Cause & Effect Essay: Your Assignment

Understanding Your Assignment

Before you begin looking for information you should make sure you understand your assignment. Some good questions are:

• How many pages?
• How many sources?
• What kinds of sources?
  
  • Books
  • Articles
  • Websites
    
• What format?

Your professor is your best resource to answer these questions.

Cause and effect writing shows a direct link between one event and another.

Cause and effect essays are concerned with:

• Why things happen (causes) and
  
• What happens as a result (effects)
  

When you write a cause and effect essay, you need to:

• Present information on how one action or event caused, or may cause, certain effects to occur
• Explain what took place, or may take place, and why.

The cause and effect essay allows you to identify patterns and explain why things turned out the way that they did.

Breaking Down The Research Process  

The following outline gives a simple and effective strategy for finding information for a research paper and documenting the sources you find. Depending on your topic and your familiarity with the library, you may need to rearrange or recycle these steps. Adapt this outline to your needs. We are ready to help you at every step in your research.

1. Choose a topic - or have one assigned
2. Understand your topic
   • Background reading
   • Consider a main focus
   • Refine your topic
3. Search Sources
   • Find Books
   • Find Articles
   • Find Websites
4. Write your paper - Informative, Analytical, Argumentative, Critical
5. Cite your sources

Need Help 

The Cerritos College Librarians can help you with your research in a variety of ways:

• In person
• By email
• By phone
• Chat

Librarians are available during library hours to answer your questions by phone or chat.
(562) 860-2451 x2425