This type of essay is concentrated on the ability of the writer to connect the reasons the things happen and the consequences they might have. In other words it is the connection between the causes of events and the effects this cause have on any analyzed aspect.  A cause and effect essay is designed to organize the discussion of the ideas of a certain topic (its causes and results).

Writing a cause and effect essay
In order to write a professional cause and effect essay it is necessary to understand the term casual chain or domino effect. A cause chain or a domino effect –is a chain formed of a cause producing a situation and this situation producing another situation and so on. Each situation may have various causes and effects.  Nevertheless, it is suggested for students to analyze no more than three causes or effects of any situation devoting a separate paragraph for each point.

Cause and effect essay structure
 As the situation analyzed in the cause and effect essay may have different background there are three structures that may be applied. Each situation requires only on of the three structure variants.
1 variant  - Multiple causes ® one effect

• Thesis statement (mentions the general effect of the situation mentioning three causes that lead to such an effect)

Ex. Child violence is caused by lack of parental attention, parental abuse and parental immaturity.

• First cause (a more detailed look on lack of parental attention with two minor supports)
• Second cause (a more detailed look on parental abuse using two minor supports)
• Third cause (a more detailed look on parental immaturity with the help of two minor supports)

2 variant  - One cause® multiple effects

• Thesis statement (mentions that one factor leads to a variety of consequences). 

Ex.  Watching violent films has a great impact on the child’s psychological and physiological condition. 

• First group of effects (psychological effects)
• Second group of effects (physiological effects)

3 variant  - Causal chain (Domino effect)

• Thesis statement (mentions the first and the last parts of the chain)

     Ex.  Thinking about art leads to poor results in foreign language class.

• First domino (thinking about art ®forgot to take the medicine)
• Second domino (without the medicine could not get enough sleep)
• Thirst domino (being tired could not learn the home work for the foreign language class)
• Last domino (being not ready for class gained a poor mark).