10B. Writing. Cause and effect essay

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Cause and effect essay: a brief overview
Watch the extract of the video and answer the following questions:
• What is a cause and effect essay?
• What other types of essay are mentioned by the speaker?

3.

Causes and effects: example
Think about the causes and effects of global
warming.
Cause
1
Cause
2
Causes
Cause
3
Effect
1
Effect
2
Effects
Effect
3

4.

Watch extract 2 of the video and compare the causes and
effects you have listed with the ones mentioned in the video.

5.

Cause and effect essay:
structure
Work in groups and discuss the questions:
• In what way do you think a cause and effect essay should be
organized?
• What is the possible order of causes and effects in the body of an
essay?
• Do you think a cause-and-effect essay can be organized in different
ways?
• What different types of structures can there be?

6.

Watch extract 3 of the video and check your
answers to the questions that you discussed.

7.

Read the extracts from a student’s essay. Based on the order of the
topic sentences, which of the structures do you think the essay uses?

8.

The essay above uses block structure: two causes followed by
two effects. (cause-effect order)
How many more different orders for the topic sentences below,
are possible?
Do you think we can place effects first and causes – in the
second block? (effect-cause order)

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Answers:

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So all the possible structures of a
cause an effect essay are:
Block 1
Block 2

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Chain:

12.

Read the same topic sentences again and identify
the cause and effect language in each sentence.

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Answers:

14.

Language of cause and effect
Can you think of other examples of cause and effect language?
Watch the last extract of the video for more connectors and signal words
of cause and effect. You can note them down.

15.

More language: cause

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More language: effect

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Result

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Practice:

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Answers:

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Task for the 4th Academic Writing Assignment:
You have to write a cause and effect essay on one of
the following questions:
Work in groups.
• Choose the topic and think about the causes and effects related to it.
• Discuss and decide on which structure/ order would be most appropriate
for the causes and effects selected by you, and why?
• You have approximately 10 minutes to discuss.

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