong evidence or fact. Try to connect the outcome of every single concept with a thesis statement.
- Be logical. Do not hesitate to do a self-analysis to ensure all the issues presented and all the stated interactions are logically connected. Each cause-and-effect relation must be proved and not evoke doubts. Moreover, avoid making personal judgments or assumptions, only facts.
- Make a final draft. Concentrate on the outcome, and make all the necessary adjustments to provide more required details, or put aside all irrelevant information. The quality and credibility of your writing depend on your critical thinking and logical outcome.
So, when working on the content of your cause and effect essay, be meticulous with details and precise with facts and evidence. The ability to showcase relations between two issues depends on your persuasion skills.
Keep Structure of Essay: Cause and Effects Writing
When working on a cause and effect essay, it is desirable to outline first. You may raise doubts about the necessity of spending time outlining a standard structure. Why standard? Because this type of essay has the usual parts: introduction, body, and conclusion. So, many students are quite self-confident and find it useless to spend an extra hour on preparation. But we strongly recommend taking into account our advice and making an outline. So, what is the proper structure of a cause and effect essay, and what is its essence? Let’s dig deeper!
- Outlining. Although it is not a counterpart of an essay, it is a background preparation or basement of every paper. In outline, you should plan your structure and sort out all the investigations, analyses, or observations. So, start writing each part of the paper and provide all the data you want or need to present there. Do not forget to consider the thesis statement and arguments and come to a logical conclusion.
- Introduction. In this part, you must provide background information for your target audience. In addition, you should think over a properly-compiled thesis statement that reveals the main idea of the writing and tune on the reader.
- Body part. The body consists of several paragraphs, starting with a topic sentence, evidence, supporting sentences, and a conclusion. However, since we look closely at the cause and effect essay, there may be some variants of presenting relations between cause and effect issues. For instance, since teachers aim to develop critical thinking by assigning a cause and effect essay, students may demonstrate specific approaches because one cause may have numerous effects and vice versa.
- Conclusion. The last paragraph is a summing up of all the investigated results. Do not forget to restate your thesis statement and provide a general conclusion of the main idea.
Be careful with citing, keeping the formatting rules according to the style indicated in the tutor’s instructions or your choice. There are no limitations or preferences concerning type. So, it may be APA, MLA, Chicago, and others.
Examples of Cause and Effect Essays Organization
A well-organized essay helps to manage all the ideas and build the logical chain effectively. So, depending on the key issue to focus on, there may be a variety of organizational patterns. As a rule, learners are often asked to write in one of the two popular ways at schools and colleges. They are more widely spread than the third one, but we will look at all organization methods of cause and effect essay writing. There are three ways of organizing a cause and effect essay. The first approach is when the author describes multiple causes of one effect, one case of multiple effects, and a domino-like structure. So, let’s look closer at each one.
- Many causes of one effect. The essay organization that is focused on impact describes how multiple causes lead to one result. You should be careful with paragraphs since each will disclose a different cause of the same effect. So, do not grab them altogether. But try to figure them out to demonstrate their relation and difference simultaneously.
- One cause and multiple effects. Such organization is similar to the previous, but here, you focus on a single cause of a certain number of effects. So, like in the first organization, you should devote a separate paragraph discussing one reason with each next result.
- Domino effect. Although this method is not so well-known as the previous two and is not often assigned to students, it still has a right to exist. All we know is a domino effect, but what does it have in common with essay organization? Such structure presupposes a description in one paragraph of an event caused by another and resulted in the next. So, in such a way, causes build a chain that connects the first and the last reason.
So, the structure may depend on the situation or may be indicated in the instructions. But you should decide and clarify for yourself how to connect all the causes and effects to build logical interaction in your cause and effect essay.
Final Word
Although the cause and effect essay may be puzzling and requires deep and meticulous analysis, it still has many positive aspects. It makes learners think critically outside the box, looking for reasons that may be on the surface or hidden between the lines. In addition, it contributes to developing analytical skills and creativity. But you should remember not only about good content but also about structure and academic writing requirements. In addition, do not hesitate to proofread your paper and eliminate all kinds of errors. So, a well-organized and polished essay may cause high grades and affect your GPA!
FAQ
What is the cause and effect essay?
A cause and effect essay is a type of academic writing. Such an essay aims to describe one or numerous causes of one or several effects. In addition, a writer should define and logically explain the relations between cases and results.
How do you write a good cause and effect essay?
To write a good cause and effect essay, one must have background knowledge and writing skills. Moreover, you must investigate the problem and results from all sides to know the peculiarities and effects. Then, after precise analysis and building logical connections, you may start writing, but do not forget about formatting.
How do you start a cause and effect paragraph?
There may be several paragraphs in a cause and effect essay, depending on the part of the essay. For example, the introductory paragraph starts with a hook and background information. The concluding paragraph restates the thesis statement. And body paragraphs should begin with a topic sentence backed with evidence. In addition, you should present a new idea in a separate section.
