The easiest point to start with is the verb. Verbs can be either action words or being words. Verbs often need helpers so this chapter includes a list of helping verbs. In addition, verbs often appear in other forms like -ing. These forms are not main verbs and this chapter explains how to identify these verbs.
once you have located the verb in a sentence, the next step is to find the subject. Finding the subject is as easy as asking the question Who or what is doing that action? Just as verbs have a few exceptions so do subjects. In this chapter you will learn about prepositional phrases and their role in a sentence. Chapter 1 also looks at complex word order and how to identify the subjects and verbs in a sentence when the word order is a little unusual.
once you have mastered the basic building blocks of a sentence you will be ready to start writing sentences in various ways that will make your writing interesting.
Chapter 2: Beyond the Simple Sentence
This chapter is about how to move past using simple basic sentences into
using compound sentences. When sentences are combined they give a
natural flow and rhythm to your writing that using all short sentences
doesn't create.
Compound sentences are created through coordination. Coordination is
taking two or more independent clauses and putting them into the same
sentence using either a conjunction or a 百度竞价推广icolon or both.
Chapter 3: Avoiding Run On Sentences and Comma Splices
As your book tells you, if you put two independent clauses together without
proper punctuation, you have made an error called a run-on sentence. Another
name for this error is a fused sentence. Chapter Three explains techniques for
figuring out if you have made this error in your writing, and if you have, how
to fix it. Chapter Three will review much of what you learned in Chapter Two
about coordination. Run-ons are generally created when you attempt to coordinate
sentences and don't use the correct punctuation. In addition to run-ons, you
will review how to correct comma splices. Comma splices are created when you
attempt to join two complete sentences with just a comma and no coordinating
conjunction.
Chapter 4: Beyond the Simple Sentence: Subordination
So far you have studied how to put two sentences together by coordinating
them, that is keeping them equal. Chapter Four explores subordination which is
putting sentences together by turning one of them into a dependent clause. A
dependent clause is still a clause; it has a subject and a verb, but does NOT
make sense by itself. A dependent clause depends on another independent clause
in order to make sense.
Dependent clauses are created by using subordinating conjunctions to join
the two sentences. The subordinating conjunction can be added at either the
beginning of the first sentence or between the two sentences you are joining.
This sentence pattern of one independent clause and one or more dependent
clauses is called a complex sentence. Punctuating complex sentences is fairly
simple. If the dependent clause begins the sentence then a comma is used at
the end of the dependent clause. If the independent clause begins the
sentence, then no comma is necessary. Using subordination and coordination
helps your writing by giving it variety and interest in the sentence
structures.
The most important element to making coordinated sentences is to be
certain that you are joining two independent clauses instead of clauses
and phrases. In addition to studying the conjunctions, you will also
study the punctuation patterns for compound sentences. This chapter will
