How to Write Professionally on Cause and Effect Essay Topics

Writing about Cause and Effect Essay Topics: The Right Way

Did you ever have to write a cause and effect essay? If you had such an experience, you should know that without a bit of practice it is rather hard to get these things right. It is one of the less common types of academic writing that poses a number of rather unique challenges in terms of its approach to structure and research. If it is the first time you were assigned to write such a paper, it will not be easy. This is exactly the reason why we prepared this article – here you will find all you need to know to write a good paper irrespectively of what cause and effect essay topics you have been assigned.

1. Make Sure You Understand What a Cause and Effect Essay Is

Quite often, the difficulty students experience with this kind of writing is that they do not quite understand what cause and effect writing actually is. The short definition would be something like this – it explores the causal relationship between two things. In other words, it is a paper that shows how one subject (person, event, book, article, idea, social movement, etc.) influences another one. Professors assign students to write in this format to teach them critical thinking because the relationship between the items that influence one another is usually not noticeable without analysis. This means that you should be ready to delve deep into the subject and prepare a solid argument in support of your viewpoint. If you still have trouble understanding what a cause and effect essay is, try reading some examples.

2. Understand That Correlation Does Not Imply Causation

One of the most common mistakes made by college students when writing this type of essay is thinking that simply because two things are correlated, one thing is caused by another. Different types of wrong conclusions are possible based on this premise:

• A conclusion that one thing causes another while, in reality, it is the other way around (here is a classic example: the wind is observed to be stronger when the windmills are observed to be rotating faster; therefore, the speed of wind correlates with the speed of windmill rotation; therefore, the wind is caused by windmill rotation);

• A conclusion that one thing causes another while, in reality, both of them are caused by a third factor (e.g., if scientists conduct experiments trying to determine the influence of light levels in the workplace on the worker efficiency, the changes they detect may not be the results of changes in lighting, but of the workers knowing they are being observed).

3. Understand that Causations Can Be Different

There are two major types of causes: causa efficiens (efficient cause) and causa finalis (final cause). The former is the reason why something happens (e.g., the temperature goes down because the sun goes down). The latter is the purpose for which something is done (e.g., you write an essay to get a good grade). Depending on the prompts or topics received from the professor, you can deal with both of them, so you should train yourself to distinguish between them.

4. Use the Right Structure

Irrespectively of the topic, cause and effect essays usually follow one of two structures:

• Block structure. First, you list all the causes and follow them with all the effects. Normally you deal with a cause-effect pair in a single paragraph, then move on;

• Chain structure. You name a cause and follow it with its effect. This effect is usually used as a cause for the next effect, and thus you build a chain from the original cause to the eventual effect.

The best way to understand the difference between the two is to find a sample PDF you can look at when you implement your own ideas.

5. Always Write an Outline

Preparing an outline before you move on to the writing proper is not particularly fun, but it is a crucial element of composing an essay. With cause and effect essays being rather complicated structurally, outlines are particularly important. If you do not want to forget about important interconnections between certain aspects of the topic you cover, you should always keep your eyes on your outline as you work – this way you will not suddenly find yourself in need of retracing your steps, rewriting parts of your paper or eliminating unnecessary repetitions.

Cause and effect essays are not the easiest type of academic work to write, and you should prepare to deal with them accordingly. These tips can help you better understand the basic principles of work with such assignments; however, only practice and study of high-quality examples of such essays can lead to serious improvement of your abilities in the long term. Follow the instructions of your professor, use these tips, and everything will be alright.