Earth hour can have a significant impact on our planet. Because much can be achieved when people work together towards a shared goal.
I’ve posted about because before – here, here, and here. It’s such a common word and so you should make a special effort to use it correctly. Incorrect use can have a negative effect on your IELTS speaking and writing scores! Continue reading
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: Continue reading
This problem occurs due to people throw waste into the irrigation system.
Ok well it’s nice to use an alternative to because, but a change of cause effect signal can often mean a change of grammar.
The grammar for because is familiar to most people:
Prices increased because demand increased.
In this structure, Prices increased is an independent clause (= it can stand alone as a sentence), and demand increased is also an independent clause.
We could also think of this structure as:
because + cause sentence
The grammar for due to is slightly different:
Prices increased due to an increase in demand.
In this case Prices increased is an independent clause, while an increase in demand is a noun (or noun phrase).
Again, this structure could also be thought of as:
due to + cause noun
A common error is to treat because of in the same way as because. For example it is incorrect to say:
Prices increased because of demand increased.
Because of follows the same structure as due to:
Prices increased because of an increase in demand.
So, let’s review these three cause effect signals:
And if we apply these to our opening example then we get:
Using a combination of these in your IELTS speaking and writing will help to increase your scores in all criteria.