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The Cause and Effect Essay

The cause and effect essay is another type of essay often required in college because it helps enhance and demonstrate writing skills. By mastering the cause and effect essay, a student learns to write better book reports, critical essays, comparison essays and other essays.  Fortunately, cause and effect essay topics are numerous and many good examples of cause and effect essays are available so you shouldn’t have any trouble finding a topic, sources or examples.

As the name of the essays suggests, the cause and effect essay explains the cause of a problem and points out its effects. When you write the cause and effect essay you start by asking why the event, problem, situation etc., occurred (the cause) and what was its outcome (the effect). The cause and effect essay demands that you organize your thoughts and ideas on paper, as you need to clearly demonstrate a causal relationship.

Also, when writing a cause and effect essay, you should determine if there are several causes resulting in only one effect or a single cause resulting in many effects. Thorough research and analysis are needed to arrive at a firm understanding of the causes and effects. Once you have accurately determined the cause(s) and the effect(s), you can then make a cause and effect thesis statement. You must be able to support this thesis with the details and evidence, which you provide in the body of your paper. There are three ways you can present this information: 1) in chronological order, which arranges the events as they occurred; 2) in order of importance, which presents the most important effects first and ends with the least important effects; and 3) in categorical order, which separates the events and their causes into categories. Be sure to include transitional words and phrases (such as because, due to, since, consequently, as a result, thus, resulted in, therefore) to help clearly convey the cause and effect relationship.

While writing your cause and effect essay, remember that you are persuading the reader of the causal relationship. And, make sure your material is thoroughly researched and documented.  Also, good organization is the key to being able to clearly demonstrate what the cause is and what the effect is. If you properly manage the presentation of causes and effects you will produce a cause and effect essay that is well-sequenced and well-written.