Cause and effect

Understanding the different ways of expressing the relationship between the causes and the effects of an action is very important when you are reading English. If an argument begins with effects or results, the causes are the reasons that logically lead to those results. This cause-effect relationship is commonly used in academic texts.

There are many different ways of expressing cause and effect; before looking at some of these ways, note carefully this important distinction:

1 Often, the choice of verbs in a sentence will indicate a cause-effect relationship. The following verbs are used to link a cause with an effect:

result	be caused by
cause	be produced by
produce allow	result in result from
prevent	bring about
enable

Examples

1. The idea of keeping instructions for the computer inside the

computer's memory brought about significant changes in computer
technology. (A---------- ► B)

2. In a daisy wheel printer, the hammer hits a single letter,
guaranteeing accurate positioning and uniform striking. This allows
a fast, quiet, and reliable operation, with superb print quality.

(A-------- * B)

3. Dust and dirt cause the recording condition of disks to deteriorate.
(A------- -> B)

2 Connectives used in specifying a cause can be any of the following:

due to

as the/a result of

since

because

in response to

as

Examples

1. The first real calculating machines appeared in 1820 as the result of several people's experiments. (B < A)

2. A computer is not a single-purpose machine, since instructions can be combined in an infinite number of sequences. (B < A)

3. Because the printing element of line printers is so simple and has no moving parts, these printers are inexpensive and silent. (A * B)

3 Sentence connectors used in introducing a result are:

with the result that

so that

thus

therefore

consequently

hence

for this reason

Examples

1. All disks are made of a substance coated with metal oxide and can therefore be magnetized.

2. A punch card is organized into 12 rows and 80 columns. For this reason, the character is changed into a 12-bit word.

3. The memory of the first computers was made up of fine vertical and horizontal wire. Every intersection had its unique address; consequently, when an electrical current was passed through the wires, the cores were identified by their respective addresses.

4 Another way of showing causal relationship is by introducing the cause with IF, and both the cause clause and the effect clause verbs are in the present tense.

Examples

1. If the necessary information is located on secondary memory devices such as disks or tapes, programs and data are first loaded into internal memory.

2. If a tape drive has a transfer speed of 200 IPS, reading from a 6250 BPI density tape is like reading 15,000 cards in one second.

Exercise 1

Read the following sentences and underline that part which expresses the cause.

1. Because electric pulses can move at the speed of light, a computer can carry out vast numbers of arithmetic-logical operations almost instantaneously. (Unit 1, paragraph 5)

2. People went on using some form of abacus well into the 16th century, and it is still being used in some parts of the world because it can be understood without knowing how to read. (Unit 2, paragraph 1)

3. When computers fail, it is due to human error and not the fault of computers. (Unit 4, paragraph 4)

4. Most primary memory is costly, and therefore it is used transiently. (Unit 10, paragraph 2)

5. A keypunch is not physically connected to the computer in any way; hence, it is said to be off-line. (Unit 3, paragraph 2)

Now read the following sentences and underline that part which expresses the effect/result.

1. Computers can remove many of the routine and boring tasks from our lives, thereby leaving us with more time for interesting, creative work. (Unit 3, paragraph 6)

2. Because they are man-made machines, computers sometimes malfunction or break down and have to be repaired. (Unit 7, paragraph 3)

3. Since the operating environment for most minicomputers is far less varied and more complex than for large mainframes, their software and peripheral requirements differ greatly. (Unit 7, paragraph 3)

4. Random-access devices bypass large amounts of irrelevant data, and therefore reduce access time considerably. (Unit 10, paragraph 4)

5. Mainframes have been reduced in both size and cost as a result of advances made in the manufacturing of miniaturized circuitry. (Unit 2, paragraph 2)

Exercise 2

Complete the following table by referring back to the text on 'Printers', (Unit 16).

PARA [1]	MARKER	CAUSE	EFFECT/RESULT
Occurs
[3]		each cylinder spins into the appropriate character position
[4]			it is hammered onto the paper through a carbon ribbon
[5]	allows
[6]		the inertia is minimal
[7]			the character on the cylinder segment is brought into contact with the ribbon and paper
[8]	because

Exercise 3

Refer back to paragraphs 2 and 6 of 'Terminals' (Unit 17) and complete the table below.

PARA	MARKER	CAUSE	EFFECT/RESULT
[2]	therefore
	speed and quietness
[6]			results were accurate andfast
because
	doesn't depend on moving pen

PART 3

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