Since A is true, B is true

Posted by pakguru on February 17th, 2018 | 0 comments | cause effect, grammar, IELTS, speaking, vocabulary, writing

Since young people want to be considered independent humans. They try to prove their ability for themselves and other people as well.

This student is experimenting with alternatives for because but has found herself in hot water. There are two possible improvements:

• Since young people want to be considered independent humans, they try to prove their ability for themselves and other people as well.
  [since + cause sentence + comma + effect sentence]
• Young people try to prove their ability for themselves and other people as well, since they want to be considered independent humans.
  [effect sentence + comma + since + cause sentence]

In both of these examples, since is indeed an exact synonym for because, and so is as. However, as and since are more likely to appear at the beginning of a sentence, whereas because is more common after a comma:

because	since	as
after comma	beginning of sentence	beginning of sentence

Returning to our opening example, we could also get rid of the word humans since it is clear we’re not talking about aliens or rocks:

• Since young people want to be considered independent, they try to prove their ability for themselves and other people as well.

 The over-use of the word human may be cultural. See here, here and here.