Cause and Effect Essay Structure Tips — Guide with Examples
Students are frequently working on cause and effect projects, but sometimes it becomes a challenge. The issue here is that many school assignments look the same. You can use wrong writing strategies or follow the requirements of one task while preparing an absolutely different one. To deal with each of the assignments successfully, you have to know their main features, and one of them is an essay organization. There are short and lengthy papers. Your composition may have ten paragraphs or ten sentences; it may require a personal narration or specific argument. But, each structural component has its own purpose that should be fulfilled.
In our writing guide, we are going to explore the cause and effect essay structure. Because, even with standard parts, this piece requires you to follow specific rules.
First of all, recall the definition. Cause and effect paper focuses on the interdependence that exists between various phenomena or events. For example, you have an event (the main cause) that made certain things to happen or led to significant changes (multiple effects). So, your task would be to analyze the interconnection of these aspects:
- How did one lead to another? Are the outcomes positive or negative?
- Are the phenomena/events really co-dependent, or that is just wrong timing and coincidence?
- How profoundly can you describe the effects? What evidence can you use?
This essay has one effect pattern that every student knows - it usually consists of five paragraphs. As a rule, you have the introduction to extensively present one cause that resulted in various changes and consequences you want to discuss. And then, talk about those effects in the body sections. The closing of your essay has to be focused on the analysis of the results and summing everything up, as usual. That was a quick overview, but we would like you to have a more detailed look at the assignment's structure to master it completely.
Topic and Major Statement
We start with a topic and your thesis statement because these aspects make up a considerable percent of your success. Although neither of those is a part of the essay structure, they can influence it a lot. These are the aspects of the preparation stage that you deal with before actual writing, and here, you can also include researching and gathering important information.
The central idea of any writing is a thesis statement. The entire text is built on it, and the topic shows your competence and lets you explore the subject you are interested in. These small steps will help you organize the essay coherently and be confident that nothing is missed in its structure.
When choosing a theme, make sure it conveys really significant matters that can be well-grounded causes of various effects. For example, many students make their assignments focused on topics like historical events or social phenomena. They bring changes to different areas, influence the community, and have long-rung consequences. Hence, for your subject matter, consider the following "signal words":
- Changes in...
- Influence of...
- What is the effect of...
- Consequences of...
- What led to the...
- The cause of...
The thesis statement is an idea that you are going to support in the essay - it highlights the issue of discussion and intrigues the audience. The task is to clearly state the message and convince the audience that it is worth attention. Here are several statements you can see in different cause effect essay examples:
- Railroads building in the XIX century was an impulse for US economic development.
- The divorce of parents is a cause of dramatic changes in children's behavior.
- Modern lifestyle is significantly increasing the risk of obesity and diabetes.
- The lack of insurance coverage got a fatal influence on the health of individuals.
- The usage of cell phones negatively affects several aspects of physical and mental health.
- Standardized tests lead to counterproductive academic behavior.
- The legalization of gay marriage is a step toward social development.
When you have considered the topic and the thesis statement, it's time to structure your essay and plan its content. What effects and causes you will use? What paragraphs are appropriate for certain ideas?
Introduction
The introduction always goes first. It contains your thesis statement and can briefly announce three(or more) body paragraphs. This way, the audience understands the narration structure and can track its logic. In your introduction, provide the reader with the background information needed for a better perception of the major cause. Here, you need to:
- Prove the relevance of your topic
- Briefly mention the influence of a chosen cause
- Interest the audience in the discussion of effects
Remember that your introduction has to be much shorter than the central part. And, the last thing before embarking on the body section is to answer a specific question. What effects does the event/phenomenon have - negative or positive? That is a determining factor of your essay body.
Body Part
You can base the body part on various aspects that are more appropriate to highlight while working on particular cause and effect essay topics. First, in this section, you discuss the effects only. Therefore, be sure to clear any "what if's" that may appear after the introduction.
The kind of analyzed effects can be of two types. The first is when you indicate positive changes and support your thoughts with relevant and reliable facts and examples. Another is to dwell on any negative impact and back them as well. Of course, here, everything depends on your thesis statement. If, for example, your main idea is "Video game addiction is bad for child's health," the structure of your essay body part can be the following:
- Video games worsen the child's attention.
- The nerdy kid frequently neglects to study.
- It affects family relationships.
The body content not only supports the main statement but provides the effects from different categories (health, education, social factors). In the same way, if you state "4-days working week influences the performance positively", the discussed points may state:
- Workers have more time to solve personal issues.
- People are motivated to do the same amount of work within different working hours.
- There are fewer depression/fatigue cases in the workplace.
Also, you can diversify the structure of the body paragraph by combining positive and negative effects. Want to prepare a simple causal analysis and just discuss the consequences of a certain action? Provide two negative and one positive aspect or vice versa. That strategy will also show your ability to think analytically and the openness to a variety of ideas.
Conclusion
Start your conclusion only after making sure the body paragraphs demonstrate the correctness of the thesis statement written in the introduction. Otherwise, we recommend you reconsidering the main idea to keep the essay logical and coherent. Here, the conclusion aims to:
- Straighten the thesis statement to convince the audience
- Sum up the analyzed effects to show their interdependence
- Reflect on possible academic interest in the topic for future research
For many students, writing a cause-effect essay is a challenging task. That is why we do our best to help you understand the structural features of this assignment. If you still aren't confident in your competence, our experts are always ready to assist you in writing cause an effect essay that will meet any academic standards.
back to all posts
