Teacher Discusses a Cause/Effect Essay

Here I’d like to discuss with you a sample cause and effect essay. This essay is about climate change and the writer is discussing the effects of climate change. The writer starts with a short introduction and then has a thesis statement at the end of the introduction. These changes have serious effects for people and animals living today and in the near future. The writer tells us that this is going to be about effects, so that’s a good thesis statement. In the first body paragraph, the writer uses a transition, First of all, and starts with a topic sentence. The topic sentence gives us that first effect that the writer wants to explain. Rising sea levels will flood many cities with the ocean’s waters. Then the writer also has several supporting ideas. The first one is right here. This will make some islands be completely covered, so people will have to move to higher ground. The writer gives a detail about that. Here’s the second supporting idea. The cost of relocating will be billions of dollars, which individuals and governments will have to pay. And the writer gives several details about that. And then here’s the third support. Furthermore, much of the scenic land and historic buildings in these locations will be destroyed and will not be replaceable. The writer just has one detail about that and then a transition sentence at the end. Can you think of any specific details that would have helped develop this body paragraph? Maybe a specific example. The writer could have mentioned a place where this has happened, right? That would have been a good specific example. Let’s look at the next body paragraph. The writer used another transition and that’s good. He said, Another effect of climate change. He repeated those keywords from the thesis statement, climate change. And the second effect is the melting ice caps and snow cover in cold climates. First, the writer tells us about the arctic creatures, that means the animals in the arctic, and then gives an example. That’s a nice example right there. Uses that transition, for example. We see the next supporting idea with the transition, Also, and the writer kind of combines this supporting idea with the examples of the wolves, and deer, and fish. The writer gives a few more details about this and tells us what that effect will be. So that body paragraph really only had two supports. The second support had several details. So that was good but it would have been better if the writer thought of a third supporting idea. Let’s look at the last body paragraph. The writer used the transition, Finally, so that’s really good. And then the writer used a topic sentence to tell us the third effect. Climate change is making more storms and making the storms worse. The writer uses a transition for the first support, that’s good. And then the first supporting idea is about tornadoes. You might not have tornadoes where you live. They are common in the United States. Tornadoes are those big, twisting wind storms. And they’re very violent. That’s the first type of storm that the writer mentions. Here we have another transition and the writer talks about hurricanes and gives an example of a famous hurricane that hit the United States a couple years ago. The writer put another supporting idea here. He used the same transition. You’ll want to try to use different transitions in your body paragraphs. It’s okay to use also in each body paragraph, but you don’t wanna use it for two supporting ideas in the same paragraph. Try to think of a different transition. The writer could have said, in addition. In this third supporting idea is about the winter storms. And the writer gives an example about that. And then here’s the fourth supporting idea. This one is about the drought. Drought means the lack of rain. So, this body paragraph is pretty well developed. It had four supporting ideas and the writer gives specific examples for several of them. That’s what you wanna do in all of your body paragraphs. For the conclusion, the writer kept it short. That’s all you need to do, just a few sentences. The writer used a little bit of summary and a final thought. So that’s a pretty good cause and effect essay for you to model your essay after. Remember that your thesis statement should mention whether it’s going to be causes or effects that you’re writing about. And then you should have three body paragraphs giving your three causes or your three effects. Don’t try to write about both in this essay. And remember to use specific details and examples in your body paragraphs.