In written English, linking devices help your reader to see and understand the relationship between your clauses, sentences, or paragraphs. Linking devices can be conjunctions, phrases, or adverbs, and can signal a variety of meanings and relationships, including cause/effect, time sequence, similarities, contrast, examples and explanation. In this unit, we will focus on linking devices showing cause/effect relationships.
Cause
Here are some common subordinating conjunctions used to express cause:
- Because
- As
- Since
These words begin a dependent clause; in other words, they must be followed by a subject and verb. This dependent clause can begin the sentence or come after the main clause:
- Because more and more children are using smartphones in class, the school changed its policy.
- The school changed its policy because more and more children are using smartphones in class.
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