Use cause and effect in paragraphs when you are tracking the development of one situation or event out of another. Cause and effect is an analytical mode of paragraph development that attempts to show how events are influenced by or caused by others--the linkage of causation. In the following paragraph the development follows the inductive pattern of reasoning from effects back to causes.
Global climate change resulting from the accumulation of greenhouse gases, for example,
is likely to have significant health effects, both direct and indirect. An average global temperature
rise of 3-4°C, predicted for the year 2100 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
will greatly increase the number of days in the United States with temperatures over 38°C
(100°F), with a resulting sharp rise in heat-related mortality. Deaths would occur primarily
from heat strokes, heart attacks, and cerebral strokes. The very young, poor, and elderly, as well as those with chronic cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, are most at risk. During the two-week heat wave
of July 1993 in the eastern United States, 84 people died in Philadelphia alone as a result of the
higher temperatures.
--E. Chivan, "The Ultimate Preventive Medicine," Technology Review
