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The effects of vaping

Essay 4
Documented Cause/Effect Paper

Assignment

Write a 1,250 word cause/effect essay (approximately 4-5 pages, not including the Works Cited page) in which you make an assertion about your chosen topic (which will be your thesis statement) and use your own ideas in addition to outside sources to support it.

Purpose

The purpose of this essay is not only to learn to develop a cause/effect essay, but to to learn the conventions of using and citing outside sources to prepare you for the type of research and writing you will do in ENGL102 or ENGL103.

Introduction

Just as you have been doing in your other essays, you will need to write an introduction to this essay that captures your reader’s attention and gives your reader a reason to read on. In other words, you don’t want to just jump right in to your topic by stating your thesis immediately. You want to begin with something that your readers can relate to. You will then want to present any necessary background information or define any necessary terms, then move on to your thesis statement. Your thesis statement should be one that is not only arguable, but that establishes a clear cause/effect relationship.

Thesis Statement

Your essay should have a solid, specific thesis statement that sets up a cause/effect relationship and the content of your essay should elaborate on that relationship.

This means that you will have to think of your topic in terms of cause/effect and decide if you will focus on either one cause and two or three effects or on one effect and two or three causes. The topic you choose from the topic sheet should help you decide how you will focus your essay.

For example, if you were writing about global warming, you could approach the topic in two different ways:
1. Focus on one cause and two effects: As a result of humans’ reliance on fossil fuels, the polar ice caps are melting more quickly than ever before and weather patterns are changing.
2. Focus on one effect and two causes: Weather patterns are changing dramatically as a result of an increase in the human production of methane gasses and carbon dioxide.

Both of these thesis statements are focused and imply a plan of development for the essay.

Body Paragraphs

Your body paragraphs will provide support for your thesis statement. These paragraphs should consist mainly of your own ideas that are supported by a few quotes, paraphrases, statistics, factual data and any other evidence that supports your ideas. In a short essay, you should have up to two quotes paraphrases or other types of evidence per paragraph. Do not use long quotes (four lines of text or more). See your sheet on integrating quotes into your essay for more information on how to integrate quotes.

Conclusion

You will need to write a conclusion that ties your entire essay together. You should restate your thesis statement in different words, but you should also include such elements as an insightful conclusion about your topic, a proposed solution to the stated problem, or new information about it. The conclusion is the “so what?” part of the essay. Why should your readers care about what they have just read? Therefore, it should not be a summary of your main points, a verbatim restatement of your thesis or a regurgitation of what you just said in the body of your paper. Leave your readers with something to think about.

Sources

For this essay, you are required to use two outside sources that you found using the MC library databases for this essay. You may not use any sources from the internet (i.e. information you found using Google or Google Scholar). You are required to cite both sources somewhere in your essay using MLA in-text citations and you are required to have a Works Cited page.

I will not accept your paper if you use sources from the internet.

A Word of Caution About Plagiarism: You will fail this essay automatically if you quote or paraphrase outside sources but do not include any type of documentation (i.e. in-text citations or a works cited page). You will also fail the essay automatically if you take words directly from your sources and do not put them in quotation marks. If you are unsure about how to properly cite your sources, please ask for help either from me or from the writing center.

Format

Your final essay should be formatted according to MLA style—including the in-text citations and the Works Cited page.

Remember that part of your grade will depend on your ability to format your headings, in-text citations, and Works Cited entries accurately.