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, adverbs or phrases, 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. As we saw in the previous unit, this dependent clause can begin the sentence or come after the main clause:

  • Because many customers complained, the company changed its policy.

OR

  • The company changed its policy because many customers complained.

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 customer complaints, the company changed its policy.

OR

  • The company changed its policy because of customer complaints.

NOT

  • Because of many customers complained, the company changed its policy.

Effect

Here are some common linking devices used to express effect:

  • Therefore
  • As a result
  • Consequently

These are conjunctive adverbs. As we saw in the previous unit, they are used to connect two independent clauses:

  • Many customers complained; as a result, the company changed its policy.

Exercise

Please click the Exercise link to continue.

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