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Using Clauses as Nouns, Adjectives, and Adverbs
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If a clause can stand alone as a sentence, it is an independent clause, as in the following example:
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Building Clauses
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Why Sentence Structure Matters
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Although ordinary conversation, personal letters, and even some types of professional writing (such as newspaper stories) consist almost entirely of simple sentences, your university or college instructors will expect you to be able to use all types of sentences in your formal academic writing.
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Building Sentences
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The Structure of a Sentence
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Remember that every clause is, in a sense, a miniature sentence. A simple sentences contains only a single clause, while a compound sentence, a complex sentence, or a compound-complex sentence contains at least two clauses.
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Building Sentences
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The Order of a Sentence
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Not all sentences make a single point -- compound sentences, especially, may present several equally-important pieces of information -- but most of the time, when you write a sentence, there is a single argument, statement, question, or command which you wish to get across.
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Building Sentences
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The Purpose of a Sentence
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The other classifications in this chapter describe how you construct your sentences, but this last set describes why you have written the sentences in the first place. Most sentences which you write should simply state facts, conjectures, or arguments, but sometimes you will want to give commands or ask questions.
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Building Sentences
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Start with an Outline
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A brief outline will make it easier to develop topic sentences and to arrange your paragraphs in the most effective order.
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Writing Paragraphs
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Writing Topic Sentences
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A topic sentence (also known as a focus sentence) encapsulates or organises an entire paragraph, and you should be careful to include one in most of your major paragraphs. Although topic sentences may appear anywhere in a paragraph, in academic essays they often appear at the beginning.
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Writing Paragraphs
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Dividing your Argument
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Starting a new paragraph is a signal to your reader that you are beginning a new thought or taking up a new point.
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Writing Paragraphs
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Developing Unified and Coherent Paragraphs
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A paragraph is unified when every sentence develops the point made in the topic sentence. It must have a single focus and it must contain no irrelevant facts.
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Writing Paragraphs
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Catch Phrases
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Under pressure to create (usually against a deadline), a writer will naturally use familiar verbal patterns rather than thinking up new ones.
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Diction
