Approaching Sentences

So you want to write a letter to your boyfriend/girlfriend, or maybe an essay for your tutor, or a job application, but you’re not sure that your written English is too good. One basic fact that is most important to remember is to write in sentences! If you are writing text and do not break it down into sentences it can make it very difficult for the reader to grasp the meaning of your work.  Indeed it can often lead to misunderstandings, and you may find that the reader has a very different idea of what you thought you had written!

Basically, sentences are groups of words (at least two), that express a statement, and make complete sense. The first word of a sentence always starts with a capital letter.   Let’s start with a simple sentence. You will notice that these always contain a noun (subject) and a verb (doing word). I will give you an example:

Today, I am going shopping.

You will see that this imparts to you certain information.  The verb is going shopping and the person doing it is me! Simple sentences are correct and fine to use on occasions but if you are writing a lot of text, as in a letter, and try to write only in simple sentences the text will appear clumsy and the writing may seem immature.

This is why we often use compound sentences. These are sentences that have two clauses of equal importance, which are joined together by a conjunction (a joining word).  To go back to our example, I could expand on that and provide you with more information. 

Today, I am going shopping, because I have a day off work.

You are now aware of two facts, the first that I am going shopping and the second that I have a day off work. Both of these statements, or clauses, are of equal status; either one would make sense on its own, but both have been imparted in one sentence. There is a long list of conjunctions that are often used including and, although, as, because but, if, or, before, after, until, whenever, while, although, where etc.

The third type of sentence you may write is a complex sentence. These are also made up of clauses, but the clauses this time are not equally balanced.  You will have one main clause (or subject) and one or more subordinate clauses.  These can be identified as the subordinate clause does not make sense on its own. Let’s return to our example, I might say:

If the bus turns up, I am going shopping today.

Sentences are very useful things; they can be used to make statements as in our examples above. They may be used to ask direct questions or make requests as in “Are you going to the party tonight”?  They may also be used to give orders or express exclamations - “I am freezing”!

You may have noticed that sentences often end with a full stop, this make you aware that the sentence is finished and you are moving onto a new one.  This is not always the case though, if a sentence ends with a question mark or exclamation mark you do not have to add a full stop – these cheeky little punctuation marks do the job for you!

I hope you will have some fun practising writing in sentences and identifying what sort of sentence you have created.  However, if you are still unsure please visit our website www.writtenenglishcorrected.com for further information.