SENTENCE FLUENCY

By: Kayla Stacy, Faith Westovhen, Cole Kircherner, Richard Herro

LENGTH SENTENCES

Whenever you are writing an essay, make sure that your sentences aren’t all short. If they are, it will make your essay sound choppy.

Try mixing it up, and use conjunctive adverbs to create short sentences into long sentences.

Using different length sentences will allow your essay to sound complex.

Ex: I ate ice-cream. It melted quickly.

I ate ice-cream; however, it melted quickly.

SENTENCE BEGININGS

Do not always start each sentence with the same word. Using the same word will create your essay to sound boring.

Ex: I visited my sister. I ate ice-cream with her. I saw a squirrel outside.

Using a thesaurus will allow you to pinpoint different words. Doing this will create your essay to include different beginnings. Ex: I visited my sister. Afterwards, I ate ice-cream. While I was outside, I saw a squirrel.

When you are done adding the different sentence beginnings, read your essay aloud to reassure yourself that it sounds correct.

READING YOUR ESSAY ALOUD

Whenever you are writing an essay, and feel that you created a mistake, go back to the beginning of the sentence/paragraph and read through the whole thing.

If you ever stumble upon your words and have to backtrack often, the sentence is most likely incorrect.

Ex: Shannon and Ben is going to the beach.

You hear that is sounds incorrect.

Sentence Structures

Whenever your writing, make sure that you include prepositional phrases, appositives, or anything else that will spice up the writing. If you don’t include different structures, your essay will sound short and bunched up.

Ex: My house is big. My house is red. A squirrel lives by our porch.

My house, the red one, is big. A squirrel lives under our porch.

Appositives basically, share extra information about the subject that is given.

Prepositional Phrases: Begin with a preposition and end with a noun, pronoun, or clause, the "object" of the preposition.

SENTENCE FLOW AND RYTHM

Whenever you are writing an essay, go back to the beginning and read through everything you have written.

If you happen to stop at any point, and go back to re-read the sentence, your essay doesn’t flow properly.

Example of rhythm and flow

The spider, dropping down from twig, Unfolds a plan of her devising, A thin premeditated rigTo use in rising.

And all that journey down through space, In cool descent and loyal hearted, She spins a ladder to the placeFrom where she started.

Thus I, gone forth as spiders do In spider’s web a truth discerning, Attach one silken thread to you

For my returning.

E. B. White

Oral LanguageWhen you read aloud your essay, make sure that you do not sound as if you are reciting a dictionary.When you read your essay, and it does sound as if you are reciting a dictionary, use a thesaurus to find different and engaging words that will “razzle dazzle” you essay.

Add some voice and emotion in your essay. Adding voice to your essay will engage the readers.

Ex: The beach is pretty and noisy.Although the beach has breath-taking

views, it is has cacophony.

SENTENCE FRAGMENTSA sentence fragment does not express a complete thought. It may be missing a subject, predicate, or both. Sentence fragments won’t make your essay sound fluent.Ex: Wrote about birds.

Sheryl wrote about birds.

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Common Mistakes

Numerous people always start sentences with the same beginning.

Ex: Then we went to the beach. Then we ate lunch. Then we went home.

Then we went to the beach. Later, we ate lunch. Lastly, we went home.

Common Mistakes

A great amount of people always create sentences to be short. They forget to add long sentences.

Ex: The cat is white. The cat eats a lot. The cat is fat.

The cat is white. The cat eats a lot; therefore, he is fat.

Famous Writers

The spider weaves a sticky webTo capture bugs to eat.What keeps the spider's sticky

webFrom sticking to her feet?Spider webs are very trickyBecause not all the strands are sticky.Unlike the passing hapless fly,The spider knows which strands are dry.But if she accidentally standsUpon one of the sticky strands,She still would not get stuck, you see--Her oily body slides off free.-- Amy Goldman Koss

Writing Practice

Everyone will be handed a “Sentence Fluency” worksheet. Do your best to find any sentence fragments, places where there should be appositives or prepositional phrases, sentence beginnings that repeat numerous times, words that don’t razzle dazzle the sentence, etc. In 5 minutes, we will check the worksheet.

Thank you for watching our presentation!

Information: By Cole, Richard, Kayla and Faith.

Animations: By Faith and Richard

Typing: By Kayla and Cole