How to Write a Cause and Effect Essay

Cause and effect essay focuses on evaluating how two or more thing relates to each other. IIn high school and college, writing a cause-effect essay is a common homework assignment that students are likely to encounter. However, writing this essay is not easy, unless you decide to use homework help by WriteAnyPapers.

You should not start writing a cause-effect essay without a proper outline. To come up with this outline, you should brainstorm and gather the relevant ideas to that subject and then used the most appropriate points to develop an effective plan.

Writing an introduction for a cause-effect essay is something that students should aspire to focus on. Your introduction paragraph is the opening of your essay and determines how well your ideas and arguments flow. Remember, you should always include a hook statement in your introduction to capture the reader’s attention. You should provide sufficient background information. You may be required to deal with multiple causes and enumerate the effects resulting from each cause.

Importantly, you should also include a thesis statement, which forms the heart of your essay.  Develop the subsequent cause-effect body paragraphs using proper transition in which you present your argument, supporting evidence and fact to support your claim. Before, moving to the main body, remember to accurately organize the ideas on the cause-effect and link them to the thesis statement. Finally, develop a conclusion summing the idea for your essay.

What is a cause and effect essay

A cause-effect essay, by definition, refers to a piece of writing that offers objective analysis on how specific effects are linked to a given cause. Two methods are used in writing the cause-effect essay. The first approach first examines the cause and then analyzes the possible its possible effects.

The second method focuses on linking the effect to the cause; however, the method you choose depends on the nature of your topic. When you choose one method, you should use it throughout the paper since mixing the two can confuse the readers. A successful cause-effect essay should establish a logical connection between the established output and the cause.

Cause and effect essay outline & structure

Before you start writing any academic paper ensure you have an outline to guide you through the various steps. Here you will find a cause and effect essay structure.

An outline helps you and the reader to understand the structure of the paper and easily follow along. In the process of writing an outline for the cause-effect essay, should start with brainstorming, gather the relevant ideas that relate to your topic, then develop an effective outline from those points. However, the outline of the essay is not written in complete sentences or plan. Here is an example of an outline:

Introduction: You should always start your introduction with a hook statement. This is then followed by providing sufficient background information about your cause and effect essay topic. Your background information should connect the hook sentence with your thesis statement, which is mostly written as the last sentence of your introduction.

Transition to body paragraph: You should use transition words to connect your thesis statement with your body paragraphs

Body Paragraphs: You can have one body paragraph or more, however, for college essays you are recommended not to have less than three body paragraphs

First body paragraph: You can discuss here three causes

Second body paragraph: Discuss the effects and link to the respective cause

Third body paragraph: Discuss the changes at least to mitigate the associated effects

Conclusion: Provide a solution to the cause-effect and how it can be implemented.

How to write a cause and effect essay: step by step

Begin with a thesis statement

When writing a cause and effect essay, there are common mistakes that college students make. For example, they forget to include a thesis statement. When you submit your essay, the most important thing that your lector or professor looks for is your statement. Thesis statement links the cause of a given aspect to the effects of the other. Therefore, after the introduction, brainstorm on how you are going to come up with a good cause-effect thesis statement.

A good thesis statement consists of the author’s main idea, clear and concise structure that expresses the main opinion. Your work here is to condense the cause and effect into a refine brief sentence. For example, “the U.S government should provide all the required resources in support of the universal healthcare because this will reduce the mortality rate in the country, increase access to healthcare services and increase the general health and wealth of the country.”

Prepare a structured essay outline

Do not start writing a cause-effect essay without first developing a structured essay outline. Most students get stuck halfway in a rush to write a cause and effect essay; this is because they do not come up with proper plans before writing the essay. Lack of outline contributes to lack of clear flow of ideas, repetition, and lack of proper transition ideas that may significantly affect your grade. You should first develop an outline that is considered a mini-plan not only for you but also for your leader. You need to brainstorm first before you develop the outline. Then, gather ideas and concepts and organize them in the most appropriate form as they will follow each other in the essay. Ensure that all your ideas and concepts are relevant and relate well with the topic. Since the outline is just a plan to follow, do not write it incomplete sentence but rather in point form. Have the following sections in your outline.

Introduction

Here, you provide a hook statement, background information to your topic, and concise thesis statement.

Body Paragraphs

Develop several body paragraphs that have the proper transition from the thesis statement. Have a topic sentence for each paragraph, and this is followed by subsequent supporting sentences with evidence and facts. Finally, ensure your paragraph has a concluding sentence. You should ensure to have an effective transition from one paragraph to another.

Conclusion

Come up with concluding remarks in which you reinstate your thesis statement, how you will amend the causes and tame the effects. Also, you can discuss how the effect can be harnessed to offer benefits.

Write the introduction with an eye-catching hook

Writing the cause-effect essay requires college students to develop an eye-catching statement in their introduction known as the hook sentence. As the saying goes, “People judge the book by its cover.” Therefore, most people will prefer to read an essay that has powerful and attractive opening lines. It is therefore important that you start with a hook statement when writing your introduction.

The hook statement is followed by sharing enough background information with your audience. If in your essay, you choose to deal with multiple cause effects, make sure to discuss the specific effects emanating from different causes after the background information makes sure that your introduction has a proper transition to the thesis statement and the body paragraphs of your essay.

Continue with organized body paragraphs

After you finished writing your introduction, the next step is how to write your body paragraph. You should write cause and effect paragraphs according to the outline you initially developed. However, put in mind to accurately organize your essay ideas before you proceed with writing the main body. Your body paragraph should involve supporting your thesis statement with significant and relevant evidence. It is therefore recommended that you should organize your ideas using the following criteria:

Significance: Arrange your ideas in the order of significance from the least to the most important

Chronology: You can arrange your ideas based on the chronology in which they take place.

Categorically: Arrange your subject based on categories or sections.

Finish with a definite conclusion

In most cases, people places emphasis on introduction but the way you sign off your paper is very important. The conclusion helps to bring your audience to a common agreement and convinces them of your claim in the thesis statement. The cause and effect essay conclusion must contain reinstated thesis statement. After this, you should write a summary detailing the main points both cause and effect.

Importantly, you should provide or share a particular forecast or give your audience the future perspective of your topic. For example, you can end your conclusion with an interesting fact based on your topic/subject, a rhetoric question that creates an impression. Therefore, your conclusion should bring the conflicting sides of the cause and effect to a common agreement. It should also provide a clear link to the cause-effect topic to avoid any potential confusion or critique. You can also get more ideas for your conclusion from our essay writing infographic.

Tips for writing a cause and effect essay

How to write a cause and effect essay thesis

Though some college students argue that the most challenging part in writing a cause-effect essay is coming up with a thesis statement; well, this may be true or not depending on how properly you are trained in developing the thesis statement. Cause and effect essay thesis statement should be not only concise but also meaningful as it guides the direction of the paper. A thesis statement indicates the focus of the paper. To make it easy for you to develop because of the effective thesis statement, we recommend you to use the following formula.

Consider your subject area, then combine it with + cause and + effect.  This helps you to come up with an effective thesis sentence. However, specifying the entire number of cause and effect in your essay depend on you, and this is done systematically from one paragraph to the other. To master this act, you should dedicate some time to practice on how to write your thesis statement by combining various variables in one statement.

Transition words for cause and effect essay

One of the challenging areas when writing college essays is creating a transition from one idea to another. The use of transition words enhances the flow of ideas in the cause and effect essay. The use of transition words helps readers to easily your essay as your ideas unfold from one paragraph to the next. Transition phrases and words help in building the bridges between thoughts, words, sentences, and paragraphs. Most students are prone to the problem of wordiness since they lack knowledge on how to use transition words. Therefore, you are recommended to use transition words in developing different sentences and paragraphs. This will help you to separate them and avoid wordiness.  Some examples of transitions words are used for various purposes, as seen below:

Transition words to show addition. They include: Too, moreover, furthermore, also, again, also, finally, lastly, besides, secondly, and else.

Time: these transition words help you to show timestamps. They include: then, so far, subsequently, meanwhile, during, next, always, sometimes, while, never, immediately.

Place: indicates a particular location where an event took place. They include: here, nearby, there, beyond, whenever, above, below and adjacent to.

Illustrative: these words are used for illustrative purpose. They include: to illustrate, for instance, for example, as an illustration, to demonstrate.

Compare and contrast. These words include: similarly, likewise, in a similar way, notwithstanding, otherwise, nevertheless, after all, though, in contrast.