College Composition

College Composition Study Guide

It is unclear if the manager or Morgan wanted to start immediately. • The manager told Morgan his assignment because he wanted Morgan to start work immediately. Ambiguous number: The nouns in the sentence should agree in number. • If you touch your fingers to the stove, it gets burned. It is unclear if your fingers or the stove get burned. Fingers is plural and it is singular. • If touch your finger to the stove, it gets burned. Dependent clauses after a linking verb: Writers sometimes create sentences in which a dependent clause follows a linking verb. The linking verb can cause redundancy within the sentence. • The reason I chose to attend is because I thought the party would be fun. The reason… is because creates redundancy. The sentence can be revised to avoid this. • I chose to attend because I thought the party would be fun. • Because I thought the party would be fun, I chose to attend. Either of these changes makes the sentence clearer. 2.2 Sentences The two types of clauses are used to create four types of sentences. The classification of sentence type is not related to sentence length. The combinations are based on number and type of clauses contained within the sentence. Sentence Types • Simple: Simple sentences contain one independent clause. o The dog buried a bone in the backyard. • Complex: Complex sentences contain an independent clause and a dependent clause. o Because the dog wanted to hide his bone, he buried it in the backyard. • Compound: Compound sentences contain more than one independent clause. o The dog put his bone in his mouth and he buried it in the backyard. • Compound-complex: Compound complex sentences contain multiple independent clauses and one or more dependent clause. o Whenever I give my dog a bone, he chews on it for a while then he buries it in the backyard. To create sentence variety, writers should use all four sentence types. Complex sentences are the most frequently used sentence type. Compound-complex sentences are used less frequently.

©2020

Achieve

Page 17 of 56