Student Writing Handbook Fifth+Edition

Cause and Effect / 63

WRITING-ACROSS-THE-CURRICULUM MODELS

Any piece of writing must be tailored to the audience who will read it. Thus, in addi-
tion to the sample cause-and-effect essay below, you will find online five additional
samples, tailored for other audiences, along with their respective analyses.

See online at [http://www.wiley.com/go/wnwstudentwritinghandbook.]

Sample for English

Sample for Science

Sample for Mathematics

Sample Workplace Writing

Sample Technical Writing

All samples deal with a single subject: Isle Royale National Park. By using that single
subject, we can illustrate how to select specific topics and details appropriate to spe-
cific content areas and for specific purposes. Some samples deal with causes, some
with effects, and some with both. Some are a single paragraph while others are full-
length, five-paragraph themes.

SAMPLE foR SoCIAL SCIENCES

The following five-paragraph cause-and-effect paper analyzes what caused various
early groups of people to come to what is now Isle Royale National Park.

The Riches of Isle Royale

Isolated in the far reaches of Lake Superior, Isle Royale has lured people to its mysterious

shores for centuries. Over the past 4,000 years, only three natural resources have merited

man’s battle with the isolation and climate; and in every case, the battle was at worst sporadic

and at best relatively short-lived.

The lumber industry fought the shortest-lived battle. During only two periods did the lumber

industry attack the island, first in the 1890s and again in the early 1930s. In each case, a natu-

ral disaster halted operations. In the earlier period, a flood, which caused the log barrier to

break, scattered the entire year’s harvest into Lake Superior; and during the second period, a

fire burned nearly a quarter of the island, leaving the lumber company’s assets in ashes. For-

tunately, at least for the island’s ecology, its isolation and thin soil, which will not support tall

stands of trees, discouraged the lumber industry from doing further damage to the ecosystem.