Thursday, May 24, 2012

MSQ Grammar Lesson #7: Sentences and Paragraphs

Sentence
  • A sentence is a complete idea, composed of a subject and predicate.
  • The subject is the “doer” or “actor” in the sentence. The predicate, composed of at least a verb and oftentimes an object, explains something about the subject.
  1. Ex: “Tim’s car is rusty.” In this example the subject is “Tim’s car”, the predicate is everything that follows – a verb “is” and object “rusty”.
  • Sentence Types
  1. Simple Sentence: 1 independent clause
  2. Compound sentence: 2 independent clauses
  3. Complex sentence: independent & dependent clause; adjective also makes a sentence complex

Mixed construction
  • When a sentence fails to maintain sentence structure
  1. Incorrect: Since I have a lot of work to do is why I can't go out tonight.
  2. Edited: Since I have a lot of work to do, I can't go out tonight.

Paragraph
  • A paragraph is a collection of sentences and, therefore, represents a collection of closely related ideas which join to form a larger idea.
  • When writing a paragraph, the first sentence should be the “topic sentence”. This formula is not mandatory, but is a good rule of thumb. Every sentence that follows must explain something about the topic sentence.
  1. Ex: if the topic sentence is “Tim’s car is rusty” then every sentence that follows must explain something about Tim’s rusty car.
  • Having completed an idea, that paragraph should end. Sometimes, however, the idea requires more than 3-4 sentences to explain. In such instances, one can separate the writing into two paragraphs. The last sentence of the first paragraph would then not only close the discussion of that paragraph, but also serve as a transition into reading the second paragraph.

Sources: Rutgers Guide to Grammar and Style; Elements of Style; OWL

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