College Composition

College Composition Study Guide

Sentences can also be classified based on the effect of the arrangement of words. There are three classifications in this structure. • Loose: The subject and the predicate of the main clause begin the sentence. This is the most natural pattern and sounds the most like natural speech. o He told us a story about the day he graduated from college. • Periodic: The subject and predicate of the main clause occur after significant dependent elements. This type of sentence is used to create emphasis. o Because he was the first member of his family to attend college, and he graduated with honors, he told the story proudly. • Balanced: The subjects and verbs of independent clauses are parallel. This makes the sentence easier to remember. o “Marriage isn’t a word; it’s a sentence.” Some writers instinctively write using one or two types of sentences. You should strive to incorporate different sentence styles into your writing. Your prose style refers to how you incorporate different sentence types into your writing. Sentence Structure Sentence combining: During the revision process, writers combine sentences to reduce wordiness. A writer will look at his first draft and observe that he has repeated ideas or used too many words to express a simple idea. Clauses can be revised to become phrases. In some cases, phrases can be expressed using a single word. Two simple sentences can be turned into independent clauses and combined into one sentence. Making these changes creates a clearer, more concise paragraph. Subordination: Correct subordination places the most important idea in the independent clause and a less important idea in the dependent clause. If the opposite is true, the sentence emphasizes the less important idea. • The CEO, who decided to reduce his own salary rather than approve employee layoffs, worked on the assembly line as a young man. There is nothing technically wrong with this sentence. However, if the sentence is reworded, the emphasis is changed. • The CEO, who worked on the assembly line as a young man, decided to reduce his own salary rather than approve employee layoffs. Coordination: When a writer strings several independent clauses together, the reader can’t tell which element the writer intended to emphasize. • The talk show guests were two politicians and each of them were running for office in the next election. Both politicians discussed their plans to improve the economy.

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