Academic Writing Support

Cause and Effect

The following four pages are sub-categories of 'Cause and Effect' - I was driving too fast (cause) and missed the turn off (effect).

• Reason - Result
• Means - Purpose
• Means - Result
  
• Grounds - Conclusion

These relationships are often reported to be missing or to be exaggerated.

Reason and Result

The most basic way of explaining this is 'Because' - sorry, not much help is it. Lets look at some examples.

I crashed into the other car because the driver did not indicate that they were changing lanes

	Reason	Result
- I learnt a lot from my studies at Bahrain Polytechnic because my tutors were so cool.	The tutors were so cool	I learnt a lot
- External factors can have an unexpected and detrimental effect on organisational growth because they are often unpredictable and may not be able to be planned for. [Check out that modality ]	Unpredictability of external factors	negative impacts that cannot be planned for
- An incomplete infrastructure may have a negative impact on the growth of the organisation in both short and long terms (No 'because' - you don't always need it)	incomplete infrastructure	negative impact on the growth
- The purchase of software and hardware was held up due to delays experienced in-house. ('Due to' functions like because)	Problems in purchasing department	purchase delayed
- Good profits were recorded in 2010 due in part to good planning, and the foresight of the General Manager.	Good planing and good foresight	Good profits

Often it uses past simple (but not necessarily) as usually the reason result relationship is not made or understood until after the event.

Any problems with the above examples? Yup, there are no references. Here are some of the sentences again with citations added.

- Porter (1979) suggests that external factors can have an unexpected and detrimental effect on organisational growth because they are often unpredictable and may not be able to be planned for.

- As stated in Mauboussin (2014), "[a]n incomplete infrastructure may have a negative impact on the growth of the organisation in both short and long terms."

- The purchase of software and hardware was held up due to delays experienced in-house. (Ritch, 2016)

- Good profits were recorded in 2010 due in part to good planning (Gates, 1999), and the foresight of the General Manager (Jobs, 1999).

Logic Leaps

I am going to add a warning here also. Many students assume knowledge and this is very dangerous in academic writing. Look at this example.

Why is that a reason for arriving late? Because the student is driven to school by their mother....

The student has expected the reader/teacher to fill in the gap - they have made a logic leap and expected the reader to jump with them. Do not do this in Academic writing. Have someone else read your assignment, they will soon tell you.

Your Turn

Go to one of your assignments. Try to find five good reason and result sentences. Add them here, but write each of them twice. Look at the example below. Is there a difference in the meaning at all?

• Good profits were recorded in 2010 due in part to good planning (Gates, 1999), and the foresight of the General Manager (Jobs, 1999) for Apple.
• Good planning (Gates, 1999), and the foresight of the General Manager (Jobs, 1999) resulted in the high profits for 2010 for Apple.

Please also note the four reason and result words used on this page - 'Because' is the first one (only three more )

Some other little tips

Here are some things that I have learnt from hard experience. I will not keep saying this stuff (I lied ), but try to keep it in mind as you do your assignments?

• Only include one main idea per sentence.
• Keep sentences short - 25 words max (ish).
• Do not repeat yourself.
• Use non-redundant academic language like:
  • 'Because' and not 'Due to the fact that' (I would fail you just for using this phrase)
    
  • 'Used' and not 'Employed the use of'
  • 'Fundamentals' and not 'Basic fundamentals'
  • 'Eliminate' and not 'Completely eliminate'
  • 'Alternatives' and not 'Alternative choices'
  • 'Concisely' and not 'In as few words as possible'
• Read your work out loud.
• Proof read at least seven times - that is one more than six, two more than five, seven less than 14.
• Write numbers in full until ten and then write the number (see sentence above )
• Do not use the first person - Never use 'I' unless it is a reflection.
• Do not use sexist language - always use 'They'.