Cause and Effect Essays

In our everyday lives, it is easy to see how particular actions or event cause other
events to happen. For example, when you oversleep in the morning (the cause), you may
be late for work or school (the effect). Outside of your personal life, you can see the
principles of cause and effect in natural phenomena such as rainfall in the desert or a
destructive earthquake. In the global, you can see the causes and effects of world problems
such as war or poverty.
• In a cause and effect essay, you discuss the reasons for something, and then you
discuss the results of it.
• There are two ways to writing good cause and effect essays:

• 1. Use an appropriate method of organization

• 2. Use cause and effect structure words accurately.

Organization
The two main ways: Block organization & chain organization
Block organization
 Discuss all of the causes as a block (in one, two, three or more
paragraphs, depending on the number of causes)
 Discuss all of the effects together as a block
Transitional pragraph
• To conclude the first part (causes) of the second parts (effects).
• If it is only one sentence, it could be placed at the beginning of the next paragraph or
at the end of the previous one
Chain organization
In a cause-effect essay, it is important to choose a topic that fits a cause-effect
relationship. In other words, you need to choose a topic and then describe its causes or its
effects. Consider the following charts that show the relationship of causes and effects:
1
Cause and effect essays can be written in several ways, depending on the author’s purpose.
 When you concentrate on the cause of a situation, your paragraph might look like
this:
Cause
Cause Effect
Cause
Causes Effect
Jim takes good notes in class.
Jim gets an A on his exam.
Jim participates in class.

Jim participates in his class

 An essay written about both the causes and the effect of a phenomenon could look
like this:
Cause ◄ ►Effect

Cause ◄ ►Effect
Cause Effect
Terrorists attacked the United States It is more difficult for international
On September 11, 2001. students to obtain a student visa to
study in the United States.

Visibility on the night of March 17, Seven cars were involved in an

1977, was poor. accident that killed four people.

People are living longer. Social Security cannot provide

the same benefits to everyone.

On the other hand, when you focus on the effect of a situation, your paragraph might look
like this:

Effect
Cause Effect
2
 Effect

Causes Effect
People lose their faith in their The value of the currency decreases.
Country’s currency Prices on most goods increase
dramatically.
Exchange rates for the currency
decrease in value.

 Finally, an essay that uses the chain reaction method could look like this:

Cause◄ ►Effect
▲

▼
Cause◄ ► Effect
▲

▼
Cause◄ ►Effect, etc.

• Where something causes an effect, which in turn causes another effects, which in
turn causes another and another, and so on.

3
Connectors and Transitions

Study the chart of common cause-and-effect structures.

Comparing
Within a Sentence Between Sentences
because of + noun As a result / Therefore / Because of this,
because + S + V S + V, so S + V
another (cause/effect/reason) S + V so (that) S + V
owing to + noun
due to + noun