Summary

1.

The process of cause and effect asks about reasons and outcomes. It helps us to explore the "why" behind events, ideas, people, places, objects, and animals.

2.

Developing a sense for cause-and-effect thinking can help us solve immediate and future problems.

3.

Events are complex, rarely having only one cause or effect.

4.

Closeness in time or space of a cause/effect to an event does not necessarily mean that the cause/effect is significant.

5.

Without carefully considering many causes and effects, we risk oversimplifying.

6.

The writer often determines which causes/effects are most important, based on her topic, interest, and knowledge, and the interest and knowledge of the reader.

7.

The writer is responsible for completing all ideas and making all points. He should not expect his reader to make any but obvious connections.

8.

A topic sentence for a cause or effect paper must interest the reader, mention the topic, and make a clear statement about it (pointing toward causes or effects).

9.

Each major cause or effect should be introduced by a subtopic sentence.

10.

Each sentence in a paragraph should be clearly linked, with subtopic and concluding sentences the most well connected of all.

11.

Writing is never complete until it has gone through several revisions and careful editing.

2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education
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