SENTENCE STRUCTURE

“Construct sentences that emphasize your meaning and make your writing interesting”

Avoid Sentence Errors

Comma splices (cs) Run on or fused sentences (fs) Fragments (frag) Dangling/misplaced modifiers (dm/mm) Mixed structures/faulty predication (mixed) Shifts (shift) Faulty parallelism (//) Subject/verb agreement (vb agr) Pronoun agreement (pn agr)

Understand How to Use Techniques of Coordination Combine/connect ideas of equal

importance Use coordinating conjunctions

(boyfans) Use conjunctive adverbs Use semicolon Avoid illogical coordination Avoid overuse of coordination

Examples of Coordination

The senator supports education. She voted against the education bill.

The senator supports education, but (or yet) she voted against the education bill.

ILLOGICAL: The senator supports education, so she voted against the education bill.

Understand How to Use Subordination Join ideas to emphasize their relative

importance State main idea in the independent clause Use adjective clauses Use adverb clauses Use phrases, appositives, words Avoid illogical subordination Avoid overuse of subordination

Examples of Subordination

The Senator, who supports education, voted against the education bill.

The senator, who voted against the education bill, supports education.

The senator supports education although she voted against the education bill.

Although the senator supports education, she voted against the education bill.

Understand How to Use Parallelism Use grammatically equivalent forms (words,

phrases, clauses) to express related ideas Use parallelism with comparisons (as, than) Use parallelism with coordinating

conjunctions Use parallelism with correlative

conjunctions Use parallelism to increase coherence Use parallelism to combine sentences for

conciseness

Examples of Parallel Sentences She sorted the books neatly and efficiently. Employees who take the trouble to

understand their bosses, who engage in self-analysis, and who remain flexible are better prepared to cope with a difficult job environment.

Scholarships are awarded not only for academic and athletic ability but also for unusual talents and even for accidents of birth, like left-handedness.

Examples of Parallel Sentences, Con’t

Having a solid marriage can be more satisfying than acquiring wealth.

After emptying her bag, searching the apartment, and calling the library, Jennifer realized she had lost her keys.

Ours is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Vary Sentence Lengths

Avoid too many compound (coordination) sentences

Avoid too many simple sentences Use modifiers to expand sentence length

participial phrases prepositional phrases adverb clause adjective clause adjectives, adverbs

Vary Sentence Types

Use exclamatory, interrogative or imperative sentences

Invert standard word order Use compound-complex sentences Use periodic sentences

Other Techniques for Creating Sentence Variety

Choose the subject of the sentence to emphasize your meaningEx: Your success is our business.

Repeat key words or phrases for emphasis

Vary sentence openings Create emphatic organization in

sentences

Avoid Lackluster Structures

Use active instead of passive voice Avoid nominals: nouns derived from

verbs Avoid dull verbs (have, make, be) Be concise

Examples

And though over the past week the president has repeatedly called on Congress to amend the law [NCLB], his proposed reforms are largely cosmetic and would leave the worst aspects of NCLB intact.

Examples

Texas did exactly this, and advocates claimed it had seen remarkable results: test scores went up, the achievement gap between students of different races was closing, and graduation rates rose.

Example

Any school not on track to meet this utopian goal—one never reached by any nation in the world—would face a series of sanctions, culminating in the firing of the staff and the closing of the school.

Examples

They devote more time to preparing students for the state tests in basic skills, which will determine the life or death of their schools.

So now come President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan with their Race to the Top program.

Example

To qualify, states had to agree to evaluate teachers by student test scores, to award bonuses to teachers based on student scores, to permit more privately managed charter schools, and to “turn around” low-performing schools by such methods as firing the staffs and closing the schools

Examples

Republicans have traditionally been wary of federal control of the schools. Duncan, however, relishes the opportunity to promote his policies with the financial heft of the federal government.

Example

Obama flew to Florida to celebrate the test-score gains at a high school in Miami with former governor Jeb Bush, one of the nation’s most vocal proponents of conservative approaches to education reform.

Examples

Emboldened by the Obama administration, as well as by hundreds of millions of dollars from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, many districts and states now plan to use test scores to evaluate teachers.