Cause and Effect

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Cause and Effect Hypothesizing
PROVIDENCE UNIVERSITY
College of Management

• Wu-Lin Chen (wlchen_at_pu.edu.tw)
• Department of Computer Science and Information
  Management

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Cause and Effect
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Purposes of Cause and Effect Essay

• Persuade your audience to approve or disapprove
  of something
• Inform your audience
• EX newspaper or magazine type essay
• Speculate about cause and effect relationships

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Consider Your Audience

• Explain any unfamiliar processes or terms that
  are part of the cause and effect relationship you
  are presenting (Inform type essay)
• Do not pretend your cause and effect relationship
  is anything more than speculative if you are
  trying to persuade your audience with a
  speculative cause and effect essay
• After all, it is not a fact

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Two Questions in Cause and Effect

• Cause and effect analysis seeks answers for the
  following two questions
• Why (or how) did something happen? (Causes)
• What were the results? (Effects)

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Cause and Effect in English

• Cause explain why something happens and effect
  describe outcomes.
• a wavelength of 400 nanometers (nm) causes us to
  see violet.
• CAUSE wavelength of 400 nm
• EFFECT we see violet
• Sentence pattern the cause precedes the effect.
• The color brown is induced by the mixing of
  wavelengths.
• EFFECT the color brown
• CAUSE a mixing of wavelengths
• Sentence pattern the effect precedes the cause.
• Yellow can be produced by either its own
  wavelength or a mixture of the wavelengths for
  red and green.
• EFFECT yellow
• CAUSE 1 its own wavelength or
• CAUSE 2 a mixture if the wavelengths for red and
  green.
• Wavelengths shorter than that of violet produce
  ultraviolet light that can damage skin cells.
• CAUSE wavelengths shorter than that of violet
• EFFECT/CAUSE ultraviolet light
• EFFECT damaged skin cells

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Sentence Patterns
Effect
Cause
causes results in produces induces
a white light.
A mixing of all wavelengths
Effect
Cause
caused by due to induced by a result of produced
by
a mixing of wavelengths.
White light is
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Sentence Patterns (cont.)
Cause
Effect
If When As
all the wavelengths are mixed, a white light is
produced.
Effect
Cause
if when as
A white light is produced
all the wavelengths are mixed.
Note If effects are also predictions, it can be
expressed with the future tense.
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Subordinations

• Using subordination to focus on the important
  part of the sentence
• putting the focus in a main clause
• following by the less important idea in the
  subordination or secondary clause
• EX Human beings cannot live on the moon because
  there is no air or water there.

Main clause It is a independent sentence and
stands alone as a sentence.
Subordination It is a dependent sentence and
depends on the main clause.
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Organizing the Cause and Effect Essay

• Proceed from a cause to an effect
• Give an effect and then discuss the possible
  reasons or causes for that effect
• Connection between the effect and the cause may
  be speculative and beyond proof

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Organizing the Cause and Effect Essay

• Tips
• Start with what you want to emphasize
• If you are dealing with more than one cause or
  one effect, you could
• first discuss all the causes then all the effects
• or alternate them
• or discuss one set of cause and effect
  relationships, then a second set, and so on
• DO NOT confuse your reader, make sure your
  presentation is clear about which cause is
  related to which effect

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Reasoning

• Should not give your audience any reason to
  question your logic
• Before writing,
• list the cause and their effects next to each
  other
• Examine each cause and effect relationship and
  label it speculative or proved
• Start with proved relationship and then proceed
  to speculative ones, or only discuss the
  speculative
• Make sure these cause and effect relationships
  fit into your paper and help you make your points

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Reasoning (Cont.)

• DO NOT oversimplify cause and effect
  relationships
• DO NOT mistake simple coincidence for a cause and
  effect relationship (i.e. Do not jump to
  conclusion)
• EX Firing the football coach at the end of the
  poor season does not mean he was the cause of the
  teams poor record, nor does hiring a new coach
  mean the team will have a good season.

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Writing Skills

• Patterns of Organization
• Time (chronology)
• Space
• Logic
• Move from the general to the specific (deductive)
• Move from the specific to the general (inductive)
• Move from the simple to the complex (never the
  reverse!)

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Writing Skills (Cont.)

• Effect to cause
• Try to answer why (or how) did something happen.
  (the effect is already known)
• Discuss possible causes
• Cause to effect
• Try to answer what were the results? (the cause
  is already known)
• Discuss possible effects

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Hypothesizing
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Definition

• Hypothesis
• a tentative or temporary solution to a science
  problem or an explanation for why something
  happens
• Theory
• a hypothesis becomes accepted in the science
  world
• Principle or natural law
• a theory explains or unifies a great deal of
  information

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Hypothesis in English

• Aristotles hypotheses
• Objects fall with a speed proportional to their
  weight.
• The natural state of an object is to be at rest
  and a force is necessary to keep an object in
  motion
• The hypothesis is always in the form of a
  complete sentence, not a sentence fragment or a
  question

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Hypothesis in English (Cont.)

• Galileos hypotheses
• All bodies fall at equal rates.
• If an object does not meet with resistance, it
  will continue to move at a constant speed even if
  no force is applied.
• Many hypotheses are stated in the present simple
  tense
• Sometimes, a hypothesis is expressed as a
  prediction, using the future tense with will

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Expressing Probability in Hypotheses

• Hypotheses are often expressed with words that
  indicate their tentative nature or unproven
  status
• There is life on Jupiter.
• There must be life on Jupiter.
• There is probably life on Jupiter.
• There may be life on Jupiter.
• There could be life on Jupiter.
• There might be life on Jupiter.
• It is unlikely that there is life on Jupiter.
• It is impossible for there to be life on Jupiter.
• There is no life on Jupiter.

Strong
Weak
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Modal

• A group of auxiliary verbs that modify verbs
• Modals of expressing probability
• must
• may
• could
• might

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Writing Skills

• Writing conclusions
• Restate the main point for emphasis
• Summary the information to review or clarify it
• Relate the significant of what was written
• Transition words for writing a conclusion
• therefore
• as a result
• for this reason
• thus
• hence
• consequently
• so
• because of this