Simple and Compound Sentences

Transcription

1 Simple and Compound Sentences A simple sentence has one verb (action) and one subject (the person, object or thing the action is happening to). E.g. Tim (subject) tripped (verb). I (subject) laughed (verb). You can add description to a simple sentence to make it more interesting, such as: Tim (s) tripped (v) over his own feet. I (s) laughed (v) uncontrollably out loud. Identify the subject and the verb in the following sentences: 1) The storm destroyed the ship. 2) My sister read three books last weekend 3) Shall we go to France during the summer? 4) The house cost a fortune. 5) Yesterday, Alison had her hair cut. 6) What a fantastic colour your dress is! Write three simple sentences of your own about a fairground. Remember to use punctuation properly! Simple sentences can be very dramatic and can be used to build suspense. Fragments of minor sentences can also be used for this purpose. E.g. Stop! If you use nothing but simple sentences, your writing will sound stilted and jerky. You can make a compound sentence by joining two simple sentences together with words such as and, but and yet. These types of words are called connectives because they join sentences together. E.g. Tim tripped over and made me laugh uncontrollably. Activity 3. Look at the following pairs of pictures. Firstly write a simple sentence describing what is happening in each picture. Then join the two simple sentences together with a connective to form compound sentences. Be careful you don t make your sentences overly long by using too many connectives! These can become boring and repetitive too, such as: I was walking down the road and I saw Pete so I waved at him but he didn t see me so I called to him and he stopped and we talked about the match on the weekend and then we said goodbye and I carried on my way.

2 Varying your Connectives Connectives are words such as and or but which can be used to join together sentences to form longer ones. However, your writing will be more interesting if you use a variety of connectives, such as: after because so though where who although if since until which yet as or then when while before whereas Choose connectives from the box above and write out the following sentences, completing the gaps. Try not to use a connective more than once. The first one has been done for you. 1) There was no bus for an hour so we decided to take a taxi. 2) She carried on running she had strained her ankle. 3) He couldn t get the hang of it I had explained the rules. 4) Everybody was there by 1p.m. the game didn t start until ) Warren slipped inside and took the papers Sheila created a diversion. 6) My parents have grounded me I stayed out until 3a.m. 7) I borrowed Julie s racquet it was better than mine. 8) I haven t been able to play football I sprained my ankle two weeks ago. 9) You can tidy your room you have finished your dinner. Look carefully at some examples of your own recent writing. Underline the connectives you use. Could you improve your writing by using a greater variety of connectives? Turning sentences around Look again at the nine sentences above. Each one is made of two sentences joined by a connective: You can go and tidy your room when you have finished your dinner. Some of these sentences can be reversed, beginning with the connective. For example: When you have finished your dinner, you can go and tidy your room. Notice that we have put a comma between the two halves. Activity 3. Look at the nine sentences above and decide which ones can be reversed. Write out the reversed versions of the sentences you have picked out. Make sure you add in the commas!

3 Complex Sentences Complex Sentences are sentences which contain more than one clause, a main clause and a subordinate clause: Main clauses can stand on their own and make sense: Main Clause She was dancing. Main Clause She slipped over on a spilt drink. Subordinate clauses need to be joined to a main clause to make sense: Main Clause She slipped over on a spilt drink Subordinate Clause while she was dancing. Sometimes you can move the subordinate clause around in the sentence, to add more variety to your writing: Subordinate Clause While she was dancing, Main Clause she slipped over on a spilt drink The left-hand column below contains main clause. Next to each one in the right-hand column is a subordinate (, clause, but not the right one: the column has been jumbled up! Match the main clauses on the left with their subordinate clauses on the right to make complete sentences: 1) Daniel tried on fifteen pairs of shoes a) while he shouted, You ll never catch me! 2) The plumber came this morning b) while he was in the shop. 3) We re going to Ibiza c) after three socks and a half-eaten sandwich got stuck in the vacuum cleaner. 4) Ellie broke her shoe d) since he was about to be attacked by a maneating spider 5) I m going out with Billy tonight e) if Mum manages to book the flight. 6) Have you seen Tina s book f) which she left on top of the radiator? 7) Pam chased Robbie round the kitchen g) but she couldn t find the stopcock. 8) Mum forced me to tidy my room h) when Tom arrived with his friends. 9) He thought it might be best to run i) as she walked home from the party. 10) I was getting ready to go out j) even though I finished with him last week. Look again at the sentences you have created and decide in which ones you could move the subordinate clause around with the sentence still making sense. Rewrite these sentences with the subordinate clause at the beginning of the sentences, remembering to add in a comma to separate the subordinate clause from the main clause. (See example above.)

4 Varying Sentence Openings There are four main components of sentences, as shown in the table below: Nouns (Object, Place, Subject) cat mat Adjectives (Words which describe the noun) black fluffy Verbs (Action) sat snoring Adverbs (Words to describe how an action is performed) lazily loudly A lot of the time, when writing sentences, people put the noun first: The cat lazily sat on the fluffy mat, snoring loudly. (Noun) Starting with the noun all of the time can become repetitive and a boring. To add more variety to your writing, try to have a mixture of nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs appearing first in the sentences. The black cat sat on the fluffy mat, snoring loudly. (Adjective) Snoring loudly, the black cat sat on the fluffy mat. (Verb) Lazily, the black cat sat on the fluffy mat, snoring loudly. Adverb) Look at the following sentences, which have been taken from a paragraph written by a student. All of the sentences begin a noun, which is underlined, and so the sentences have become repetitive. Rewrite the sentences in bold, putting the bracketed element as the first element in the sentence. You may need to alter words slightly, or perhaps add a few words, but the main idea of the story should remain the same. 1) While I was walking down the road, I whistled to myself. (verb) 2) The sun was shining and the birds were singing. (adjective) 3) I jumped happily, thinking of the fun ahead. (adverb) 4) My phone began singing its happy tune in my pocket. 5) I took out my phone and saw that it was my best friend calling, who I was on my way to meet. (verb) 6) I m on my way! I squealed excitedly down the phone. (adverb) 7) I picked up my pace, eager to get there. 8) The house, a pretty little place, which was just around the corner, was waiting expectantly for me to arrive and the party to begin. (adjective) Write the next paragraph to the story, making sure that you use a mixture of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs to begin your sentences with. Once you ve finished your paragraph, read back through and make a note of what element of the sentence comes first in each instance.

5 Varying Sentence Length Sentence length can affect the mood of a piece of writing a series of short, fast-paced sentences can build up a sense of excitement or urgency, while long, slow, descriptive sentences can create a more relaxed atmosphere. Look at the picture on the right and make a brief spider diagram of everything that is going on. Using the image to the right, and the notes from your spider diagram, write a short descriptive piece called In the Exam, using mainly short sentences to build up the stressful atmosphere. Now look at the picture on the left and make a brief spider diagram of everything that is going on in this picture. Using the image to the left, and the notes from your spider diagram, write a short descriptive piece called Time to relax, using mainly long sentences to build up the calm, peaceful atmosphere. Using only one type or one length of sentence can become very repetitive and boring to read. Make sure that you try to use a variety of longer and shorter sentences in your writing, selecting to focus on one length of sentence only when the mood of your writing is really building up or slowing down. Activity 3. Rewrite the paragraph below, making some of the sentences longer, so that the writing isn t so repetitive: I stopped. I could see him coming. He was getting nearer. I crouched down even lower. He was going to find me. My breathing sounded really loud. My legs were shaking. I was sure that he could hear me. Any minute now. I prayed not to be found. But it was no good. Activity 4. Rewrite the paragraph below, making some of the longer sentences shorter, to add more variety: Lazing in the garden, the sun warming my skin, the birds singing in the trees and the soft hum of my music, I breathed a sigh of relief. The exams were over and I now had two months of relaxation ahead of me, before I even had to think about college. Life was perfect, even more so because of the gorgeous creature walking towards me over the luscious green lawn. His eyes, a deep chocolate colour, were so captivating that I could easily drown in them. He saw me watching him, and smiled his crooked smile, making my heart melt and my knees quiver, so it was a good job that I was sitting down, otherwise I would have literally fallen at his feet. Blushing, I felt my heart begin to race, trying desperately to escape the cage of my ribs, to burst in a frenzy of happiness.

6 Tenses In your writing, you will use the past or present tense mostly to signal whether the action you are writing about is happening now or has already happened. Insert the correct form of these verbs into each sentence that follows: catch, run, shrink, weave, fight, speak, burn, tear, teach, break, hide, throw, split, light 1) Penelope had most of the robe. 2) What have they you? 3) After he had he answered questions. 4) His shoes had in the rain. 5) They hard but lost the battle. 6) Her dress was by the wire. 7) She had the vase and the pieces. 8) He the fuse and. 9) When the logs were we them. 10) I the ball and she it. When writing you must make sure that you don t switch back and forth between tenses, as this can make your writing seem very confused. Choose a tense and stick to it! Find and correct the twelve errors as you write out this passage: It was a week since I had wrote to Harry and he had not replyed. I had rose early that morning and after I had swam and had ate my breakfast I made up my mind to phoned him. I had forgot his line had been disconnected because he had not payed his bill. Harry had been lead astray by some so-called friends he had chose to go about with and when he had gave everything away and his money had went they went too. Activity 3. Rewrite the above paragraph entirely in the present tense. Activity 4. Sort the sentences in the following paragraph into either past or present tense: I had been walking to the shops when I had come across Tony. He was sitting on the wall outside the chippy, looking pretty glum. Thinking I might be able to help cheer him up, I sit down next to him and offer him one of my sweets. He takes one, not bothering to look at me. I nudged him gently, to try to get him to glance up. He doesn t. Things must have gone wrong with Julie, I think to myself. I again nudge him, harder this time, until he finally looks up. Leave it will you! he shouted, looking really annoyed. Activity 5. Rewrite the above paragraph entirely in the past tense.

7 Paragraphs Paragraphs are signals to the reader, making it easy for readers to follow what you are trying to say, helping them to understand when slight changes in topic are being made. Without them a text can look like very hard work! Look at these two examples of texts. The one on the left has no paragraphs and appears as a solid looking chunk very unappealing to read. The one on the right has clear, indented paragraphs, which break up the text, making it look more inviting to the reader than the space-less mass of words which just puts people off. To remember when to start a new paragraph, just think TIP TOP! TIME - Start a new paragraph when you move to a new period of TIME. PLACE Start a new paragraph when you move to a different PLACE. TOPIC Start a new paragraph when you move on to a new TOPIC. PERSON Start a new paragraph when you bring a new person into your writing, when you change from one person to another or when you change to a different speaker in a conversation. Read through the news article below and decide where new paragraphs should go rewrite the article, structuring paragraphs clearly by indenting them from the margin. For each paragraph you insert, give a reason in the margin. Kylie's success just goes from strength to strength, as figures show her album Fever's set to hit the US album charts at number three. And to top that, she won the best-selling Australian artist prize at the Monaco world music awards on Wednesday! Her single Can't Get You Out Of My Head is still at number 12 in the Billboard Hot 100, the US version of our Top 40 charts. And her album's so hot in the US it's sold more than half a million copies since 26 February. Most stars want chart success in the UK and the US, but it's hard for UK-based singers to make it there. But Kylie's had an amazingly successful year. Fever's sold more than a million copies in the UK and was number one across Europe. Her UK and European tour starts in April and her new single, Love At First Sight is out in May.

8 Linking Paragraphs In order to structure a piece of writing effectively, it is not enough to simply split your writing into paragraphs, although this is a start. You need to also make sure that there are clear links between paragraphs. You can make sure that there are clear links between your paragraphs by using some of the following: opening first of all, to start with, the first step is, to begin with continuation also, moreover, firstly, secondly passage of time later, after a few days, immediately comparison likewise, in the same way, similarly contrast however, in contrast, on the other hand using examples for example, for instance, such as showing results as a result, hence, accordingly showing stages next, then, following, after position opposite, nearby summary / repetition / conclusion- all in all, as we have seen, lastly, finally Look carefully at some examples of your own recent writing. What examples of linking paragraphs can you find? Could you improve your writing by using clearer links between your paragraphs? Write a text containing at least five paragraphs. You must use at least four different methods of linking paragraphs from the list above.