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Inquiring Minds Want to Know — Cause and Effect
A few years ago, the clothes dryer in our home died. Since this dryer is more than 30 years old, and we’ve already fixed it three or four times, my wife and I assumed we’d finally have to buy a new one. We began by talking to friends who had recently purchased a new dryer of their own, and, then, we looked at Consumer Reports for the best models and prices. Once I looked at the prices of a new dryer, however, I decided to take the dryer apart one more time to see if I could determine the cause of the machine’s malfunction. And taking something apart is exactly what you should do whenever you’re trying to write a cause-and-effect essay.
With a cause-and-effect essay, you’re essentially investigating an event or a subject or a question. One way to approach this type of essay is to sketch a timeline. If, for instance, you’re writing about a car accident where a driver hit a telephone pole, you use the accident itself as the center point for your timeline. Then, since the causes had to precede the accident, you should list them to the left, and since the effects follow, you should list them to the right. Next, you will want to order these causes and effects.
Assume, for example, that the accident occurred because the driver was speeding, the road was wet, and a child had run in front of the car. After examining each cause, you might decide…
