Jason Godfroy

SLM 521-summer 05

Web Dropin #5

What is the cause? 

    When something happens, you can usually find a reason for it.  The cause of an event tells you why something happened.  If you are late for school, the cause may be that you overslept or you missed the bus.  When you read a story, you look for the causes of the events in the story.

What is the effect?

    The effect is a change that results from a cause.  It tells us what happened as a result of something else.  For example, "It started to rain on the day of the school picnic, so the picnic was cancelled."  The effect was that the picnic was cancelled.  The cause was the rain. 

    Read through the following stories.  Choose one of the stories.  Decide which one of the above diagrams will fit with the story.  Are there many causes to one effect? or is there one cause that has many effects?  Then copy the diagram down onto your own paper.  Fill out one of the cause/effect diagrams from above.