"Cause and effect" and "reason-result" writing establishes causal relationships between events, actions, ideas, or feelings. One thing leads to another, causes another or is caused by another, results in another, etc.. The various parts are often (but not always) linked using words and phrases like the following: because, since, as, for, so, therefore, consequently, accordingly, hence, thus, for this reason, as a result.
Example: The truck in the right lane ahead of me began to drift into the left lane, leaving the three cars ahead of me little choice but to brake. If they had not done so, they would have had no alternative but to swerve into the oncoming traffic, and the resulting accident would have been quite a mess. As it happened, the first car stopped rather abruptly; reacting to the first car's brake lights, the alert drivers in the second, third and fourth cars in the line jammed on their brakes. Unfortunately, the driver of the fifth car wasn't paying much attention to anything beyond the car immediately in front of him. As a result, he failed to anticipate the impending crash and was slow to brake, putting the fourth car (mine) in the unwelcome position of 'helping' his car stop.
In the above example, some of the causal relationships are signalled using causal linking constructions, and some are indicated implicitly through other constructions. Make a list of the relationships, identifying causes/reasons in one column and effects/results in a second column, and indicating in a third column which relationships are explicitly signalled and which are implicit.
This page includes two tasks: Analyzing causal relationships, and Writing. You may want to consult this page of linking words, or discourse markers.
Does the writer establish any cause/effect or reason/result relationships without using such "signposts"? If so, make a list of these and consider how you know the relationship exists.
It started out innocently enough; looking for a file I needed for a meeting the next day, I shoved a diskette in the floppy drive of my computer. Instead of a list the contents of the diskette, however, I found myself staring at an error message telling me the drive could not be accessed and asking if I wanted to try again. I did, and was rewarded with the same results. Next, I ejected the diskette and reinserted it. It didn't feel quite right, didn't click into place the way it should have, so I repeated the process several times, each time getting the same error message when I tried to call up the A: drive.
The timing couldn't have been worse. My calendar was overflowing with deadlines and meetings and classes that needed to be prepared, and I couldn't imagine how I would cope without my electronic right hand. Just then the phone rang; it was Ron, the fellow who maintained the administrative staff's computers - a "doer," not a bureaucrat, and a welcome discovery in an overly hierarchical, bureaucratic organization. At the sound of his voice, visions of his office passed before my eyes; computers, monitors, and spare parts of every description occupied every square inch of available space, which inspired me to ask if he happened to have a spare diskette drive for me and a few minutes to spare to install it. At the time, I was helping him out on one of his many projects, so I figured maybe he wouldn't mind helping me with my little predicament. I guessed right, and in a very few minutes there was a knock at the door; my techie knight in shining armour, I thought to myself as he looked right past me at the crippled computer across the room.
Not one to waste time, he squeezed past me and made a beeline for the computer. Dropping to his knees, he went straight to work, detaching the scramble of cables and wires and unscrewing the housing. When he saw the inside of the computer, a chuckle escaped him; every slot had a device in it – DAT streamer, CD ROM and CD writer, JAZ drive, 5-3/4" and 3-1/2" floppy drives – and the SCSI cable connecting them took up every available bit of space, making it extremely difficult to remove the floppy drive, or anything else, for that matter. By the time he had spent several minutes wrestling the drive to free it from the housing, his chuckle had given way to a low growl, and his friendly banter had taken on a bitingly ironic tone. His mood didn't improve when the computer repeatedly refused to boot. Eventually, after much grumbling and muttering, he discovered the reason; because the computers he was used to working with had only one floppy drive, he had not thought to reconnect the 5-3/4" drive; as a result, the computer could not find all the devices it expected to find and thus did not boot properly.
In the meantime, I had a closer look at the old drive and discovered the cause of the original "problem"; someone (surely not I?) had inserted a stack of diskette labels - four, to be exact - in the opening. How they had gotten in there was a mystery to me; the effect they had, however, was clear. Sheepishly, I reported my discovery to Ron and asked if he wanted to put the original floppy drive back and keep his replacement drive. It didn't take him long to calculate the additional time and frustration it would cost to repeat the operation, so he suggested leaving things as they were.
In the long run, I was glad the drive had "crashed", because while Ron was systematically checking all the connections, he discovered that the cooling fan on the processor wasn't working. Even worse, when he removed the fan, he discovered it, or rather the heat diffusor, was glued to the processor, which meant he couldn't replace one without also replacing the other. That the fan had given up the ghost was not surprising, since I routinely leave the computer on around the clock, but its failure meant the processor had overheated and was on its last legs as a consequence. Fortunately, Ron had discovered the problem before the hard drive and all my data were also destroyed.
ULS 2
Syllabus | Self-Assessment Grid
| Handouts, Exercises, Assignments | Online
Writing Labs
APA Citation Style | MLA Citation
Style