Cause and Effect Essay

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Cause and Effect Essay

• aka causal analysis

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Causal Analysis

• Analyzes
• 1. why an event or phenomenon happens (causes)
• 2. what happens because of the event or
  phenomenon (its effects)
• 3. both causes and effects

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Actual essay exams at GCC

• History class Discuss the causes of U.S.
  involvement in the 1991 Persian Gulf War
• Health class Discuss the relationship between
  diet and heart disease

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Characteristics of Cause and Effect Essay

• A thesis
• A logical organizational plan
• Development of each cause and effect fully
• May recognize or dispel readers assumptions
  about the topic

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Multiple Causes and Effects

• Several causes may produce a single effect
• You chose GCC (single effect)for a number of
  reasons, including the availability of your
  courses in your major, the cost of tuition, the
  reputation of the school, and its distance from
  your home (multiple causes)

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• One cause may have several effects
• Your decision to quit your part-time job (one
  cause) will result in more study time, less
  pressure, and less spending money (multiple
  effects)

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• Related events or phenomena may have both
  multiple causes and multiple effects. For
  instance, an increase in the number of police
  patrolling the street in urban areas along with
  the formation of citizen watch groups (multiple
  causes) will result in less street crime and the
  growth of small businesses (multiple effects).

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Chain of Events

• In some cases, a series of events forms a chain
  in which each event is both the effect of what
  happened before and the cause of the next event.
  OR A simple event can produce a chain of
  consequences.
• You cannot find your car keys (cause) so you are
  late for class (effect and cause). You miss a
  surprise quiz (effect and cause). youre a quiz
  average is lowered to a B (effect)

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Purpose of causal analysis

• Informative, persuasive or both
• Death of a loved one
• Sources of the pollution of the Salt River
• Examination of the causes of academic cheating

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Clear Thesis Statement

• Identifies the topic, makes an assertion about
  that topic, and suggest whether the essay focuses
  on causes, effects, or both

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Causal analysis

• Follows a logical organization
• Explains each cause or effect fully
• Examples, facts, descriptions, comparisons,
  statistics, anecdotes
• May recognize or dispel readers assumptions
• Capital punishment not always a deterrent to crime

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Causal analysis schemes (1) Causes and Effects

• Introduction (Background information about the
  even or phenomenon, thesis statement)
• Body Paragraphs
• Cause A Effect A
• Cause B Effect OR Cause Effect B
• Cause C Effect C
• Conclusion (reminder of thesis and final
  statement or tie in to introduction)

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Causal Analysis Scheme (2) Chain of Events

• Introduction (Background information about the
  event or phenomenon, thesis statement)
• Body Paragraphs
• Cause A Effect A becomes Cause B Effect B
  becomes Cause C Effect C
• Conclusion

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Causal Analysis Scheme (3) multiple causes and
effects

• Introduction
• Body Paragraphs
• Arrangement 1 Arrangement 2
• Cause A Cause A
• Cause B Effect A
• Cause C Cause B
• Effect A Effect B
• Effect B Cause C
• Effect C Effect C
• Conclusion

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Integrating cause and effect into an essay

• 1. use transitions to announce shifts to a causal
  explanation
• In writing about your college presidents
  decision to expand the Career Planning Center,
  for example, you might introduce your discussion
  of causes by writing, The three primary factors
  responsible for his decision are

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Integration

• 2. Keep the causal explanation direct and simple
  
• Focus on the most important causes and effects
  not all causes and effects you can think of or
  have found.

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Integration

• Emphasize why particular points or ideas are
  important
• For example, if you are writing a tip sheet on
  using a word-processing program for an audience
  of beginners, you need to explain why it is
  important to save material frequently by warning
  your readers of the effects of neglecting to save
  copy (not a cause and effect essay topic)

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Integration

• Include only causal relationships you can support
  and justify.
• If you dont have evidence to support it, it
  becomes your opinion and its best to omit it.

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Causal Analysis

• Consider your purpose, audience, and point of
  view
• Keep the length of your essay in mind
• Level of technical detail must be considered
• Point of view is most often the third person
• Try to identify primary causes or effects (most
  important)

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Checking for Hidden Causes and Effects and Errors
in Reasoning

• Once you identify the primary and secondary
  causes and effects, examine them to be sure you
  have not overlooked any causes and effects and
  have avoided common reasoning errors.

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Hidden Causes and Effects

• Example, if a child often reports to the nurses
  office complaining of a stomachache, a parent may
  reason that the child has digestive problems.
  However, a closer study of the behavior may
  reveal that the child is worried about attending
  a physical education class and that the
  stomachaches are the result of stress and
  anxiety.
• The PE class is the hidden cause.
• To avoid overlooking hidden causes or effects, be
  sure to examine a causal relationship closely.
• Do not assume the most obvious or simplest
  explanation is the only one.

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Mistaking Chronology for Causation

• Avoid the post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after
  this, therefore because of this fallacy) the
  assumption that because event B followed event A
  in time, A caused B to occur
• For example, suppose you decide against having a
  cup of coffee one morning, and later the same day
  you score higher than ever before on a political
  science exam.
• Although one event followed the other in time,
  the first event did not necessarily cause the
  second event to occur. That is, you cannot
  assume that reducing your coffee intake caused
  the high grade.

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Mistaking Chronology for Causation

• To avoid the post hoc fallacy, look for evidence
  that one event did indeed cause the other.
  Plausible evidence might include testimony from
  others who experienced the same sequence of
  events or documentation proving a causal
  relationship between the events.
• For instance, there are numerous examples of
  people who have contracted cancer after smoking
  cigarettes for a number of years as well as
  research documenting the link between cigarette
  smoking and cancer.

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Mistaking Correlation for Causation

• Just because two events occur at about the same
  time does not mean they are causally related.
• For example, suppose sales of snow shovels in a
  city increased at the same time sales of gloves
  and mittens increased. The fact that the two
  events occurred simultaneously does not mean that
  snow shoveling causes people to buy more mittens
  and gloves.

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Mistaking Correlation for Causation

• Most likely, a period of cold, snowy weather
  caused the increased sales of these items.
• Again, remember that evidence is needed to verify
  that the two events are related and that a causal
  relationship exists.

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Unsupported Assumptions

• Assumptions are ideas or generalizations that you
  or your readers accept as truths without
  questioning their validity.
• For example, you may assume that someone you just
  met is honest or that your new mat instructor
  treats all students fairly. Although assumptions
  can be true, in many cases people make sweeping
  generalizations that are untrue and unfair.

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Unsupported Assumptions

• For instance, it is unfair to say that senior
  citizens are unproductive members of society
  because the evidence suggests that many seniors
  continue to work or contribute to their
  communities in many ways.
• Many assumptions are based on stereotypesunfair
  generalizations about the characteristics or
  behaviors of an entire group or class of people
  or things.

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Gathering Evidence

• A convincing cause and effect essay does more
  than merely list causes, effects, or both and
  avoid errors in reasoning. Your reader expects a
  complete explanation of each primary cause or
  effect that you include. In order to explain
  your causes and effects, youll probably use one
  or more other patterns of development.

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Gathering Evidence

• For example, you may need to narrate events
  present descriptive details about the event,
  problem, or phenomena define important terms
  explain processes unfamiliar to the reader
  include examples that illustrate a cause or an
  effect or make comparisons to explain unfamiliar
  concepts.

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Developing Your Thesis

• State the cause and effect relationship. Do not
  leave it to your reader to figure out the causal
  relationship. In the following examples, note
  that the original thesis is weak and vague,
  whereas the revision clearly states the causal
  relationship.
• Breathing paint fumes in a closed environment can
  be dangerous. People suffering from asthma and
  emphysema are particularly vulnerable.
• Breathing paint fumes in a closed environment can
  be dangerous for people suffering from asthma and
  emphysema because their lungs are especially
  sensitive to irritants.
• The revised thesis makes the cause and effect
  connection explicit by using the word because and
  by including necessary information about the
  problem.

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Developing Your Thesis

• Avoid overly broad or absolute assertions.
• They are difficult or impossible to support.
• Drugs are the root cause of inner-city crime.
• Drugs are a major cause of inner-city crime.
• The revised thesis acknowledges drugs as one
  cause of crime but does not claim that drugs are
  the only cause.

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Developing Your Thesis

• Use qualifying words. Unless a cause and effect
  relationship is well established and accepted,
  qualify your thesis statement.
• Overemphasizing competitive sports is harmful to
  the psychological development of young children.
• Overemphasizing competitive sports may be harmful
  to the psychological development of young
  children.
• Changing the verb from is to may be qualifies the
  statement, allowing room for doubt.

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Developing Your Thesis

• Avoid an overly assertive or a dogmatic tone.
  The tone of your essay, including your thesis,
  should be confident but not overbearing. You
  want your readers to accept your ideas but not to
  be put off by an arrogant tone.
• There is no question that American youths have
  changed in response to the culture in which they
  live.
• Substantial evidence suggests that American
  youths have changed in response to the culture in
  which they live.
• The phrase substantial evidence suggests creates
  a less dogmatic tone than There is no question.

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Drafting the Cause and Effect Essay

• 1. Provide well-developed explanations. Be sure
  that you provide sufficient evidence that the
  causal relationship exists. Offer a number of
  reasons and choose a variety of types of evidence
  (examples, statistics, expert opinion, and so on)
  to demonstrate that you correctly perceived the
  relationship between causes and effects. Try to
  develop each cause or effect into a detailed
  paragraph with a clear topic sentence.

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Drafting the Cause and Effect Essay

• 2. Use strong transitions. Use a transition
  each time you move from an explanation of one
  cause or effect to an explanation of another.
  When you move from discussing causes to
  discussing effects or when you shift to a
  different pattern of development, use strong
  transitional sentences to alert your reader to
  the shift. Regardless of the organization you
  follow, you need to use clear transitions to
  guide your reader throughout the essay.
  Transitional words and phrases that are useful in
  cause and effect essays include because, since,
  as a result, and therefore.

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Drafting the Cause and Effect Essay

• 3. Avoid overstating causal relationships. When
  writing about causes and effects, avoid words and
  phrases that overstate the causal relationship,
  such as it is obvious, without doubt, always,
  and never. These words and phrases wrongly
  suggest that a causal relationship is absolute
  and without exception. Instead, use words and
  phrases that qualify, such as it is possible, it
  is likely, and most likely.

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Drafting the Cause and Effect Essay

• 4. Write an effective introduction. Your
  introduction should identify the topic and causal
  relationship as well as draw your reader into the
  essay.

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Drafting the Cause and Effect Essay

• 5. Write a satisfying conclusion. Your
  conclusion may remind readers of your thesis and
  should draw your essay to a satisfying close.