DEBATE AND
ARGUMENT :
LANGUAGE SUPPORT
By Mandy Pui
Appendix 10
Language of Cause and Effect
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Example a:
Juno decided to deliver a baby instead of
having abortion. She thought that the baby
was innocent and had rights to live.
Can these two sentence
link together? Are they
related to each other?
Language of Cause and Effect
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Example b:
Juno decided to deliver a baby instead of having
abortion because she thought that the baby was
innocent and had rights to live.
Which one shows the cause-and-effect relationship
more clearly, example a or b?
What is Cause and Effect?
The method of development in which the
writer analyses the reason(s) for an action,
event, or decision, or analyses resulting
consequences to support a point.
Why do we use cause and effect?
To
 Discover order in a reality that is apparent
chaos
 Inform
 Speculate
 Change behavior
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a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Today we are going to learn the ways of
expressing different concepts: cause-andeffect---Introduces the reason
Introduces the result
Describes connections
Links similar/ opposite ideas
Makes the summary
Conjunction introducing the reasons
Because, as, since
 The reason comes directly after the conjunction
 Can be used in the middle of the sentence
e.g. The teenagers have sex because/as/since they are
curious about it.
reason
Or at the beginning of the sentence
e.g. Because/As/Since they are curious about it, the
teenagers have sex .
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Prepositions/ prepositional phrases
introducing the reasons
Because of/ due to/ owing to
 The reason which should be a noun comes directly
after Prepositions/ prepositional phrases
 Can be used in the middle of the sentence
E.g. The teenagers have sex because of/due to/owing
to their curiosity over sex.
reason
 Or at the beginning of the sentence:
E.g. Because of/Due to/Owing to their curiosity over
sex, the teenagers have sex .
Connective introducing the result
Consequently, Therefore, so, as a result
 The result comes directly after the conjunction.
e.g.
The
youngsters Consequently,
Therefore, they give it a
are curious
As a result, whirl.
about sex.
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The youngsters are curious about sex so
they give it a whirl.
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I see a strong relationship between [A] and [B]….
I see a connection between [A] and [B]…….
There might be some kind of relation between [A] and
[B]…….
I don’t see much of a link between [A] and [B]..
[A] doesn’t seem to have any relationship with [B] at
all…..
From strong tone to weak tone
Describing connections
e.g. I see a connection between the mass media and the
internet for promoting nudity and sex and a high number of
teenage pregnancy. Personally, I would imagine that many
teenagers prefer gaining the sexual knowledge by mass
media and the internet to asking teachers and parents.
Therefore, they get the wrong sexual knowledge easily.
Links similar/ opposite ideas
Conjunction for linking similar ideas:
 … and …
e.g. The teenagers gain sexual knowledge by mass
media and they don’t talk about it with their parents.
 In addition, / Besides, / Moreover,
e.g. The teenagers gain sexual knowledge by mass
media. In addition, they don’t talk about it with
their parents.
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First of all, … Secondly, …
Thirdly, … Finally…
Links similar/ opposite ideas
Conjunction for linking opposite ideas:
 … , but,
…..
one may argue that the parents need to earn a living
that they cannot stop their children from reading
pornography to gain sexual knowledge but this cannot
be an excuse!
 … .However, / Even so, …
one may argue that the parents need to earn a living that
they cannot stop their children from reading
pornography to gain sexual knowledge. However, this
cannot be an excuse!
 Although…, …/ …..although….
Although the parents are busy with their work, they
still need to spend some time on helping their children
to build up proper attitude towards sex.
Phrases to summarize
In conclusion,
 To conclude,
 In short,
 To summarize,
 All in all,
e.g. To summarize, the mass media are too selfish to
consider their own profits only and they are
irresponsible in teaching wrong sexual knowledge
for their readers. Therefore, they should be
responsible for the prevalence of teenage pregnancy!
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