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Exploring actions and consequences . . .
From Reading to Writing Shakespeare’s
Julius Caesar traces the causes and
consequences of ambition and hunger for
power.
Exploring actions and consequences . . .
Exploring causes and effects is crucial to
understanding events in both literature and life.
One way of examining these elements is by
writing a cause-and-effect essay.
Exploring actions and consequences . . .
You can use this type of informative writing to
show why something happens, what its
consequences are, or how events are
connected.
Basics in a Box
Cause-and-Effect Essay at a Glance
RUBRIC Standards for
Writing
Introduction
Introduce the subject
Body
Describe the cause and its effects*
cause
effect
effect
Conclusion
Summary
effect
A successful cause-and-effect
essay should
• clearly identify the cause-andeffect relationship being
discussed
• provide any necessary
background information
• make the relationship between
causes and effects clear
• arrange details logically and
include transitions to show
relationships between effects
and causes
• use language and details
appropriate to the intended
audience
• summarize the cause-and-effect
relationship in the conclusion
Writing Your Cause-and-Effect Essay
Happy the man who could search
out the causes of things.
Virgil, Roman poet
Writing Your Cause-and-Effect Essay
1 Prewriting

Begin by exploring topics for your essay.
What events puzzle you? What
consequences would you like to examine
before choosing a course of action?

Make a list of ideas that occur to you. Be
sure to choose a topic that truly interests
and inspires you.

After you select a topic you would like to
write about, follow these steps.
Planning Your Cause-and-Effect Essay
1. Think about the cause-and-effect relationships.
Are the events really linked by cause-and-effect? An
event that follows another in time isn’t necessarily
caused by it. Does a cause have one effect or many?
Is an effect the result of a single cause, or many
causes?
2. Identify your audience. What does your audience
already know about your subject? What background
information will you need to provide?
Planning Your Cause-and-Effect Essay
3. Gather supporting information. What kind of
information will you need to learn about your topic?
How can you find that information? Possibilities
include personal observation and reflection, library
research, or interviewing experts.
4. Sketch out your ideas. How does the information
you have collected fit together? You might create a
table or chart to help you organize what you already
know and discover what you still need to find out.
Writing Your Cause-and-Effect Essay
2 Drafting

Use the drafting process to explore your
topic and to think more about the causeand-effect relationships you want to write
about.

Concentrate on just getting your ideas
down on paper. You can revise them later.

Clearly state the cause-and-effect
relationship you’re discussing.
Writing Your Cause-and-Effect Essay
2 Drafting

Present facts, statistics, examples,
anecdotes, and quotations to support
your statements.

You will also need to organize your
ideas. You might show a single cause
leading to multiple effects or multiple
causes leading to a single effect.
Writing Your Cause-and-Effect Essay
3 Revising
TARGET SKILL
EFFECTIVE TRANSITIONS
One way to be sure your cause-and-effect
essay is clear is to use transitions that show
the relationships between ideas. Words and
phrases such as therefore, because, as a
result of, before, and if . . . then signal causes
and effects.
Writing Your Cause-and-Effect Essay
4 Editing and Proofreading
3
TARGET SKILL
MISPLACED MODIFIERS
Misplaced modifiers can make your cause-andeffect writing confusing because they appear to
modify something they cannot logically modify.
Correct a misplaced modifier by moving it next
to the word it actually modifies or by adding a
word for it to modify.