50 Best Ideas to Write a Cause and Effect Essay

It is not uncommon for students to receive an assignment to write a ‘Cause and Effect’ essay during their college years. It is an essay type that most of the students encounter trouble writing. One of the reasons for this is that the ‘cause and effect’ type is a rather lesser-known type of essay. As a consequence of the lack of understanding, it becomes difficult for even the brightest of the students to write a ‘Cause and Effect’ essay.

As most of the essay types, there is no particular format that this essay is required to be written in. But there are certain conventions and regulations that anyone writing this type of essay should conform to. If a student wants to achieve good grades for this assignment, it is important that these conventions are followed.

One of the biggest mistakes that the students commit is to think that a good vocabulary and a good set of writing skills can enable them to write all kinds of articles, essays, and assignments. Although good writing skills are one of the primary requirements for the creation of any good piece of content, it is not the only one. One should keep in mind that every form of essay is required to be written in a certain style. The language used the tone and every other element changes with the style of the essay. Therefore, it is safe to say that if anyone starts to write an essay type like ‘Cause and Effect’ without the knowledge of the style and tone, it would be a mistake.

It is equally important to understand that none of these skills just come to a person. To become good at writing assignments, articles, and essays, one needs to practice. These skills can only be acquired by a person with practice. The more a student practices, the better he can get at writing essays, articles, and dissertations.


However, if you get an assignment to write a ‘Cause and Effect’ essay, the first thing you should do is try and understand everything that you need to about this type of essay.

What is a Cause and Effect Essay?

The principle behind this type of essay is fairly simple. Certain actions cause certain reactions. It would be very interesting for one to sit back and think about how we use these principles of analysis of causes and effects in our everyday lives. For instance, if you show up at your workspace late, your supervisor would ask you why you are late and you would have to explain why. Basically, in such a situation, what you do is use the principle of cause and effect. Almost all professions involve the use of the principle of cause and effect. For instance, when a scientist, or a doctor, perform some analysis to find out why something has occurred, he makes the use of this principle. He finds out the cause of something and the effect that has occurred because of it.

In the simplest of words, a cause and effect essay is a piece of content that describes the causes, or effects, or both that take place as the result of a particular event. This kind of essay mostly presents an analysis of the connection that is there between two or more conditions or events. The approach that a student adopts while writing a cause and effect essay is entirely dependent on what perspective he adopts while writing the essay. If he chooses to write about the causes of an event, the approach will be different. However, if he chooses to write the effects of an event, the approach will be entirely different; and the same goes for when he chooses to write about both cause and effects.

Broadly, the cause and effect essay can be of three types:

  • The first type is one that explains how an event occurred along with all the consequences it had.
  • The second type is that in which the causes are described. This type explains the reasons for a particular type of effect.
  • The third type is one which focuses on the effects of an event. This type of essay describes all the consequences of the event that takes place.

To someone who has never written a cause and effect essay, all of this can sound really confusing. At times, the students can even be confused with the causes or effects of an event. One of the most common mistakes that the students commit while writing a cause and effect essay is mistaking the causes for the effects of the consequences. Therefore, before beginning to write the essay, you should read as much as you can about the type of essay to develop an understanding of it. Also, to avoid having the confusion between causes and effects while writing the essay, you should find out whether it is the cause you are stating in your essay or the causes. For instance, if a couple tells you that they have not been talking to each other for quite some time and they are depressed, the lack of communication is the cause and the depression that both of them have is the effect of the event. Make sure that you are absolutely clear about all these things before beginning to write the essay.

Selecting the topic:

Selecting the topic for an essay is always difficult. As already mentioned above, it is quite important for the students to read and develop an understanding of the type of essay before moving the stage of selecting the topic. Think of it this way: if you do not know much about the kind of essay you are about to write, then you do not really have nothing to go with while selecting the essay. There would be no parameter for you to evaluate the validity of a topic for your essay. However, in most cases, even if a student gathers all the information about the essay type, the problem does not get solved.  Most of the students end up making the transition from ‘not knowing anything’ to ‘knowing too much’. Since this one is an essay type that is lesser-known, finding a topic that suits all your requirements, or in other words, finding a topic that is absolutely perfect for your essay, can prove to be quite a task for you.

Here are some of the things that should be kept in mind while selecting a topic for this kind of essay:

1. Choose an interesting topic:

It has been mentioned earlier that the principle of cause and effect is applied and used by all of us almost everywhere. Now that you know this fact, it does not give you the liberty to choose a mundane topic from your daily life. The topic of your essay should be very interesting. It should be something that raises eyebrows and grabs the attention of the readers instantly. Moreover, even if you insist on selecting a topic from your daily life, it becomes your duty to try and find a way to make it look interesting through the main body of your essay.

2. Narrow down your topic:

This is another thing that the students should be careful of. Once you have chosen the most interesting topic possible, the next step is to narrow it down as much as possible. The reason you should do so is that it will be easier for you to present a narrow topic from your point of view as compared to a broad and vague one.

Moreover, if you will be able to present the topic from your point of view, the quality of the content will be high, and thus, you will be more likely to get good marks or grade. Therefore, make sure that you narrow down the topic as much as possible.

Some of the best topics:

If the research is done in the right way and with the right approach, an abundant number of topics can be found for a cause and effect essay. But since most of the students struggle to do the right kind of research, here are the best fifty topics for you to choose from:

  1. Causes and effects of using smart classes to educate children in public schools.
  2. Causes and effects of the increasing use of contraceptive among teenage girls.
  3. What are the effects of divorce on the children involved?
  4. What are the cause and effects of the rising rate of divorce among young couples?
  5. Causes and effects of the commitment phobia that men apparently have.
  6. Causes and effects of a child turning out to be a rebel against his parents.
  7. Effects that divorce of the parents has on the nature of relationships of the children.
  8. Major causes and effects of long-distance relationships.
  9. What are the effects of a long-distance relationship of the past on the present relationships of an individual?
  10. Major causes and effects of the slavery system.
  11. How does growing up in poverty impact the attitude of children towards life?
  12. Effects of growing up with a disability on the attitude of a child towards life.
  13. Causes and effects of people not getting their children vaccinated quickly.
  14. What causes the eradication and treatment of some diseases (maybe pick a particular one) so difficult?
  15. What are the main causes for people to get cancer?
  16. Major effects of violent video games on young children and teenagers.
  17. Effects that typing on phones has had on the communication skills of people.
  18. What causes parents to choose home-schooling instead of normal schools?
  19. How does home-schooling impact the lives of children?
  20. What effects has the transition from books to computers and tablets had on learning abilities of children?
  21. Effects of strict education on the attitude of students towards school.
  22. What effects does being identified as having a mental disability have on an individual?
  23. Reasons for American students to lag behind students from other countries on international tests.
  24. Reasons for civil was to have taken place.
  25. What caused World War I/II and how did these wars impact the world?
  26. Cause and effect of the increasing awareness of feminism around the world.
  27. Causes and effects of the colonial system.
  28. Causes and effects of the American Revolution in the world.
  29. Causes and effects of illegal immigration on a country (maybe pick a particular country).
  30. Causes for the world to adopt the concept of online business.
  31. How has the invention of the printing press impacted world history?
  32. Effects of dictatorship on the people of North Korea.
  33. What effects can a good physical education program have on young students?
  34. What has caused Google to be the most popular search engine in the world?
  35. What effects does excessive exposure to social media have on children?
  36. Cause and effects of cell phones becoming so important for human beings.
  37. Causes for social media sites (pick one) to lose popularity.
  38. What causes people to not have regular dental check-ups?
  39. Effects of globalization on the world.
  40. Causes of the fall in the number of students using the in-school library.
  41. Effects of helicopter parenting on a child.
  42. What causes some school to produce better education than others?
  43. What effects can a chronic disease have on an individual even after being cured?
  44. What effects can the involvement in an abusive relationship have on an individual?
  45. What effects does birth control have on a woman?
  46. Causes and effects of the ever-growing world population.
  47. Causes of bankruptcy and its effects on an individual.
  48. Effects of failure on the attitude of a person towards life.
  49. Causes and effects of growing up with food insecurity.
  50. Main causes and effects of war on the population.

These are some of the best topics for you to choose from while writing a cause and effect essay. Anyone of these topics should be good enough for a student to write a decent essay on. However, you should always keep in mind your course and the teacher’s instruction while selecting the topic for your essay.

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