causes and effects of smoking cigarettes
This essay should be formatted as a traditional academic essay: nintroduction with thesis statement, body, and conclusion. Either way, in this essay, you should be concentrating on one more than the other (in other words, focus on either ″causes″ or ″effects″ in the body of the essay, not both). Which you choose depends on the topic. For example, if I decided to write about the causes and effects of smoking cigarettes, I know that concentrating on the effects will make for a better essay (the ″causes″ of my smoking can be summed up with: I was young, dumb, and now I′m addicted–not very interesting). However, when discussing the effects I can break the essay down into three major points: ONE: I don′t like going to places where smoking is prohibited (like bars, airplanes, swimming pools–basically anywhere), TWO: smoking has become a huge expense (whenever you talk about money, BE SPECIFIC. Notions like ″expensive″ and ″cheap″ are vague), and THREE: it has damaged my health (ALWAYS SAVE YOUR STRONGEST POINT FOR LAST).[unique_solution] I doubt I can come up with three major causes that are as interesting or specific. Have you used correct verb tenses throughout? Is it clear what happened first and what happened next? Have you used the correct form for all verbs? Is your sentence structure correct? Have you avoided creating fragments when filling in additional causes and effects? Have you avoided writing run-ons when trying to integrate additional ideas smoothly? Do your transitions and other introductory elements have commas after them, if they are needed? Have you spelled everything correctly? Have you made it clear that you are explaining causes? Have you left out any essential causes? Have you given enough evidence to convince readers that the causal relationships are valid? Have you claimed remote causes you can′t begin to prove? Or made assertions but offered no proof? Have you stated the causes with swaggering certainty, when in all honesty you might admit you′re only guessing? Have you fallen into any logical fallacies, such as oversimplification (assuming that there was only one small cause for a large phenomenon) or the post hoc fallacy (assuming that one thing caused another just because the one preceded the other). Have you shown your readers your point in demonstrating causes? If you are
determining effects, Have you made it clear that you are explaining effects? What possible effects have you left out? Are any of them worth adding? Have you given sufficient evidence that these effects have occurred? Could any effect you mention have resulted not from the cause you describe but from some other cause?