Cause and Effect Essays − Some Helpful Tips
Cause and effect essay writing can be simple or complex, primarily dependent upon the topic. Think of it this way. Susie is in college, spends most of her time on social media websites, has a large group of friends with whom she socializes every night, plays a lot of card games at night, and is very involved in an animal rescue organization. At the end of her first semester, she has all D's and is placed on academic probation. In this situation, the cause-effect relationship is quite clear. What happened to Susie? She was placed on academic probation. This is the effect. What caused her to be placed on academic probation? All of the time she spent on activities other than course work. These activities are the causes. Sounds simple right? Not quite.
When you are assigned a cause effect essay, the topic will not be so simplistic as Susie and her troubles. In fact, you might have to seriously examine exactly what is a cause and effect essay in order to structure one that is sound and logical. As the topics become more complex, multiple causes and effects can become interrelated, and sorting them out to produce a coherent essay can be quite a challenge. Consider typical college-level cause and effect essays topics: "What are the causes of the current hatred of the United States on the part of so many Middle Easterners?" The effect, of course, is the hatred. To produce a cause and effect essay paper appropriately, one would have to do a bit of research, probably going all the way back to the Balfour Declaration at the end of the World War I, and America's support for Zionism and an Israeli state. That event could perhaps be termed the "primary" or first cause. However, there have been multiple causes of continued hatred since then, of course, including perceptions of U.S. imperialism, attempts to control oil production and distribution, intervention into national politics, etc. Each American action was, of itself, an effect of a previous cause, and then it became a cause of a new effect. Thus, you can see how complicated cause and effect essays can become when the topics are complex!
When you are tasked with creating a cause effect essay, there are a few important tips and guidelines you might want to consider:
- If the topic is complex or if there is a rather chain reaction of causes and effects, narrow your cause effect relationships to a smaller span. Certainly, you can tell your reader that in your introduction, and all will be fine.
- If there are multiple causes for one major effect, list them, do a little research, and target the most significant ones for your essay. The extemporaneous causes can be listed all together in a final paragraph of your essay. It is probably wise to place the most important cause first and address the others in descending order of importance.
- If there are multiple effects from one cause, again, choose the most significant effect and move down in descending order, leaving the least important for a combined final paragraph.
- If you are not knowledgeable about a topic, do your research. You will not "prove" anything without factual information to back up your claims concerning cause effect relationships.
- Do not veer off topic. If you are addressing an important issue with your essay, do not promote solutions to problems. That is not the purpose of your essay!
- It should be mentioned that such an essay as a cause and effect essay are not supposed to give a solution to the problem or to provide some information on how the effect can be changed. What is needed is to define what are the effects or the causes, depending on the essay thesis.
If You Need Help
If you are unfamiliar with a topic or if you are unsure how to structure your essay effectively, you can get help from an online custom essay writing service. Here, you can by an example of a cause and effect essay related to your topic and see how a professional has produced it. Essay help is also given through the provision of an original essay produced only for you. If you choose this option, do go for the custom essay price; find a reputable company!
