This chapter introduces the cause-effect pattern of development and demonstrates how this pattern can fit your essay's purpose and audience. It discusses ways in which cause-effect can be used with the other development patterns and presents strategies for using cause-effect in an essay:
- stay focused on the purpose of your analysis;
- adapt content and tone to purpose and readers;
- think rigorously about causes and effects;
- write a thesis that focuses the paper on causes, effects, or both;
- choose an organizational pattern;
- use language that hints at the complexity of the cause-effect relationships.
You will also find helpful prewriting and revision/peer review checklists, activities that foster your causal-analytical skills, and student and professional examples of cause-effect essays.
