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This video is brought to you by eapfoundation.com
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the website for all your academic English needs. So this video will look at cause and effect essays
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We'll begin with a brief overview of cause and effect then we'll look at different ways to structure a cause and effect essay
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and finally we'll look at various connecting words that we can use to signal cause or effect relationships
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So cause and effect essays look at the reasons or causes and the results or effects of something
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Another term for cause and effect essay is therefore reason and result essay
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And sometimes with this essay type we might look at both causes and effects
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but it's also possible to have an essay that looks only at causes of something
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or only the effects of something. For example, discuss the causes and effects of global warming
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This would be a cause and effect essay. Or account for the fall of the Roman Empire
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This essay asks us to explain why the Roman Empire fell. So this is a causes only essay
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Or discuss the WHO and its effects on global health. So this is an effects only essay
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So let's imagine we're writing an essay on that first topic about global warming
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So we need ideas that will help us to answer that essay topic discuss the causes and effects of global warming
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So let's first think of some causes. One cause of global warming is the burning of fossil fuels
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from factories, vehicles and so on which give rise to greenhouse gases that heat the atmosphere
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Another cause of global warming is farming activities. In particular methane gases and other greenhouse gas
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that comes from farm animals. A third cause of global warming is cutting down trees or deforestation
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because trees play an important role in trapping greenhouse gases rather than allowing them to be released into the atmosphere
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So how about the effects of global warming? One of the effects is extreme weather events
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such as hurricanes, droughts, floods and so on. Another effect which comes from the rising temperatures
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is melting glaciers from the polar regions. Another effect of global warming is rising sea levels
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Another effect is the loss of animal species such as polar bears, arctic fox, green seal, beluga whales, leatherback turtles
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So species loss is another effect of global warming. So let's turn now to the second part
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which is the structure of cause and effect essays
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So there are two ways to structure a cause and effect essay. The first one is block
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which looks at all of the causes first and then considers all of the effects afterwards
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The other type of structure is chain in which each cause is followed immediately by the effect
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Let's look at these two structures in a bit more detail now and to do this we'll actually use the ideas we just saw for global warming
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So first of all the block structure. What does this look like
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Well like any essay we have an introduction at the beginning and a conclusion at the end
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And this essay has two blocks. First for the causes which come at the beginning
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and then for the effects which come at the end. In between we might have a transition sentence
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to link the causes to the effects and we'll see an example of that in a moment
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So let's put in some of the ideas we just saw. So for causes we have burning fossil fuels, farming
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and deforestation. So let's take the fossil fuels idea first. So this is going to be the central idea of the first paragraph
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So first of all we need a topic sentence. The first main cause of global warming is burning fossil fuels
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And then we will complete the paragraph by adding examples, facts, reasons, statistics and so on
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So looking at the second idea, farming. Again let's make a topic sentence
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The second important cause of global warming is farming. And again we need to add some supporting sentences
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with reasons, facts, examples and so on. And then our third topic sentence
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A third significant reason for global warming is deforestation. Followed again by examples, reasons, facts and so on
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So that's all of the causes in one block at the start of the essay
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In order to move on to the effects it's useful to have a transition sentence
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So this could be something simple like This leads to the following effects
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We could make it a bit longer for example. The causes above give rise to three significant effects
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Or we could actually make this even more detailed like a mini thesis in the middle of the essay by saying what the effects are
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The causes above give rise to three significant effects. Namely extreme weather events, rising sea levels and species loss
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So those are the effects I'm going to put in this essay. Extreme weather events, rising sea levels and species loss
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And again I need to make these into topic sentences and add supporting ideas
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So one result of global warming is extreme weather events. And then my supporting ideas
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Another important consequence is rising sea levels followed by supporting ideas. The final significant effect of global warming is species loss
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Followed again by supporting ideas. Such as the examples polar bear, arctic fox and so on
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So that's block structure for a cause and effect essay. I said before that we can have an essay that only looks at causes or only looks at effects
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And the structure for that type of essay is very simple. For this type of essay we need to use a block structure
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But in this case there is only one block. So if it's a causes only essay we will have cause 1, cause 2, cause 3 and so on
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If it's an effects only essay then effect 1, effect 2, effect 3 and so on
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So next the chain structure. What does this look like? Well as with any essay we need an introduction at the start and a conclusion at the end
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Remember this essay has each cause followed immediately by the effects. So this means cause 1 first and then the effect of cause 1
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Then the second cause and the effect or effects of the second cause
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Then the third cause followed by its effects. Then the next cause and the next one and so on
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Often the first effect can itself be a cause and the second effect can be a cause and the
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third one and the fourth one. And that's why this structure is called the chain structure
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Because the effects and the causes are connected together like the links of a chain
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To understand this let's again look at the global warming example. So we had the cause burning fossil fuels and two effects we had were melting glaciers and
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rising sea levels. Now burning fossil fuels doesn't lead directly to either of these effects
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But burning fossil fuels because of the production of greenhouse gases does lead directly to
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rising temperatures. And it's the rising global temperatures that lead to melting glaciers
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And the melting glaciers at the polar regions in turn lead to rising sea levels
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Another effect we considered was species loss. Again rising sea levels don't directly lead to species loss
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But rising sea levels do lead to loss of habitat. In other words land where species like the polar bear and the arctic fox can live and survive
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And so loss of habitat in turn leads to species loss. So that's the two ways to structure a cause and effect essay block and chain
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Let's turn now to look at cause and effect connectors. So what are cause and effect connectors
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Cause and effect connectors are structure words or transition signals which show the
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cause and effect relationship. When using these it's important to be clear which is the cause or the reason and which
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is the effect or the result. Remember that the cause happens first and the effect happens after
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So these are some examples of cause and effect connectors. Here C means cause and E means effect
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Results in, results from, has an effect on, is the effect of, is affected by, is a consequence of
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There are actually many more of these and you can see more examples on the website
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Let's use a few of these to make sentences for the global warming essay to understand
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the grammar of how these connectors are used. Many factories and vehicles burn fossil fuels
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As a result, many greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere
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The burning of fossil fuels is a cause of greenhouse gas build-up in the atmosphere
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Because of melting glaciers, the sea levels are rising. Due to rising sea levels, animals such as the polar bear and arctic fox are suffering
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habitat loss. As a result of habitat loss, there is a danger of species loss
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Huge numbers of domestic animals in farming results in large-scale emissions of methane gases
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Deforestation has an effect on Earth's ability to trap greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide
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Rising sea levels are a consequence of global warming
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So that's cause and effect essays. We've seen what cause and effect essays are
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We've seen two ways to structure cause and effect essays, namely blog structure and chain structure
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And we've seen examples of a few cause and effect connectors. For more information, please visit the website. www.apfoundation.com
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