Cause and Effect reports: How did it happen? Or what are
the consequences?
Assignment: Whenever a problem arises at work, the causes and
conditions are often discussed. Many times managers and owners will ask workers to
foresee what will be the results of a decision or ask how to avoid the problem in the
future. Thus, this report will focus on a problem that you are working on, i.e., a
crashed system or a the lack of time to complete a project or something along that
line. Write a report to your boss discussing a problem. (Feel free to use this as a
troubleshooting report for your manual.) Use the information below to help you.***
Cause and effect reports seek to establish a casual relationship between
two or more occurrences or facts. This type of evidence relies heavily upon logic and
established evidence. In order to convince a discerning audience of your ideas, you must
make them believe your chain of evidence. Thus, providing ample and supported evidence is
a must. Another point that is important to remember with this type of rhetorical strategy
is that you must either focus on causes or effects.
Let's look at an example. Suppose my thesis is "Children watch too
much television which causes them to lose their creativity." As a reader, you know
that I will be discussing the ways in which T.V. watching causes kids problems. So a
schematic of my report would probably look something like this:
Causes:
- Introduction with thesis
- Definition of creativity--How much is too much
- T.V. does not require participation which leads to passivity
T.V. is immediately gratifying
T.V. stimulates with sound and action bites often with violence
Conclusion
|
Effect: Lack of imagination |
Now, let's turn this around and write an report which show the effects
only.
| Cause: Watching too much T.V |
Effects:
- Introduction: Watching too much television effects many areas of a child's life.
- Creativity loss
Passivity
Impatience
Violence
Conclusion
|
As you can see it is important to choose one place to begin; if you do
not, you will lose your audience because they are depending upon your logic and your clear
explanations to show why they should believe in the causal relationship you are writing
about.
Another type of cause/effect strategy is the causal chain which shows a linked
relationship of events: the first event leads to or influences the second, the second
leads to or influences the third, etc. Here you still have a clear thesis statement which
leads and directs the report; however, instead of three or four items of discussion, as in
the example above, you would show the chain of events. A schematic of this type of report
it would look like this:
Primary cause  |
Effect 1/Cause 2 |
Effect 2/Cause 3 |
Effect 3/Cause 4 |
Final Effect |
Thus if we were using the topic of television watching,
our outline would go something like this:
| Introduction: Draw a scene showing little Jane and Johnny with dull little faces in
front of the boob tube. Thesis: Since television watching leads to a lack of creativity, a
child should be limited to one hour per day.
Conclusion |
Here again you must use evidence to support each of your points or you
will lose your audience. I would suggest that you make an outline or schematic before you
begin the report, as it will help you when you draw upon the evidence at hand, especially
with this assignment. Remember, however, write what you know first, then later you can go
back and add evidence from whatever task you are working on. Of course, this presumes that
you understand the material. If you do not, please ask questions.
Transition words are imperative in this type of report, as they give cues to your
readers and help them follow your train of thought. Here are a few which might be helpful
in your report:
