I would suspect the writer is not making any conscious decision at all 
about syntactic analysis (e.g., deciding that "because" is a 
coordinator). More likely, he is punctuating on feel, and inserted the 
comma because he hears a slight pause in his mental reading of the 
sentence and wants to convey that pause.

On 4/13/2011 4:16 AM, T. J. Ray wrote:
> I believe you're right in thinking he feels this is a coordinate
> conjunction. My understanding is that
> "because" clauses are dependent and hence should not be preceded with a
> comma. I just
> wanted a number of opinions before I bring it to the committee's
> attention, folks who evidently
> don't see a problem with it as no one had marked any of these before I
> saw the MSS.
>
> Thanks for your time.
>
>
> On Wednesday 04/13/2011 at 5:43 am, "Dixon, Jack" wrote:
>> Focusing on the obvious, I suspect the writer believes that "because"
>> functions as a coordinating conjunction rather than a subordinating.
>> Does the student punctuate most subordinating clauses that follow the
>> independent clause this way, or do he make this mistake with "because"
>> only?
>>
>> I seem to remember that Martha Kolln in _Rhetorical Grammar_ addresses
>> the few instances when terminal subord. clauses are set off with commas.
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>> [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of T. J. Ray [[log in to unmask]]
>> Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2011 8:10 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Punctuation Question
>>
>> I have a doctoral student who produces sentences like the following:
>>
>> "This quatrain cannot be read in isolation at all, because the syntax
>> is
>> inherent and incomplete on its own."
>>
>> My question is not a search for whatever he meant to say but is about
>> his punctuation: the comma. Comments are welcome.
>>
>> T. J.
>>
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