What is a Cause and Effect Essay in Accounting?
When speaking about a cause and effect paper in an academic environment, one may refer either to a specific section in an essay that examines causes and effects of something or to an essay type where the whole paper is devoted to the discussion of these factors. In any way, writing about causes and effects implies that the writer examines a specific situation and does research to investigate the reason for it as well as its outcomes. In fact, the writer may sometimes be asked to focus only on the causes or effects if the essay is limited in word-count.
In turn, though a cause and effect essay in accounting follows the standards of the type, it should target only issues that are connected with accounting, including its functions, processes, and applications. Besides, it is essential for a cause and effect essay in accounting to be informative and factually accurate. Therefore, it would be of great benefit to implement supporting facts and figures to promote the paper’s success. Additionally, the writer should keep in mind that a cause and effect essay in accounting is of above average difficulty and is often aimed to grab the attention of the audiences with a firm understanding of the topic. Thus, both the content and vocabulary of the essay ought to keep up to high standards.
Choosing a Topic for a Cause and Effect Essay in Accounting
Choosing a topic for a cause and effect essay in accounting is not an easy task, so it is often better to stick to the subject provided by the instructor. However, if you are free to choose your own direction for the research, you can easily find many topics online or pick one of the following variants.
- The Effect of Technologies on Accounting;
- The Causes of Contingencies and Their Impact on Management Accounting System;
- The Causes and Effects of a Recession;
- The Effects of Cultural Influences on Accounting;
- Causes and Effects of Unethical Behavior in Financial Accounting;
- The Impact of Accounting Software on Cost Reduction and Productivity;
- The Impacts of Public Information on the Fluctuation of the Market Share Index.
In fact, it is essential to note that some of the mentioned above topics are too broad and ought to be specified in case you are writing one-two papers long essay.
Pre-Writing Tips
While selecting a topic is the first step of the pre-writing process, developing the subject is the next one. Specifically, when writing a cause and effect essay, it is essential to know what are your causes and effects. Besides, you should know whether you want to focus rather on one or the other or even both. In fact, the topic itself is usually designed for a particular approach, so it is always better to study the literature connected with the chosen subject.
Looking for relevant source is an essential component of the pre-writing stage. Any researcher should provide references to other sources in order to show his/her awareness and competency in the topic under consideration. What is more, if the writer makes a reference to a recognized scholar whose ideas correspond to those presented in the essay, then the credibility of this essay gets a significant boost. Therefore, once you have selected the topic and formulated causes and effects, it is vitally important to study relevant literature to find out whether you will be able to back up your ideas with credible sources. You should not forget, however, that the sources for a cause and effect essay should not only be accurate to the topic but they must also be contemporary, preferably not older than five years. Besides, it would be a great advantage if your cause and effect essay in accounting would include charts and statistical information extracted from the cited sources.
Keep in mind that an outline is a strong promoter of the writing process not only in its first stages but also till the very end. Thus, creating a simple outline is an essential aspect of the pre-writing process. Your outline can either include several words just to guide the flow of your thought or be extensive and well-described, with bullet-point for each section of the essay. Besides, formulating a thesis statement in advance is also an effective method to get out from the pre-writing stage.
Structure of a Cause and Effect Essay in Accounting
By the most part, a cause and effect paper in accounting follows fundamental standards of an academic essay structure since it also must include an introduction, body section, and conclusion. Nevertheless, the structure of its body section varies according to peculiarities of a selected topic and in some cases, the writer’s vision. Particularly, there are two types of cause and effect essay structure, including the block model and the chain model. The block model implies that all the causes you have selected are presented in the first part of the body section, while the effects are listed afterward. In fact, it is recommended to insert a transitional paragraph between these two parts in order to make the change smoother. The second method of structuring, the chain model, implies that each cause and its effect are presented separately. In this manner, each of your body paragraphs ought to include one cause and one effect. Keep in mind that both of these approaches are correct regardless of the selected topic, but the choice usually depends on the writer’s preferences.
Introduction
A cause and effect essay in accounting begins with an introduction section that ought to grab the reader’s attention and thus make him/her continue examining the paper. This paragraph should provide the audience with some basic information connected with the chosen topic, but in turn, it should not be excessively broad. The very aim of the introduction is to present a background of the selected subject in order to help a reader better understand the following paper.
The essential part of the introduction is the thesis statement. It should consist of one or two sentences that point out the most significant parts of your text. Mainly, the thesis statement of a cause and effect essay must present all the causes and effects that are examined in the essay’s body section. Additionally, in some cases, it can be finished up with a final conclusion of the author if there is any. Nevertheless, the thesis statement ought to be precise and concise and extremely focused on the most important aspects of the paper. In fact, the very purpose of the thesis statement is to help your readers see the most fundamental ideas of the paper before reading it. What is more, this statement helps to navigate thought the text since the order of points in the thesis often reflects their sequence in the body paragraphs.
To make it clear, here is an example of a correct thesis statement, which ought to fulfill its academic purpose:
‘Such unethical practices as misuse of funds and bribery often lead to distrust for the part of investors and further bankruptcy.’
As you see, this thesis statement presents two causes of unethical behavior, which are the misuse of funds and bribery, as well as two effects of it, which are investor’s distrust and bankruptcy. Besides, it is likely that this essay should have a block structure and be divided into four paragraphs to cover each cause and effect.
In turn, the following thesis statement is too broad and general and does not inform your audience about the specifics of the essay.
‘Unethical practices in an organization often lead to adverse consequences.’
Note that this statement does not specify any causes or effects of unethical behavior of an organization, which makes this thesis incorrect.
Body Paragraphs
The body of your cause and effect essay is the most extensive part of the paper, so it should be logically organized, and each paragraph must have a clear structure. Specifically, each body section begins with a topic sentence that introduces the main idea of the whole paragraph. In fact, the claim presented in this sentence ought to be connected to the thesis statement and should not be too long. Keep in mind, however, that students do not possess enough authoritative power, so they should always refer to credible sources to make their claim evident. Thus, when the claim/idea is stated in the topic sentence, you should proceed with making it clearer. Mainly, if to consider a chain model of structuring, the writer should describe selected cause and effect and explain why they are connected. In turn, when the idea is expressed, you should back it up with reference to a relevant and credible source. The best way to do so is to use a citation sandwich technique that includes three stages: introductory phrase, quotation, and explanation of the quote. This approach of citation is the most effective one since it promotes the academic success of the paper.
Conclusion
The concluding section is the final piece of a cause and effect essay. This paragraph ought to summarize all of the paper’s central ideas, depicted in the thesis statement and topic sentences. Thus, the author should restate major causes and effects that were mentioned in the body sections, as well as rehash some pieces of evidence. However, it is essential to keep in mind that the concluding paragraph should not present any information that was not previously mentioned, and it is also forbidden to use citations in this section unless it is required by the instructor. Besides, your conclusion might have a concluding sentence at the end. In this sentence or, if the work is extensive, sentences, you should clarify and describe the value of your cause and effect essay and/or the possibilities or even necessity of further research on the selected topic.
Post-Writing Tips
Once you have finished writing your cause and effect essay according to the guidelines and mentioned above tips, it is essential to proofread the whole paper looking for any mistakes. Writers ought to remember that editing is also a part of the writing process since no one is safe from such mistakes as incorrect sentence structure, punctuation, and spelling. It turn, these errors have an adverse influence on the readability of your paper as well as its general quality.
Then, you ought to recall a couple of basic rules that will assist you in making your work successful. First of all, in academic writing, one should avoid using personal pronouns, since if you use first-person pronoun ‘I,’ then the essay starts to look more informal and less academic. Secondly, the information that goes beyond common knowledge should be cited according to the required formatting style. Otherwise, the utilization of other’s ideas without making a reference to the original work is considered plagiarism and may lead to adverse consequences for your academic success. Thirdly, remember to check up with the rules of the formatting styles since they change rather frequently. In turn, an incorrectly cited quote, such as a missing comma after the author’s name in APA or no identification of page number in MLA, might decrease the final mark of the essay.
Finally, the writer should reread his/her work sentence by sentence, section by section in order to be sure that the text is coherent and organized in a smooth flow. In this manner, while going through the paper, it is essential to pay attention to the structure of paragraphs and sequence of ideas in them. At this stage of the post-writing process, you should make sure that your essay will be appealing to the audience by examining its readability, credibility, and coherency. In fact, it is often hard to form an objective opinion regarding your own and newly made text, so it might be better if you ask your friend or parent to proofread the essay. Keep in mind, however, that you should not always strive towards writing a perfect paper since perfectionism is an enemy of a writer. In turn, you should follow the mentioned above guidelines to be sure that your essay is good.
References
“Cause & effect essays”. EapFoundation. Retrieved from https://www.eapfoundation.com/writing/essays/cande/
“Cause and effect essay samples”. Academic Help. Retrieved from https://academichelp.net/samples/academics/essays/cause-effect/
“Cause and effect essay”. EssayInfo. Retrieved from https://essayinfo.com/essays/cause-and-effect-essay/
Kearney, Virginia. (2017, April 10). How to write cause and effect essays. Owlcitation. Retrieved from https://owlcation.com/academia/How-to-Write-a-Speculating-about-Causes-Essay
Nordquist, Richard. (2019, May 25). Cause and effect (composition). ThoughtCo. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/cause-and-effect-composition-1689834