Place this general statement, or the one of your choice in the thesis and then select three points that prove or explain your statement. These will be your outline structure’s main three points.
To continue your outline, list your first statement or point. This will probably be your first effect. List one or more causes explaining why the effect occurred. List the details supporting in the form of points under the first point. Write a sentence that leads into the next paragraph.
The first sentence in the paragraph, combined with the previous one’s last sentence, should provide a smooth transition and one that is clear. Remember that smooth transitions make the difference between a good essay and a great essay, which you can learn more about with this course. Also, the paragraph’s main content should be a clear analysis and description of the relationship between effect and cause. and effect essay.
Whether you are in a university or in high school, you will usually be called upon to write an essay that analyzes a relationship of cause and effect. Aside from school, essays of this type are also written by bloggers, magazine reporters and news reporters which you can find out more about using this course on quality writing.
Make Strong Arguments
Writing a good essay about cause and effect is easier than it might seem. It follows a pattern that is very logical and once you create the outline the essay can be completed in no time. Usually, cause and effect essays are taught in high school and in introductory writing courses in college. A cause and effect essay does exactly what its name suggests
Your reader will get confused by too many points. For this reason, you might want to limit your major points to three. While there may be multiple effects or causes for any specific relationship, depending on the length of your essay, you should make attempts to keep it limited to three.
In cause and effect essays, it is important to cover the essay’s overall idea and revisit major points so that your thoughts can be tied together by the reader, the way this course on essay writing shows you how.
Depending on the points which the writer is intending to make, each essay will have different body paragraphs. On the other hand, all body paragraphs will be similar in some way. Each paragraph should be descriptive of a single feature of the argument of the essay—a particular effect of a cause or a particular cause of an effect.
When working on your body paragraphs, make sure you don’t jump from one thesis, claim, or fact to another without proper transition. Use the last sentence of each paragraph to connect one paragraph with another, using transitional words.
As every essay has its purpose and teaches a student particular things, a cause and effect essay is a great example of an academic piece that improves student’s analytical skills and critical thinking. Here is a guide that will help you understand how you can write a cause and effect essay of your own, how to avoid common mistakes, and how to choose a topic for your essay. Let’s get started!
- Modern music and its influence on teen culture.
- The impact of junk food on obesity among junior school students.
- How mental health is influenced by cyberbullying.
- What causes some videos to become viral?
- How owning a pet influences people’s health.
So, now you know what the basic structure of a cause and effect essay is and what it should be about. Here are a few tips and tricks that you surely will find helpful for your writing:
The Body Paragraphs
- Multiple causes and one effect – this is the type of a paper that illustrates and analyzes how different causes in their variety contribute to a particular result. If you are working on this type of a cause and effect essay, you should break your body paragraphs down into a few parts and focus each of the paragraphs on one cause and its impact.
- One cause and multiple effects – is a type of paper that is aimed to show how one cause can result in various effects. This type of paper requires in-depth research on the topic and analysis of connections between various factors.
- Chain of causes and effects – this is the hardest type of cause and effect essays. It is based on the chain of different causes and effects that are connected with each other. It should show the correlation between various actions and events and how they result in other effects and cause up to the end of the chain.
Your thesis statement is the core of your work – it should sum up your ideas and thought in one sentence to let your reader understand what the work is. You need to summarize your main idea – the correlation between the cause and effect. For example:
When choosing the topic for your essay, be sure to consider the type of essay that you are required to write. Not every topic is suitable for a particular type.
So, you can see that finding a topic for a cause and effect essay is not that hard – there are multiple problems and subjects that you can write about and which are surrounding us every day. Here are a few cause and effect essay topic ideas:
Unlike the block structure, the chain structure implies that each cause is followed immediately by the effect. As a rule in this structure, each effect then becomes the next cause, therefore forming a sort of a “chain”.
There are two types of structures you can use here: a block or a chain structure.The block structure implies keeping all of the causes at the beginning of your essay, followed by the effects.
But there is much more to it. Cause and effect is one of the most common methods of organizing and discussing ideas. It is not only used in academic papers, but in everyday life as well. For example, while making a presentation at work, a specialist will likely use cause and effect organization to explain why the company’s current performance indicators are the way they are and what results they can bring. Thus, mastering cause and effect essay writing is vital.
Now, let’s get more specific on how to create an outline. Just in case you are wondering why you should create an outline, the answer is simple — it helps to organize the writing process and makes it super simple.
One Cause Multiple Effects
So, you were assigned to write a cause and effect essay, where do you start? You need to have a clear understanding of what a cause and effect paper is, know its purpose, and have an effective plan of action in mind.
- The victim of bullying ends up succeeding later on in life as a result of their early adopted work ethic
Cause: Peter Parker stumbled into a hi-tech science lab and was bitten by a radioactive spider.
Effect: Peter became Spiderman and started fighting crime in New York City.
Of course, this is not necessarily the only right way to answer this essay question: as long as you back up your points with evidence from the text, you can take any standpoint that makes sense.
‘To what extent is Curley’s wife portrayed as a victim in Of Mice and Men?’
For example, if I was answering the question, ‘To what extent is Curley’s wife portrayed as a victim in Of Mice and Men?’ I might begin a mind map which looks something like this:
The rhetorical question “An’ what am I doin’?” signifies that Curley’s wife is very insecure
2. Have a clear structure
If you decide to study English or a subject within Arts and Humanities at university, it’s going to involve a lot of essay writing. It’s a challenging skill to master because it requires both creativity and logical planning, but if you ensure you do the following whenever you write an essay, you should be on the way to success:
Creative writing and essay writing are more closely linked than you might imagine
T his may sound time-consuming, but if you make a really good plan you will actually save yourself time when it comes to writing the essay, as you’ll know where your answer is headed and won’t write yourself into a corner. Don’t worry if you’re stuck at first – jot down a few ideas anyway and chances are the rest will follow. I find it easiest to make a mind map, with each new ‘bubble’ representing one of my main paragraphs. I then write quotations which will be useful for my analysis around the bubble.
When you write your outline, make sure that each paragraph has only one main point. Jumbling too many points in one paragraph tends to confuse your reader. Also, make sure that your main points are all relevant to your thesis statement.
If you keep these tips in mind, writing an essay will soon become much easier for you and you’ll see your writing (of all kinds) start to improve.
If you can write the hook right away, well and good. If not, don’t worry, you can always come back to it after you write the body of your essay. Here are some more helpful tips for writing the body of your essay:
Once you’ve chosen your topic, brainstorm all the different supporting ideas that you can talk about for the topic. Start with the basic facts about your idea, asking questions such as what, where, who, when, why, and how.
4. Write your outline.
Some questions you can ask yourself to find a good topic include:
One common structure for an essay is the Five-Paragraph Essay, with the following parts:
If your topic calls for it and if time allows, you may want to consider conducting quick interviews with experts on the subject. These will serve as a primary source for your essay.
To avoid plagiarism, be sure to paraphrase any ideas you collect from your research instead of copying them word for word. If you do use them as is, put them in quotes.