Writing

CHAPTER 4: WRITING

SENTENCE PATTERNS

One of the marks of good writer is the ability to use a variety of sentence types. The simple sentence is an important weapon to have in your writing task, but it is limited in the ways it can be used an in the jobs it can perform. Compound and complex sentences give you additional alternatives for expressing ideas, usually in more precise ways.

Simple Sentence
A Simple sentence is a sentence that has only one independent clause. It expresses one idea only.

|Mariam works in private firm. |A simple sentence has at least one subject |
|[subject] [verb] |and one verb. |
|Mariam and her sister work in a private firm. |A simple sentence can have a compound subject|
|[2 subjects] | |
|Mariam works and studies part-time in a private institution. |A simple sentence can have a compound verb |
|[2 verbs] | |

Compound Sentence
A compound sentence is a sentence that has 2 or more independent clauses of generally equal importance.

Example:

independent clause 1 independent clause 2

We ate some spaghetti, and we had chocolate cheesecake for dessert.

independent clause 1 independent clause 2

Laura enjoys dancing; she can dance for hours.

There are 3 ways to join the clauses:

|1. with a comma followed by a coordinator |I wrote to her, but she did not reply. |
| |[ind. Clause]; + [coordinator] + [ind. Clause] |