Essay 3—cause and effect
Deciding factor?
- Can use compare/contrast to develop cause/effect
- Beginning of the _causes_ or the ending of the _effects_–>for that reason, don’t do both
Pick your topic
- Explaining causes or effects? Do NOT do both! Why do you choose causes? Effects?
- Am I focusing on the process or the product (end result)?
- Explaining a chain or series of causal relationships?
- What is your evidence? Is it sufficient to clarify/explain the causal relationships?
Organization of the essay
- Are you concentrating on causes or effects?
- Explanations—which ones are most and least compelling? (Choose the what you think are the important ones). What does important mean? If it’s important, it’s going to advance your argument, or it’s going to explain/prove your argument—keep it going forward.
- How can you emphasize the points that are most important to you? What do you think is important?
- What irrelevant or insignificant ideas can we omit? IF your idea does NOT advance your argument, delete it!
List causes
List effects
Which ones are immediate (evident/close-at-hand) AND which ones are remote (underlying/basic)? How do I arrange them in a logical sequence or causal chain?
Causal chain
Remoteàimmediateàsituation
Foreignàsalesàfactory closes
Comp profits drop
Effectual chain
Situationàimmediateàremote
Factoryàno jobsàtown goes
closes bankrupt
Immediate is more important
| Major cause | Minor cause(s) |
| Major effect | Minor effect(s) |
Actual organization—
- The situation
- Its causes
- Conclusion
- The situation
- Its effects
- Conclusion—summarizing OR make a value judgment
Cause—Least important to most
Effects—most important to least
use/Effect is any argument that uses the term
because
in it. If you argue “I received a bad grade because…,” then you emphasize the causes.
If you argue, “Because I received a bad grade, these things happened,” then
you emphasize the effects. M
Louisiana Library Connection Databases
Reference
Academic search complete
Full text & peer reviewed
Type in subject and search
HTML—count the paragraphs
PDF—actual page number
Parenthetical citations—direct quotation—Name, Year, p#
(Foster, 2020, p. 1)
Paraphrase (Name, Year) (Foster, 2020)
Cite button to the right—choose APA, copy and paste onto the References page
https://lalibcon.state.lib.la.us/
library card number—123456789 & 0123456789