Cause and Effect Essay Guidelines
Choose a subject – an event, a phenomenon, or a trend – that invites you to speculate about its causes or effects: why it may have happened or what its effect may be. Write an essay arguing for your proposed causes or effects. Essays about causes look to the past to ponder why something happened, whereas essays about effects guess what is likely to happen in the future. Whether you choose to write about causes or effects, you need to do two things: (1) establish the existence and significance of the subject, and (2) convince readers that the causes or effects you propose are plausible.
Write a well-organized, well-developed essay of 3 – 4 pages on your chosen topic. Be sure that it is arguable. Provide at least two criteria that follow the example, if A happens, therefore B is the conclusive result. You must demonstrate causation between A and B. The essay should have an effective thesis, paragraphs that organize your ideas, and a conclusion that does more than restate the thesis. The other part of the grading will be based on grammar, language use, paragraph structure, spelling, syntax, and punctuation.
As in our previous essay, you will write three drafts of each essay. The drafts will be peer-reviewed in class. You will prepare the final draft based on the feedback you receive and this draft will be graded. Only the final drafts will be submitted electronically to Turnitin.com, however first and second drafts may be submitted in hard copy or soft copy directly to me.
All previous drafts, exploratory notes and other feedback must be attached to the final draft during submission. In addition, there must be noticeable difference between the three drafts as a result of constant revision and editing.
Final Draft Essay Format Guidelines: * 3-5 pages
· Typed double spaced
· one inch margins
· size 12 standard fonts
· your name, class, and date in the upper left corner of your first page
· page numbers in the upper right corner.
· a title
Work Dates are on your Class Schedule