Cause and effect essays topics
Cause and effect essays are used to research how a certain situation is arrived at and its impacts. Therefore topic areas always need to include how the causes (reasons) of something lead to effects (results or impacts) on something else. Usually there will be multiple causes that culminate to have one major effect or multiple effects. In the causal chain of events, an action or event usually causes something to happen, and that situation leads to another event, and it causes another event to happen.
Choosing a topic for cause and effect essays
Topics for cause and effect essays should be posed as a question, for example ‘what has caused the aging population?’ or ‘what are the effects of poor water quality in the developing world?’ or ‘what effect does exercise have on the body?’. For each, the main focus of your essay will be determined by whether you are answering a question about cause or effect; however both should be covered in your essay so that the entire topic can be assessed from its origins through to the results and impacts.
Organising your essay
Even though you may be looking at numerous causes and events for cause and effect essays, it’s best to stayed focused and choose two or three of the central points that will help to illustrate your essay. Once you have researched your topic it is likely that you will either come across: multiple causes with an effect, a cause with multiple effects, or a causal chain (aka domino effect). Depending on which you are tackling you will need to identify the two to three key points for the multiples, explain each of them and then summarise how they came to impact or effect the cause and/or effect. It is important that all points can be linked together to show how they culminate.
Example Topics:
- The causes and effects of divorce
- Which foods commonly cause food poisoning?
- The impact of cheating at school
- Technology has changed the social concept of family time
- Smoking is an addiction: Discuss
- Downloading and the future of the music industry
- The impact of online education
- Poverty in rural communities in the Mid-West
- People who are not relatives but who have an impact on your life
- Apathy is the major force in local politics
- The influence of TV advertising on gender identity
- Tsunamis: discuss the causes and effects
- People are not exercising enough
- Teenage pregnancy is a social disease
- Post traumatic stress in soldiers in modern conflict: Discuss
- The effectiveness of pets as treatment for depression
- Reality TV has dumbed down entertainment: Why?
- The effect of long term unemployment
- The decline of Christianity in the West
- Choosing the wrong college major
- Winning the lottery: Dream or disaster?
- The magic of rainbows
- What is the glass ceiling?
- The effect of cell phone teenagers
- The causes of the Gulf War
- The effect of moving from the country to a city
- The effect of open cast mining on Australia’s landscape
- American foreign policy is 21st century jingoism
- Explain spherification in relation to molecular gastronomy
- The impact on UK unemployment of EU immigration policy
- What makes a bully?
- The impact of the Fukushima nuclear disaster on the fishing industry
- Causes and effects of the Velvet Revolution
- Sleeplessness and how it affects productivity
- What makes a ship sink
- Explain the effects of noise pollution
- Obamacare: Discuss
- What effects can be attributed to phenomena such as Apartheid?
- How did the invention of the automobile in the 1920's change the world
- Modern movie adaptations breathe new life into classic books promotes reading
- How is mood affected by weather?
- Soccer is the most popular sport in the world. Why not in the USA?
- Modern Christmas is a Victorian “invention”
- A good sports coach is like a third parent
- Explain your like or dislike of a particular television program.
- Why the sales of DVD are declining
- Never mix water and sodium. Why?
- The effects of peer pressure
- Technology has changed the way we shop
- What were the causes and effects of colonialism
