Wrong because of ‘because’

Posted by pakguru on January 14th, 2018 | 2 responses | cause effect, grammar, karena, vocabulary

People in my office know me as a person who knows about computer because my background study.

In my experience students usually get this wrong because of because of‘!

When you use cause effect signals, you need to think about how each signal behaves with either a cause or an effect. Because ‘behaves’ as follows:

• because + cause sentence
• because of + cause noun

According to this pattern, the following are possible:

• People in my office know me as a person who knows about computer because I studied computer science.
• People in my office know me as a person who knows about computer because of my academic background.

When you’re reading, take a close look at what comes after a cause effect signal. It will be one of these:

• signal + cause noun
  Prices rose due to an increase in demand.
• signal + cause sentence
  Prices rose because demand increased.
• signal + effect noun
  An increase in demand caused an increase in prices.
• signal + effect sentence
  Demand increased. Consequently prices rose.

As usual I recommend reading, reading, and more reading as the best way to learn what to say or write after cause effect signals!

2 responses to “Wrong because of ‘because’”

1. hasib says:

   June 16, 2021 at 11:34 am

   what about inasmuch as, owing to, on account of and by force of

   Reply
   • pakguru says:

     June 17, 2021 at 12:05 am

     ‘owing to’, ‘on account of’ and ‘by force of’ all follow the same rule as ‘because of’, i.e. signal + cause noun;
     ‘inasmuch as’ follows the same rule as ‘because’ (without ‘of’), i.e. signal + cause sentence.

     Reply