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Cause and Effect Essays Show How One Event Relates to Another

A cause and effect essay lays out exactly what its name suggests.  This sort of assignment can crop up in a variety of settings.  If you have a choice of topic, select one that you understand thoroughly.

If a topic is assigned, study the processes involved so that you can explain it to anyone clearly.  We will discuss some tips here.

Where do they appear?

In a technical writing course, a lab course, expository writing, even history or sociology; you could be called upon to discuss the causes of something or the effects of something.

In business, you may find yourself explaining how something is precipitated by something else.  Playing out scenarios of different potential courses of action could take the form of cause and effect essays.

Work both backwards and forwards:

• You might be asked to show how a known past event or condition has affected more recent conditions. 
• You might be asked to speculate on how current conditions or actions could affect future conditions.

You need to keep clear in your mind, as well as in your exposition, which is cause and which is effect.  This is a moment to use all the organizing tools at your disposal:

1. Make a timeline, and either working from most recent to most distant in past time or current to most distant foreseeable future time, identify all relevant events or phenomena that you think could possibly be relevant)
2. Using this timeline as one basis for your outline, think of what the mechanisms might lead from one event to another.
3. Check your cause and effect essay to make sure you have addressed all the

Your essay on cause and effect must be supported

If you are suggesting a chain of causation that is an original idea of yours, be sure that you can support it with plausible evidence and research.  Just to be on the safe side, give yourself some wiggle room in your introductory or thesis paragraph and in each topic sentence of each supporting paragraph.

This is accomplished by avoiding making statements that are overly categorical, such as, “this clearly caused that”.  Instead, try using words such as:

• Possible
• might
• could
• seems
• appears
• apparently
• somewhat
• plausible
• reasonable
• imply
• infer
• potential
• seemingly

Check this resource for guidance with cause and effect essays

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/composition/cause_effect.htm

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