A cause and effect essay outline is a solid framework necessary to cover a specific topic. The structure allows you to organize your thoughts in a very clear way so that you can present them in a manner that’s easy to understand.
With a well-structured outline, you can as easily demonstrate the relationship between subjects and give objective reasoning and evidence to explain your points. So exactly how does the outline of a cause and effect essay outline looks like?
A cause and effect essay outline features an introduction, body section, and a conclusion. The introduction introduces a reader to an issue, the body section explores ideas relevant to the topic, and the conclusion ties everything together without introducing new ideas.
This article isn’t about writing a cause and effect essay. It’s about the structure of the essay itself. We take a deeper look into the format to help you understand the basic formatting so that you can have an easy time organizing your thoughts and writing the essay.
Cause and Effect Essay Outline
The different types of essays that you will write in college must have introduction, body section, and conclusion. That’s the case with the cause and effect essay, which, more often than not, follows the five-paragraph essay format. However, the number of paragraphs in the body section of the essay tends to vary depending on the topic.
Consider the following outline before you start working on your cause and effect essay assignment:
As you can see, the outline of the essay is quite simple and straightforward, and it’s a framework that you can even right from the top of your head. The most important thing to know when working with such a structure is to know what to write in each section. So let us explain each part of this essay to give you even more insights that can help you get your assignment done right.
Explaining the Outline of a Cause and Effect Essay
Introduction
An introduction is the most important part of an essay, but it can be the most challenging to write. It introduces a reader to the cause and effect subject you wish to investigate, making it easy for the reader to know what the essay is about.
A good introduction to this type of an essay should have two things:
- A hook: The first sentence of the essay, which grabs the attention of the reader and piques their interest so they keep reading further. We have a guide to writing a hook for an essay. Check it out to learn more.
- Thesis Statement: A one, or two, sentence statement, which tells the reader exactly what you intend to address in your cause and effect essay. Check our guide to writing a thesis statement if you’re still not sure about how to do that.
These two elements of the introduction to an essay are powerful if well implemented. So consider spending enough time writing your introduction so you can end up with a complete essay that’s interesting to read.
You’ll probably spend more time writing the introduction than the body section and the conclusion part of the essay. You may even have to re-write the introduction more than once until you have the confidence that your copy has a stronger hook and a stronger thesis that delivers your message to the right audience.
The Body Section
The body section of a cause and effect essay usually have three paragraphs, but there can be more depending on the number of causes and effects that you wish to address or the scope of the topic.
So how do you work on this section?
Start each paragraph with a topic sentence. Mention a cause and discuss it, and then explain its effect. Every paragraph, with the exception of the last one, should end with a closing link that transition to the next consecutive paragraph.
Every cause and effect you mention in the essay is an arguable claim. So you need to make sure you provide satisfactory analysis, explanations, and evidence to show the relationship between the cause and effect. Remember, your reader includes a group of people who may not share your opinion. Therefore, the burden is on you to provide them with strong evidence that shows an undeniable relationship between the two subjects.
The Conclusion
The conclusion of the cause and effect essay is where you tie everything you’ve talked about in the introduction and the body paragraph together. The aim here is to give a clear yet brief summary of arguments.
A good conclusion restates the thesis using different words without changing the meaning or the intended message. Also, it should include the strongest piece of evidence to support your ideas.
You should not introduce a new argument in the conclusion because this can cause confusion. Instead, consider ending the essay with a quote or thought provoking statement that will leave your audience with something important to think about.
Types of Cause and Effect Essays
There are three types of cause and effect essays that you need to know before you start working on the assignment. These are:
- Chain of causes and effects
- One cause multiple effects
- Multiple causes and one effect
Chain of Causes and Effects
This type of an essay examines how more than one cause lead to multiple causes at the same time. This essay is often challenging to write, especially because it takes time to figure out which events lead to multiple causes.
One Cause Multiple Effects
In this essay, your focus is on how one cause leads to several effects. Although it’s a less common type of a cause and effect essay, it can be quite interesting to examine how one event can lead to several effects – regardless of whether the results are positive or negative.
Multiple Causes One Effect
This essay examines how several causes can lead to one effect. For example, it’s reasonable to argue that global warming not only leads to overpopulation but can also cause environmental pollution.