Cause and Effect

Analyze the cause(s) and/or effect(s) of one of the following. (See also the guidelines that follow.)
1. Marrying as a teenager
2. Use of steroids in sports
3. The high price of housing
4. Being adopted
5. Being a twin
6. Being the oldest, youngest, or middle child of a family
7. Use of the drug “crack”
8. Lying
9. Free trade between Canada and the United States
10. Getting into debt
11. Violence in a particular sport
12. Clearcutting of a forest
13. The housing shortage
14. Drought
15. Private ownership of handguns
16. Hitchhiking
17. Racial discrimination
18. Extensive reading
19. The proliferation of “smart” phones
20. Cheating in school
21. The high price of car insurance
22. The widespread increase in municipal recycling
23. Working while being a student
24. Eating junk food
25. Coffee addiction

Process in Writing: Guidelines
Follow at least some of these steps in writing your essay of cause and effect.
1. In the middle of a piece of paper, write the subject you wish to explore in your essay of cause and effect. Near it write many other words that it brings to mind. Connect related items with lines, then use what you see in this cluster outline to focus your argument.

2. Write a first drafl rapidly, leave extra white space, getting it all down without stopping yet to revise.

3. When this version has “cooled off,” analyze it: Have you begun and ended at just the right places in the chain qf causality? If not, cut or add. Have you identified the real causes and the real effects? If not, revise.

4. In your next draft sharpen the TRANSITIONS, using expressions like “since,” “although,” “because,” and “as a result” to clearly signal each step of your logic.

5. Share this draft with a small group of classmates. Revise any places where this audience does not follow your logic.

6. Now edit for things like spelling and grammar, and write your good copy. Proofread. Save the essay on in case your teacher suggests forther revision.



Original post by Mr. D. Sader

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