Page 457 - Wordsmith A Guide to College Writing
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Cause-Effect
3 Write effective cause-effect essays.
When you look for the causes of an event, you are looking for the
reasons it happened. In other words, you are looking for answers to
“why” questions. Why did your last romantic relationship end badly?
Why is your Uncle Leroy’s car still humming along at 150,000 miles?
Why are so many high schools plagued by violence?
When you look for the effects of an action, you are looking for its
results. You are answering the question “What would happen if . . . ?”
What would happen if every community had a Neighborhood Watch?
What would happen if you decided to devote just one hour a day to an
important long-term goal? What is the effect of regular maintenance
on an automobile?
When you explore both cause and effect, you look at both the reason
and the result. You may explore actual cause and effect, as in “Uncle
Leroy performs all scheduled maintenance on his car and changes the
oil every 3,000 miles; as a result, his car is still going strong at
150,000 miles.” You may also explore hypothetical cause and effect,
