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In academic papers, "causes" refer to the factors or events that lead to a specific outcome or phenomenon being studied, essentially answering the question "Why did this happen?" - forming the basis of a "cause and effect" analysis where you examine the reasons behind a particular result.
Key points about "causes" in academic papers:
Relationship to effects:
Causes are always followed by effects, meaning the cause is what initiates an event, and the effect is what happens as a result of that cause.
Identifying causes:
To identify causes in your research, ask yourself "why did this occur?" and look for factors that contributed to the observed phenomenon.
Multiple causes:
Often, complex situations have multiple contributing causes, which should be explored and analyzed in an academic paper.
Supporting evidence:
When discussing causes in your paper, you need to provide strong evidence from research, data, and credible sources to support your claims.
Example of how "causes" might be used in an academic paper:
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Gale In Context
It covers the hottest social issues, from terrorism to endangered species, stem cell research to gun control. Brings together all the information that's needed to fully understand an issue: pro and con viewpoint articles, reference articles that provide context, 140 full-text magazines, academic journals, and newspapers, primary source documents, government and organizational statistics, multimedia, including images and podcasts, and links to hand-selected Web sites.
Gale In Context
International viewpoints on a broad spectrum of global issues, topics, and current events. Designed to support global awareness, Gale In Context: Global Issues ties together a wealth of authoritative content that empowers researchers to critically analyze and understand the most important issues of the modern world.
Gale in Context
Covers the latest scientific developments with thousands of topic overviews, experiments, biographies, pictures, and illustrations, with articles from over 200 magazines and academic journals and links to quality websites, videos, audio files, and podcasts. For middle school and high school learners.
Gale in Context
Search articles on a wide range of general and academic topics. Gale General OneFile is a one-stop source for news and periodical articles on a wide range of topics.
Statistics can potentially be great for cause or effect. Here are some top sites for statistics.
Pew Research Center The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan "fact tank" that provides information on the issues, attitudes, and trends shaping America and the world. It does so by conducting public opinion polling and social science research, analyzing news coverage, and holding forums and briefings. It does not take positions on policy issues.
US Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) The mission of the BJS is to collect, analyze, publish, and disseminate information on crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and the operation of justice systems at all levels of government.
US Bureau of Labor Statistics The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor is the principal Federal agency responsible for measuring labor market activity, working conditions, and price changes in the economy.
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: National Center for Health Statistics From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Access data on the health of Americans.
US Environmental Protection Agency: Envirofacts Get data and statistics on the environment by topic or location.
US Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics: Childstats.gov