When I want to say that it is the reason of my previous work, in an official article, is it recommended to use the following or not?
That is why we used this object in the previous work.
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7It's fine in any register; but the commas are superfluous.– StoneyB on hiatusJan 16, 2015 at 19:33
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I deleted the commas; you can let it to be an answer.– hossayniJan 16, 2015 at 19:59
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1 Answer
Yes, you can use it formally. See the following examples:
I want to be involved in town government, and that is why I'm running for mayor.
And
"That is why you help out people in need."
Merriam Webster Learner's Dictionary says more about "that is why".
Of course, it depends more on context as you can use "therefore" instead of it. I am not a native speaker and they can give you better replacements for "that is why", but I don't think that it is recommended to use in official article. "that is why" is particularly useful for conversation like- "that is why I decided to go", "that is why you went there", etc. So, it is a conversational phrase.
I would prefer to write the above sentence as:
That is the reason for which we used this object in the previous work.
After all, you need to be more formal in an official article, right?
Hope this would help.
answered Jan 17, 2015 at 4:34
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Yes (I need to be more formal); and that is why I asked this question!– hossayniJan 18, 2015 at 6:59
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In my opinion, ruchirM's last suggestion goes beyond formal; in America it would be considered stilted, stuffy or even pretentious. Jan 19, 2015 at 5:18