Topic
: Sentences and Paragraphs
Day 3 Sentence
Variety and Conjunctions
What is meant
by sentence variety?
In order to
have variety in your paragraphs and essays, you must have variety in your
sentences. Pay attention to the following points -
A. SENTENCE
BEGINNINGS
1. Check
your sentences when you are ready to revise to make sure that you have not
begun more than two sentences in a row with the same word.
For example:
She was fed up
with his behavior. She wanted to tell him, but he had a very bad temper
and she was afraid. She tried thinking of ways to say it, but each way
was dangerously sarcastic. She couldn't ignore it any longer but she
didn't want to walk out of the relationship. She was sure that she loved
him.
Do you see how
boring that sounds?
This would be
an improvement:
She was fed up
with his behavior, but he had a bad temper and she was afraid to tell
him. Each way she thought of for expressing her frustration was
dangerously sarcastic. Unable to ignore it, she still refused to walk out
of the relationship because she was sure that she loved him.
2. Be
sure that you don't begin each sentence with the subject (alone, or with
"the" or "a" or "an"). In the following
examples, the subject is underlined.
For example:
The ship had sailed
hours ago and the festival had begun. They began eating and
drinking right away. The food was delicious. The champagne
flowed freely. David had given her this cruise
as an anniversary gift. Sarah had truly been surprised by this
loving gesture.
This would be
an improvement:
The ship had sailed
hours ago and the festival had begun. Served delicious food and free-flowing
champagne, Sarah was already enjoying David's anniversary gift.
Surprised by this loving gesture, she considered herself a lucky winner.
B. SENTENCE
LENGTHS
All sentences
in a paragraph should be of different lengths.
For example –
This paragraphs sounds too boring:
She was fed up
with his behavior. She wanted to tell him, but he had a very bad
temper. She was afraid. She tried thinking of ways to
say it. Each way was dangerously sarcastic. She couldn't
ignore it any longer. She didn't want to walk out of the
relationship. She was sure that she loved him. (8 sentences)
This would be
an improvement:
She was fed up
with his behavior, but he had a bad temper and she was afraid to tell
him. Each way she thought of for expressing her frustration was
dangerously sarcastic. Unable to ignore it, she still refused to walk out
of the relationship because she was sure that she loved him. (3
sentences)
Notice what we
did here. The first two sentences in the poor paragraph were combined
with "but" and "and." The next sentence combined 2
sentences from the poor paragraph. The last sentence begins with a
phrase, rather than the subject "she" by changing "she couldn't
ignore it any longer" into "unable to ignore it."
THIS IS WHAT
YOU DO WITH YOUR WRITING AFTER YOU'VE WRITTEN YOUR FIRST DRAFT.
C. SENTENCE
TYPES
You just
learned about simple, compound, complex and compound-complex sentences.
When you are revising your work, you will probably automatically include a
variety of sentence types while working to do the above revisions.
For example:
She was fed up
with his behavior. She wanted to tell him. He had a very bad
temper. She was afraid. She tried thinking of ways to
say it. Each way was dangerously sarcastic. She couldn't
ignore it any longer. She didn't want to walk out of the
relationship. She loved him.
Every sentence
above is a simple sentence. Now remember, simple sentences are not always
short like the ones above.
This would be
an improvement:
She was fed up
with his behavior, but he had a bad temper and she was afraid to tell
him. Each way she thought of for expressing her frustration was
dangerously sarcastic. Unable to ignore it, she still refused to walk out
of the relationship because she was sure that she loved him.
In this
paragraph
Sentence
1--compound sentence (Two sentences made into one using a conjunction)
Sentence
2--simple sentence
Sentence
3--compound-complex sentence (Two sentences or more without only a conjunction)
D. Conjunctions
A conjunction
is a word which joins together sentences or words.
Example –
He is
rich. I am poor.
We can join
these two sentences in one like this.
He is rich, but
I am poor.
More
examples -
Have you seen the opera by Scott Joplin? Have you
heard the opera by Scott Joplin?
Change to -
Have you seen or heard the opera by Scott Joplin?
I wanted to sit in the front of the balcony. I
ordered my ticket early.
Change to -
I wanted to sit in the front of the balcony, so I
ordered my ticket early.