A stupid question

[truizm]

Here it is: Why is a comma necessary before "because" in all of the examples I give below except for the last one?
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On the one hand, affirmative action plans seem entitled to relaxed scrutiny, because though they use racial classifications, the group they mainly disadvantage--white applicants to colleges and universities--do not constitute a "suspect class,"...
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It seems silly to invite judges to review the political sociology of every piece of legislation that anyone challenges, because they have neither the time nor the equipment for such studies.
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It also seems perverse, because, as the River study apparently demonstrates, affirmative action is one of the most effective weapons we have against the racism that strict scrutiny is designed to thwart.
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the argument that diversity in ownership is necessary to achieve diversity in broadcasting, she said, relied on racial stereotypes because it assumed that people's "race or ethnicity determines how they act or think."

Much appreciated.

[truizm]

1. Anyone know?

:kick:

[Ksec]

2. My writing and punctuation skills are really lacking

Sorry.

[lildreamer316]

3. My brain hurts.

I thought I didn't have to do this stuff anymore since my mom is gone (English Professor). AAugh.

[LynzM]

4. I don't know

But you might email it to [e-mail] and see if she'll answer for you in her column... depends how soon you need it. (homework? ;))

[sendero]

5. You definitely have...

.. too many commas in there - but since I suck at comma placement myself, I cannot get any more specific :)

[truizm]

6. I'm pretty sure it's right...

I should have said this in the OP: those sentences are from Sovereign Virtue by Ronald Dworkin, a law professor at NYU.

I'm assuming his usage is correct (but he could be wrong). I'm simply curious why his usage is correct because I rarely place commas before "because," and I'd like to write as properly as possible.

[Duer 157099]

7. I'm the last person who would actually know, but

of course I'll offer a guess!

If you remove the "she said" from that sentence, it seem the comma would be necessary.

Maybe that'll give a clue?

[rug]

8. Only #4 is correct.

#1 should delete the comma before "because" and place it after "because" to frame the next clause.

#2 should delete the comma before "because".

#3 similar to #1 except here only the comma before "because" gets deleted.

Because is a connector; commas are separators.

:think:

[truizm]

9. Thanks...

But why?

If I edited those sentences a few days ago, I definitely would've agreed with you on #2 and probably the others as well. But now I think there is some rule about "because" I just don't know.

They also use the "comma before because" in the New Yorker. Here are a few examples.

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/?040628crbo_books1

With comma before because:
"Truss warns us that they are—'If we value the way we have been trained to think by centuries of absorbing the culture of the printed word, we must not allow the language to return to the chaotic scriptio continua swamp from which it so bravely crawled less than two thousand years ago'—but it’s hard to know how seriously to take her, because her prose is so caffeinated that you can’t always separate the sense from the sensibility."

With comma before because:
"They don’t care where her commas are, because her heart is in the right place."

No comma before because:
"Truss has got things mixed up because she has confused two aspects of writing: the technological and the aesthetic."

[rug]

10. I think the comma is being used

in #1 to give the reader a rest before finishing the sentence.

In #2 it's there to emphasize what follows.

#3 is just a normal sentence and doesn't need the stylistic flourish of a comma, as in #2.

#1 is just a strange damn sentence, dashes and quotes within quotes, the comma is added to end the sentence on a coherent note.

In short, the comma in #2 is aesthetic and, in #3, technological.