Cause and Effect Essay
In the course of analyzing causes we have to reveal the relationship of events that led to an outcome; by the same token, for analyzing effects we take a look at results of a certain action. That’s how cause and effect analysis is different from process analysis: the connection between events is causal rather than chronological. The types of connection, of course, may differ: one thing causes the other thing, or many things cause one thing, or many things result from many things, etc.
Think about this for a while: have you ever gone through your day without trying to figure out a cause for something? Probably, not. Whenever type of problem you have, it usually makes you pause and start thinking: what could have been the cause and what can you do about it. For example, if a warehouse goes up in flames, the police will be there investigating the causes of the accident. Even when your own life changes either in a positive or a negative way there usually must have been something or someone behind the scene that had contributed to such transformation, some sort of underlying cause that you can point to with your finger. Whenever there is an emotional problem at hand, it is a psychologist’s job to identify the cause of the problem, as well. Finding out causes is not just a futile activity. Perhaps the safety measures need to be changed so that the warehouse would not catch fire again in the future. By the same token, we would be happy to know how and why our life changes for better so that we could continue doing the right things in life, or vice versa, avoid the mistakes we had done to reverse the negative trend. Working on causes, therefore, is an analytical process of great importance.
In the same way, we attempt to analyze and forecast results, or effects. Imposing an import duty by the government is going to have numerous implications on both domestic and international producers. Therefore, a thorough analysis would be necessary to forecast all of the possible effects the aforementioned action will have on the market. In brief, whenever you write a cause and effect essay, examine and dissect your topic really carefully to make your argument as coherent and logical as possible.
How to organize a Cause and Effect Essay
In your analysis you have to be well aware of the fact that there can be different types of causes that you analyze. For one thing, the causes may have no relation to each other, but they can be all related to the effect. Such types of causes can be sometimes called “factors”. Factors are not supposed to be causally related to each other; however, their aggregate action contributes to the effect. When you discuss such type of causes, as in the case with alcoholism, for example, it would be a good practice to arrange your example paragraphs with causes based on the principle of the so-called order of familiarity. In plain terms, that would be descending from more obvious to less obvious causes. You may also outline your causes based on the order of interest by putting more interesting factors first.
Sometimes you may find an interesting situation when a cause would not have been able bring about an effect on its own had not a particular condition ( or a series of conditions) existed. A historian would say that the immediate cause of the start of World War I was the assassination; however, a series of remote, indirect causes such as economic tensions, growing nationalism, etc., were the ones that had made the War possible in the first place.
Keep in mind, that while the significance of the remote causes is oftentimes much greater, that may not be necessarily the case. It would be rather illogical to blame overpopulation in the world for the overcrowded conditions in your local school. Instead, one should be looking for a sloppy, inefficient managerial practices in conducted in school as a primary cause. Therefore, to make your analysis valid and complete, you have to always be able to identify and pinpoint the significance and reliability of causes in your analytical quest.
