#2: Building Good Sentences

Okay, there's no such thing as a "bad" sentence. Fragments are not sentences by definition, and run-on sentences are easy to fix. But a writer should be aware that depending too heavily on one type of sentence construction bores the reader. They'll call it bad writing, and that is what we don't want. Don't worry excessively about it, though. Revising sentences is an editing concern, but you should train yourself to recognize what you are using and how often you use it. It makes editing easier.

First, we will look at the different construction styles you can build a sentence in with paragraph-long examples. That's the best way I could think of to show you overuse in action. For this tutorial, we will concentrate on simple sentences.

SUBJECT - VERB

She stood. She felt. She faced. Three males were already taking.

All you need to form a correct sentence is a subject and a verb. But as you can see above, it doesn't leave much room for any description. You want to save this form for something that has some punch. "Jesus wept." is one of the shortest sentences found in the Bible. Doesn't it have punch? Too many of these sentences in a row make the readers feel like they're back in beginning reading class.

Just in case you're interested, the last sentence ("Three males were already taking.") follows Subject - Passive Verb pattern using a progressive past tense verb form. Yes, I do realize that means absolutely nothing to all non-English majors. Progressive verb tense just shows that the action is continuing. It'll make more sense when more words are added to the paragraph.

SUBJECT - VERB - OBJECT / SUBJECT - LINKING VERB - COMPLEMENT

She stood. She felt the water. She faced the shore. The spot was perfect. Three males were already taking advantage.

Subject - Verb - Object allows you to say a bit more. The subject performs the action that the verb describes to an object. It is still very blunt, but gives the readers more information than they had with only the subject and verb.

Subject - Linking Verb - Complement is very similar to Subject - Verb - Object. A linking verb connects the subject with a noun, pronoun, or adjective but doesn't indicate any action. Usually a linking verb is a form of to be. "The spot was perfect." is a Subject - Linking Verb - Complement sentence. "Perfect" is an adjective, but you can also use a noun, pronoun, or noun equivalent.

MODIFIERS

She stood up. She felt the water. She faced the shore. The grassy spot was perfect. Three males were already taking advantage.

Modifiers, those wonderful adjective and adverbs that help the sentence make more descriptive sense. Use them wisely, though. A few well-chosen adjectives have a greater affect that listing the entire thesaurus entry.

You can also use verbals as modifiers. A verbal is a verb form used as a noun equivalent, adjective, or adverb.

She stood up. She felt the water sheeting. She faced the shore. The grassy spot was perfect to recline under. Three males were already taking advantage.

There are three types of verbals: the infinite ("The grassy spot was perfect to recline under."), the participle ("She felt the water sheeting."), and the gerund that is the verb when used as a noun equivalent.

COMPOUNDS

She stood up. She felt the water sheeting down her firmly-muscled and shapely-curved body. She faced the shore. The grassy spot was perfect to recline under. Three males were already taking advantage.

Compounds are where sentences start becoming more complex. Every part of a sentence can be added to with a little help from the conjunctions (and, but, or, etc.). The second sentence ("She felt the water sheeting down her firmly-muscled and shapely-curved body.") has a compound adjective modifying the object of the preposition. Rather than have two sentences that say nearly the same thing, consider combining the subjects, verbs, or modifiers. Just be sure that the units of the compound element match in form. For example: I like hunting and to fish. You're mixing verb forms here. Try: I like hunting and fishing.

SUBJECT - COMPOUND PREDICATE

She stood up and felt the water sheeting down her firmly-muscled and shapely-curved body. She faced the shore. The grassy spot was perfect to recline under. Three males were already taking advantage.

A sentence is divided into two large parts: the subject and the predicate (the verb and everything attached to the verb). Up to this point, we've been using simple predicates. Compound predicates are created from two or more simple predicates joined with conjunctions. (“She stood up and felt the water sheeting down her firmly-muscled and shapely-curved body.”) What makes this different from a compound verb is the use of objects and modifiers with one or all of the verbs. Remember to match verb forms in compound predicates just like in ordinary compounds.

APPOSITIVES

She stood up and felt the water sheeting down her firmly-muscled and shapely-curved body. She faced the shore, a secluded area. The grassy spot was perfect to recline under. Three males were already taking advantage.

Appositives are sentence elements that provide supplementary explanation of another sentence element. Usually, the appositive can be left out of the sentence and the sentence will still make sense but it adds more information. It is normally preceded by the antecedent. "The shore" is the antecedent for "a secluded area." The form of the appositive is usually the same as the antecedent. Not all appositives are set off from the rest of the sentence with commas. Sometimes you can use parentheses, dashes, or no punctuation at all.

PHRASES

She stood up out of the water and felt it sheeting down her firmly-muscled and shapely-curved body. She faced the shore, a secluded area with a grassy spot under a large oak tree perfect for reclining under. Three males were already taking advantage of it.

A phrase is a group of related words without a subject and a verb that functions as a single unit in the sentence. There are five types of phrases: verb, prepositional, gerunds, participial, and infinitive.

Verb phrase is a verb and its helping verbs. It functions as the verb. Examples:
He will write the letter.

He had written a letter.

He will have written the letter by Thursday.

He is writing a letter.

Prepositional phrase is a preposition (about, at, before, below, by, for, down, in, on, of, out of, to, with, etc.) and its object, plus any modifiers. It functions as an adjective or an adverb. The preposition explains the relationship between the antecedent and another noun in the sentence, which is called the object of the preposition.

Examples: She stood up out of the water and felt it sheeting down her firmly-muscled and shapely-curved body. She faced the shore, a secluded area with a grassy spot under a large oak tree perfect for reclining under. Three males were already taking advantage of it.

Gerund phrase consists of a gerund (verb used as a noun) plus one or more elements attached to it. The reason you can make phrases with gerunds is because of its verb characteristics. The phrase functions in any place you can put a noun in the sentence.

Example: She faced the shore, a secluded area with a grassy spot under a large oak tree perfect for reclining under.

Participial phrase is a participle plus one or more elements that attach because of its verb qualities. The phrase functions as an adjective.

Example: She stood up out of the water and felt it sheeting down her firmly-muscled and shapely-curved body.

Perhaps you've heard the term "dangling participle." This occurs when the subject idea that the participial phrase modifies is not expressed clearly. You want to edit these out of your writing, since at best they only confuse but at worst they open your writing to ridicule.

Example: Dangling: Having been arrested for speeding, the policeman took her to the station.

Corrected: Having been arrested for speeding, she was taken to the station by the policeman.

Infinitive phrase consists of an infinitive plus one or more elements attached to it because of its verb characteristic. It can function as a noun, an adjective, or an adverb.

Example: To write the letter required an entire hour.

That private has a good chance to make corporal.

He wrote to request a favor.

Those are the four simple sentence patterns. In the next tutorial, we will cover the differences between clauses and phrases and how to build complex sentences. The nice thing about sentences is that everything that has been covered in this tutorial is used to build the last sentence patterns.

Exercise: (Not homework, cause it's just something to do to reinforce these ideas.) Go through a page of your writing and identify the elements. Don't panic if you find sentences you have written that don't match these patterns. They could be complex sentences.