Writing WorkshopPersuading with Cause and Effect

Assignment

Prewriting

Choose a Situation

Consider Purpose, Audience, and Tone

Analyze the Cause and Effects

Gather and Evaluate Evidence

Write Your Opinion Statement

Decide on a Call to Action

Practice and Apply

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Assignment: Write an essay in which you examine the causes and effects of a situation and persuade the reader to take action to change it.

Persuading with Cause and Effect

When you look around your community and your school, you probably see that things are not perfect. What can you do about a situation you think needs to be changed?

You can start by asking a few questions: What caused the situation? What negative effects is it having? What action could fix it?

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Persuading with Cause and EffectPrewriting: Choose a Situation

Change agents are people who make things happen, often by persuading others to take action. Become a change agent by writing a persuasive cause-and-effect essay.

Look at the world around you. Think about situations you think need to change.

Persuading with Cause and EffectPrewriting: Choose a Situation

Brainstorm with other students about local situations or problems.

Persuading with Cause and EffectPrewriting: Choose a Situation

Make a list of promising topics for your essay.

• you find most interesting

• might inspire the strongest response in your readers

school lunches not nutritious enough

new housing infringing on coyote habitat

community center short on resources

no late buses for after-school activities

not enough city parks

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Choose the one that

Persuading with Cause and EffectPrewriting: Consider Purpose, Audience, and Tone

Purpose

Your essay will have a dual purpose:

1. To explain the cause and effects of a situation

2. To persuade your readers to take a specific action to change that situation

Persuading with Cause and EffectPrewriting: Consider Purpose, Audience, and Tone

How much do my readers know about the situation?

• Include any background information necessary to persuade your audience.

Audience

Think about what your readers, or audience, will need and want to know. Ask yourself

Persuading with Cause and EffectPrewriting: Consider Purpose, Audience, and Tone

What are my readers’ concerns or biases about the situation?

• Anticipate any objections—or counterclaims—your audience might have, and plan to address those in your essay.

Counterclaim How to Address

The expense of keeping the community center open will cause local taxes to go up.

The center is well worth the investment; it will keep kids out of trouble, make our community safer, and lead to greater productivity.

Persuading with Cause and EffectPrewriting: Consider Purpose, Audience, and Tone

Tone is the attitude you convey toward your subject or your audience.

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• For this essay, use words, details, and sentence structures that create a slightly formal tone. Your audience will take your ideas more seriously.

Persuading with Cause and EffectPrewriting: Analyze the Cause and Effects

Think about the cause-effect relationship that created the situation. Ask yourself

What is the initial cause of the situation?

• Analyze the cause so that you can explain to your readers why the situation exists in the first place.

Last year the city cut funding for the Heights Community Center. Because of these cuts, the center has been forced to eliminate its tutoring program and reduce its hours of operation.

Persuading with Cause and EffectPrewriting: Analyze the Cause and Effects

What are two or three significant negative effects of the situation?

• Identify negative effects to persuade your readers that the situation needs to change.

• Many students’ grades are falling because they are no longer able to get tutoring at the center.

• More kids are getting into trouble after school because they have too much idle time.

• Young people have fewer opportunities to pursue hobbies or find mentors.

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Persuading with Cause and EffectPrewriting: Gather and Evaluate Evidence

Provide evidence to support your explanation of the cause and effects. Make sure your evidence is precise and relevant.

Kinds of Supporting Evidence

Expert opinions are statements made by an authority on a subject.

Quotations present a person’s word-for-word statement on a topic.

Facts are statements that can be proven true; statistics are facts in numeric form.

Persuading with Cause and EffectPrewriting: Gather and Evaluate Evidence

Kinds of Supporting Evidence

Anecdotes are brief stories that illustrate general ideas.

Commonly held beliefs are ideas that most people share.

A case study is an individual example used as the basis for generalizations.

An analogy is an explanation of something readers do not understand in terms of something familiar to them.

Persuading with Cause and EffectPrewriting: Gather and Evaluate Evidence

Make notes to record your evidence. Pair each piece of evidence with the effect it supports.

Effect: Many students’ grades are falling.

Evidence: Since the city made cuts to the center’s funding, 68 percent of students who had once received tutoring there have seen their overall grade-point average decrease by at least half a point. (statistic)

Logical Reasoning

Persuading with Cause and EffectPrewriting: Gather and Evaluate Evidence

Use rhetorical devices to shape your explanations for the negative effects.

Effect: Falling grades for students

Logical Appeal

A study conducted by Bright Futures showed a strong correlation between high school grade-point averages and earning potential.

Emotional Appeal

Angela is worried that her grades won’t be good enough for her to earn a scholarship. “I’m really struggling now that the tutoring program has been canceled,” she lamented.

Ethical Appeal

The community has a responsibility to give its young people every opportunity to succeed.

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Persuading with Cause and EffectPrewriting: Write Your Opinion Statement

Write an opinion statement in which you share your perspective on the changes needed for a situation.

The Heights Community Center was established to help young people succeed at school and become more productive members of society. Citizens must pull together to make sure the center can fulfill that mission.

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Persuading with Cause and EffectPrewriting: Decide on a Call to Action

Finally, decide what action your readers should take to improve the situation. Write a sentence that clearly states your call to action.

Concerned citizens should write or call their city council members and urge them to restore funding to the Heights Community Center.

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Persuading with Cause and EffectPrewriting: Practice and Apply

Use the information in this presentation to plan a persuasive cause-and-effect essay.

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