Library 3.0

1. WRITING A SENTENCE

1. Identify the components of a basic sentence

2. Identify the four most serious writing errors Imagine you are reading a book for school. You need to find important details that you can use for an assignment. However, when you begin to read, you notice that the book has very little punctuation. Sentences fail to form complete paragraphs and instead form one block of text, without clear organization. Most likely, this book would frustrate and confuse you. Without clear and concise sentences, it is difficult to find the information you need. For both students and professionals, clear communication is important. Whether you are typing an e-mail or writing a report, it is your responsibility to present your thoughts and ideas clearly and precisely. Writing in complete sentences is one way to ensure that you communicate well. This section covers how to recognize and write basic sentence structures, as well as how to avoid some common writing errors. 1.1 Components of a Sentence Clearly written, complete sentences require key information: a subject, a verb, and a complete idea.

A sentence needs to make sense on its own. Sometimes, complete sentences are also called independent clauses. A clause is a group of words that may make up a sentence. An independent clause is a group of words that may stand alone as a complete, grammatically correct thought. The following sentences show independent clauses. All complete sentences have at least one independent clause. You can identify an independent clause by reading it on its own and looking for the subject and the verb. When you read a sentence, you may first look for the subject, or what the sentence is about. The subject usually appears at the beginning of a sentence as a noun or a pronoun. A noun is a word that identifies a person, place, thing, or idea. A pronoun is a word that replaces a noun. Common pronouns are I, he, she, it, you, they, and we. In the following sentences, the subject is underlined once.

Prepositional Phrases You will often read a sentence that has more than one noun or pronoun in it. You may encounter a group of words that includes a preposition with a noun or a pronoun. Prepositions connect a noun, pronoun, or verb to another word that describes or modifies that noun, pronoun, or verb. Common prepositions include in, on, under, near, by, with, and about.

1.2 Sentence Structure, Including Fragments and Run-ons Now that you know what makes a complete sentence—a subject and a verb—you can use other parts of speech to build on this basic structure. Good writers use a variety of sentence structures to make their work more interesting. This section covers different sentence structures that you can use to make longer, more complex sentences. It also will help you identify when simplicity is the best approach, helping you avoid run-on sentences. Sentence Patterns Six basic subject-verb patterns can enhance your writing. A sample sentence is provided for each pattern.

As you read each sentence, take note of where each part of the sentence falls. Subjects are indicated the letter S; action verbs are indicated with the letter V, and linking verbs are indicated with the letters LV. Notice that some sentence patterns use action verbs and others use linking verbs. Fragments The sentences you have encountered so far have been independent clauses. As you look more closely at your past writing assignments, you may notice that some of your sentences are not complete. A sentence that is missing a subject or a verb is called a fragment. A fragment may include a description or may express part of an idea, but it does not express a complete thought. You can easily fix a fragment by adding the missing subject or verb. In the example, the sentence was missing a verb. Adding often make a mess creates an S-V-N sentence structure.