Writing Effective Sentences

1. Writing Effective Sentences 4 Sentence types

2. Student Writing • Another accomplishment has been completing my British Literature and Composition class and passing it with a good grade, that class was the hardest class offered at my school, and I was terrified to start the class, but the outcome was worth it.

3. This made it quite difficult to begin my paper, therefore I had to rethink how I acquired all my information, along with a better way it could have been outlined.

4. I am one out of the vast majority of people who have discovered my dilemmas in writing.

5. A few particular, technical failures that I have experienced while writing are my tending to spell incorrectly, misuse grammar, and utilize unsuitable words in unnecessary places.

6. Independent clause • One subject and one predicate That can stand alone and expresses a single idea • the flood caused much damage • Subject--part of the sentence doing the action • Predicate--action part of sentence

7. Dependent Clause Also called subordinate clause because it will begin with a subordinating conjunction or a relative pronoun. May contain both a subject and predicate, but it is not a complete thought that can stand alone Ex: because the city did not have a sound plan of evacuation

8. Types if Dependent Clauses: subordinate, adjective, adverb • Subordinate clause begins with a subordinating conjunction • while the wind blew • because it rained so hard • after the storm passed through town • since the storm ended

9. Adjective clause • A clause that modifies nouns and pronouns. • Usually follow immediately after the words they modify. • Usually begin with relative pronouns: who, whom, which, whose, that, when, where, why • Ex: the football player who made the touchdown

10. Adverb clause • Modifies verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs • Always begin with subordinating conjunctions. Like adverbs, they always tell why, when, where, how, under what conditions, or to what extent • When the storm started • After the storm started

11. Conjunctions

12. Noun phrase: a noun and its modifiers: an apple; red car; blue ball Prepositional phrase: in the house; over the window; in the box; in the meantime; Participial phrase: Present participle verb ending in -ing and past tense -ed ending Running through the rain Walked down the hall Ran with the ball Phrases: word groups

13. The Gerund Phrase • When the present participial form of the verb is used as a noun • Running is a healthy form of exercise. • Downhill skiing used to be very popular; now snowboarding rates higher. • I always wear good shoes when I am running in a marathon. • I never could get the hang of skiing downhill.

14. Infinitive phrase • The infinitive form of the verb • To run • To ski • To exercise • To whisper • He likes to run each day.

15. Absolute Phrase • Consists of a noun or pronoun and a participle together with any objects or modifiers. It modifies and entire sentence rather than a particular word, usually set of from rest of sentence with punctuation: (,) (:) (--) • I jumped into the car and took off, tires screeching in protest.

16. The Appositive • Noun phrase that renames the noun or pronoun that immediately proceeds the noun, generally used in (,)s because it is not necessary information; may come at the end of sentence or in the middle • To punctuate use (,) (:) (--) • Ex: Maya Angelou, the celebrated poet, will appear on campus tonight

17. Simple Sentence • 1 independent clause--no dependent clauses • Hurricane Katrina caused more damage than any other hurricane in American history. • 1 subject and one predicate each with modifiers

18. Compound Sentence • 2 or more independent clauses joined with a comma and coordinating conjunction or a (;) • Hurricane Katrina caused more damage than any other hurricane in American history, yet most residents survived. • Most hurricanes cause severe damage; Katrina’s damage was the worst in history

19. Complex Sentence • 1 independent clause joined with one or more dependent clauses • Because Katrina was so fierce, many citizens lost their homes forever. • Many citizens lost their homes because they were built in a flood plain.

20. Compound-Complex Sentence • Joins a compound sentence and a complex sentence; it contains two or more independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses Katrina hit the coast with vicious winds and she tore across the gulf coast with a fierceness never before experienced, destroying everything in her path.