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.

Here are some other common linking devices used to express cause:

  • Because of
  • As a result of
  • Due to

Because these phrases contain prepositions, they are followed only by nouns / phrases. They cannot be followed by a clause:

  • Because of increased smartphone usage, the school changed its policy.
  • The school changed its policy because of increased smartphone usage.
  • Because of more and more students are using smartphones in class, the school changed its policy.

Effect

Here are some common linking devices used to express effect:

  • Therefore
  • As a result
  • Consequently

These are conjunctive adverbs. They are used to connect two independent clauses or two related sentences:

  • More and more students are using smartphones in class; as a result, the school changed its policy.
  • More and more students are using smartphones. As a result, the school changed its policy.

Exercise

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