Understand What Cause and Effect Are

Cause and Effect

Writing That Explains Reasons or Results

Understand What Cause and Effect Are

A cause is what made an event happen. An effect is what happens as a result of the event.

Four Basics of Good Cause and Effect

  1. The main point reflects the writer’s purpose: to explain causes, effects, or both.
  2. If the purpose is to explain causes, the writing presents real causes.
  3. If the purpose is to explain effects, it presents real effects.
  4. It gives readers detailed examples or explanations of the causes or effects.

In the following paragraph, the numbers and colors correspond to the Four Basics of Good Cause and Effect.

1 Although the thought of writing may be a source of stress for college students, researchers have recently found that it can also be a potent stress reliever. In the winter of 2008, during a time when many people catch colds or the flu or experience other symptoms of ill health, two psychologists conducted an experiment with college students to find out if writing could have positive effects on their minds and/or their bodies. After gathering a large group of college students, a mix of ages, genders, and backgrounds, the psychologists explained the task. The students were asked to write for only 2 minutes, on two consecutive days, about their choice of three different kinds of experiences: a traumatic experience, a positive experience, or a neutral experience (something routine that happened). The psychologists did not give more detailed directions about the kinds of experiences, rather just a bad one, a good one, or one neither good nor bad. A month after collecting the students’ writing, the psychologists interviewed each of the students and asked them to report any symptoms of ill health, such as colds, flu, headaches, or lack of sleep. 3 What the psychologists found was quite surprising. 4 Those students who had written about emotionally charged topics, either traumatic or positive, all reported that they had been in excellent health, avoiding the various illnesses that had been circulating in the college and the larger community. The students who had chosen to write about routine, day-to-day things that didn’t matter to them reported the ill health effects that were typical of the season, such as colds, flu, poor sleep, and coughing. From these findings, the two psychologists reported that writing about things that are important to people actually has a positive effect on their health. Their experiment suggests the value to people of regularly recording their reactions to experiences, in a journal of some sort. If writing can keep you well, it is worth a good try. The mind-body connection continues to be studied because clearly each affects the other.

You use cause and effect in many situations.

COLLEGE In a nutrition course, you are asked to identify the consequences (effects) of poor nutrition.
WORK Sales are down in your group, and you have to explain the cause.
EVERYDAY LIFE You explain to your child why a certain behavior is not acceptable by warning him or her about the negative effects of that behavior.

In college, writing assignments might include the words discuss the causes (or effects) of, but they might also use phrases such as explain the results of, discuss the impact of, and how did X affect Y? In all these cases, use the strategies discussed in this chapter.