How to Write a Speculating about Cause Essay

What is a Cause Essay?

Cause essays answer the question, “Why?” or “What has caused?” They explain what has happened in the past to create a phenomenon or increasing trend. You will present the subject, suggest a cause or causes and then argue for your position. You may refute objections to your cause or suggest why your cause is better than others. Although this essay is similar in form to the propose a solution essay, this essay does not attempt to solve a problem but merely attempts to figure out what caused a certain trend or phenomenon to happen.

Introduction:

1. Present your Subject

Your subject will be a trend (something that continues to occur and is probably occurring with increasing frequency) or a phenomenon (something that happened once or just a few times). Somewhere in the beginning of your paper you will describe this trend or phenomenon. You can do so by using vivid description, statistics, quotes, a scenario, an anecdote or a conversation. Use the opening to interest your reader and get them to believe that your trend or phenomenon is important. For ideas on how to introduce and conclude your paper, see my hub How to write a Reading Response Essay and How to Write an Explaining Essay.

2. Suggest one or more causes for this trend or phenomenon (this is your thesis)

Don’t have your causes be too obvious. Your paper should have interesting causes which the reader would not automatically think of when they hear about your subject. If your causes are more familiar, be sure to make your evidence supporting them interesting and vivid. You do not have to prove your causes conclusively. This is a “speculating” about causes essay. Your job is to guess, to “speculate,” about the possible causes for something and to make your guesses seem plausible. Each cause you suggest should be able to be stated in a single sentence.

• use the title to present your point of view
• intro ideas: use questions, a brief history of the subject, concrete examples, anecdotes or scenarios to help the reader see the subject from your point of view
• think about your audience—what aspects of this issue would most interest or convince them?
• usually you will have three or more reasons why the reader should accept your position. These will be your topic sentences.
• Support each of these reasons with argument, examples, statistics, authorities or anecdotes
• to make your reasons seem plausible, connect them back to your position by using “if…then” reasoning

Body: Argue for your causes

This is the heart of the paper. You want to convince the reader that you are right by presenting arguments and evidence that your causes is the best explanation for the trend or phenomenon. In presenting the causes or explaining them, be sure to:

• mention but don’t spend a lot of time on obvious or predictable causes (one intro idea is to mention causes expected and say why these are not the main cause)
• present causes in a logical order. Two ways to do this: one, present in climactic order (minor causes first and then the most important cause); second, present the most important cause first and then backtrack to more minor but underlying causes.
• don’t mistake effects for causes (a cause happens before, an effect happens after)
• provide support for your cause through using statistics, anecdotes, case histories, historical evidence, examples, description, expert opinion, quotes and scenarios

Conclusion:

One way to conclude your essay is to anticipate reader’s objections or preferred causes and show how your ideas are better. What other positions do people take on this subject? What is your reason for rejecting these positions? Why should the reader adopt your point of view? In this essay you do not have to be dogmatic, so you can also admit that it is possible to view the issue in a different light but use the conclusion to persuade your reader that your way of thinking about this issue is better.