A reader questioned whether I should have written the reason is… that rather than the reason is… because. He is right.
The offending sentence was:
The reason for a semicolon in the second example is because you’re introducing a new clause.
I should have written:
The reason for a semicolon in the second example is that you’re introducing a new clause.
The reason is that because is redundant. Sometimes you can also delete that.
Some grammar experts also think the reason is because is grammatically incorrect. Read why at http://www.russinoff.com/david/usage/reason.html
PS I could have avoided the problem by writing a cleaner sentence.
You use a semicolon in the second example to introduce a new clause.
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