Sentence Variety - English Writing Tips | Sentence Variety Practice Online

hi everybody i'm going to show you why sentence variety is important okay so here i have a handout which you can access in this video on your own if you just look at the link below i'm going to show you two pieces of writing one has really good sentence variety and one does not so in other words one is exciting and one is not one is sort of monotonous and live hard to read okay so uh and then and then we're gonna know why sentence variety is important so let's look at this example one community colleges in the united states have an open access policy because this is true students at community colleges come from all different walks of life my college is one of them and its students represent various backgrounds for example ages range from 19 to 70. the ethnicities here represent a variety of cultures for students at the college come from countries all over the world since it has an open access policy the student population here reflects a wide range of diverse backgrounds example two community colleges in the united states have an open access policy students at community colleges come from all different walks of life my college is one of them for instance students where i study come from all different age backgrounds ages range from range from 19 to 70. the ethnicities here represent a variety of cultures students at my college come from countries all over the world the student population here reflects a wide range of diverse backgrounds which one flowed better was less choppy and made it sound a little bit more interesting well that's the first one the contents the same nothing changed the difference is the the writer's use of sentence variety sentence variety is probably something you've heard about and what it really just means is that you're adding variety to the sentences that you write in your papers and those types are simple compound and complex there's even a compound complex but i'm just going to go over these three so a simple sentence is exactly what it sounds like it's simple but why is that why is it simple is it because of the idea that you wrote is simple no it's because of the structure okay and what i mean by that is that it is a clause simple sentence just means subject verb complete thought one time one clause okay so here's an example of a simple sentence the meeting begins soon the meeting is who or what this sentence is about in other words this is the subject of the sentence remember subjects are always nouns people place thing idea then the verb is right after the subject verb begin begin and you can do that you can begin something verbs are actions and states a state of being okay in this case this is more of an action you can start you can begin something the meaning begins soon now this word soon it's just some extra it's just like an adverb it tells us time you actually don't even need to have that and this sentence is still complete the meaning begins it's always better to have a little bit more information but sentences don't really need to have a lot after the subject and verb to be complete some do okay uh but you want to add more you know you want to add like location time reason okay so this is a complete sentence it has a subject verb and a complete thought what it has is a complete thought some times you'll use a subject and a verb and you won't have a complete thought for example the meeting became what did it become did it become interesting did it become boring there's a subject there's a verb but there's no complete thought and that's because of the type of verb that this is this is the type of word that requires some more information after it so just just ask yourself is what you wrote complete does it make sense is it a complete thought as long as it has a subject and a verb you've got most of it but you need to make sure it makes sense that's what makes a simple sentence subject verb complete thought now another thing about simple sentences is you could have more than one subject and more than one verb and it can still be a simple sentence or a single complete independent clause here's my example of that the meeting which is still the subject began and ended quickly now i have two verbs it's still a simple sentence i just happen to have two verbs do you want to have three verbs 20 verbs you can it'll still be a simple sentence if it's one subject unit and one verb unit one clause okay so show you what it looks like with two subjects and one verb let me show you okay so here's an example of two subjects it's not the best sentence but here we go this the meeting subject again and the debates which are part of the meeting that's another subject to such a were interesting here's the verb one verb here we have two subjects you get five subjects you can have 20 subjects i mean people don't really write like that but you you you have one clause just having subject unit verb unit complete thought okay so now let's talk about what compound sentences are so a compound sentence is when you have two simple sentences compounded together okay i like to use this formula to tell students how to make a compound sentence it's kind of mathematical in a way we have a simple sentence over here now if you remember a simple sentence is a subject and a verb and a complete thought or in other words a simple sentence another way to talk about simple sentences is to call it an independent clause that's just another word for simple sentence okay so we have a simple sentence or an independent clause plus a comma okay comma very important plus a fanboy now a fanboy is a conjunction it's a type of conjunction called a coordinating conjunction i think it's easier to just remember the acronym fanboy fanboy stands for different conjunctions the f is four the a is and n is nor b is but o is r y is yet s is so the most common fanboys that we use in english writing academic writing are and but and so so as long as you know those for the most part you're gonna be okay with academic writing then the last part is simple sentence one more simple sentence or independent clause okay so remember don't forget simple sentence is a subject and a verb and a complete thought so here you have a subject verb complete thought plus a comma and one of those conjunctions and another subject verb complete thought so let me give you an example here's an example we have the meaning which is the subject here of the first simple sentence the meeting began there's the verb quickly the meeting began quickly that's a complete sentence it has a subject it has a verb it has a complete thought so this is already one simple sentence i'm just gonna circle that and point to this part it's the first simple sentence of the formula or it's the first independent clause of the formula the meaning began quickly comma don't forget the comma but that's the fanboy i chose here okay but shows contrast we use these compound sentences a lot when we want to show contrast or when we want to add or show cause and effect in this case i'm showing a contrast from this sentence to this sentence so let's look at the second part okay it ended slowly it is the subject of the second simple sentence ended is the verb it's the action here it ended slowly that's a complete thought it ended slowly makes sense okay so that is the second uh simple sentence or independent clause of that compound sentence we have a compound sentence so let me just say compound sentences are great we use them when we want to add information and or again we want to contrast or want to show cause and effect or lots of other things um show options okay but um what what we're doing when we use one of these fanboys in a compound sentence is we're saying that things are equal these things have equal weight this is equal in weight to this they're equal okay so compound sentences are really nice when you want to show equal weight on both sides let's talk about complex now a complex sentence has a simple sentence in it or a clause an independent clause in it but it's complex because it also has another type of clause within it and i'm going to call that a dependent clause now remember if you want to learn about clauses i have another video on that but let me explain here okay so let's look at this formula we have an independent clause at the beginning of the sentence of the complex sentence now remember an independent clause is just another way a fancy way of saying simple sentence that means independent clause is really a simple sentence we know that so that's the first part all right after that we have a was bit a was bit is a type of connector transition conjunction and it's different from fanboys we talked about fanboys for compound sentences whereas with a wasp bit you're creating unequal weight okay so these conjunctions are subordinating they make whatever comes after them go down that's what sub means like subway right underground subordinate okay so these are subordinating conjunctions that make things go down the clause that comes after it becomes incomplete or a dependent clause okay but first let me talk to you about these what are these words so was bit can stand for words like when while where as okay um it could stand for one of my favorites although okay um or as since because or before right oh a can also be after okay i is for if t can be though okay so if you if you're thinking about these words think about it if you use these words at the beginning of a sentence i just walk up to you and i say because i want to you're going to be like what what what what are you talking about so these words create subordinating ideas thoughts for what comes after them okay and what comes after them is another clause and the clause has a subject and a verb in it all clauses have subjects and verbs but this clause is not independent like this one it's dependent it cannot be by itself it's an incomplete sentence because it actually doesn't have a complete thought it's a dependent clause or in other words i can say it's an incomplete sentence it has a subject it has a verb but it doesn't have a complete thought why doesn't it have a complete thought because we're throwing one of these was bits these subordinating conjunctions right before so now you can see why it's complex because we've got something independent over here and then we've got something dependent over here okay so it's got like those sides are not balanced one's strong one's weak right one one can survive on its own one can't okay so it's complex okay so here here's my complex sentence let's see if we can find the parts meeting ended quickly because everyone was hungry all right so here we're going to follow this formula up here we have the meeting which is the subject it's it's who or what this sentence is about the meeting ended that's the action that's the verb the meaning ended quickly that's a complete thought so right here what we have is an independent clause or a simple sentence so i'm just going to draw the arrow from this to here so you can see we got the first part of the formula subject verb complete thought we got a simple sentence or an independent clause because now here's our was bit here's our subordinating conjunction okay so i'm going to circle that and point to this part of the formula because that is the conjunction part of the formula you need a conjunction and this conjunction is a wasp it creates subordinating ideas for what comes after so look at this everyone was hungry everyone that's a subject who or what the sentence is about was is a verb it's not an action but it's a state okay it's a verb everyone was hungry that makes sense everyone was hungry don't read the rest just read that everyone was hungry it's a complete thought it has a subject has a verb it's a simple sentence right it's complete no it's not because we have this word because which is a subordinating conjunction so therefore what we have here when you combine these two parts is this is our dependent clause or our incomplete sentence okay so i'm going to point up there so now we have all parts of the complex sentence and i want you to notice something no punctuation here did you hear that did you see that no punctuation please stop putting a comma before the word because if you want to go ahead but you don't need to you don't need to put a comma before these words when they come in the middle of a sentence you don't need to put a comma before these words if they come after an independent clause and be for the dependent clause but you do need a comma and i'll show you when in this case watch all right now with a complex sentence same as a compound you can kind of reorder the order of those um clauses or those sentences within it um except for you need to just make sure that they still make sense if you move them around okay so here it's very common and actually i advise that you start a sentence with a was bit and you'll still make a complex sentence so let me show you how so this is same thing same type of complex sentence the only thing is we're reorganizing we're not starting with the independent clause or the simple sentence we're starting with the dependent clause okay so you would start with your was bit which is the conjunction that makes this part of the sentence dependent right so you start with your was bit your who your when while whereas although though if all those words right and then you have your dependent clause then you have a comma then you finish off with your independent clause so let me show you what that looks like because there's your husband that's a subordinating conjunction i'm going to point to it because is a great way to start a sentence don't ever let anybody tell you you can't the problem with starting a sentence with because is that sometimes people will put a period after this part which you can't do okay but you can put a comma and you should so because everyone was hungry okay i'm looking for that and that the dependent clause well yeah i have a clause i have the subject of the verb it's not complete though because listen because everyone was hungry what it's not done right so it's incomplete it's dependent this whole clause is a dependent clause it's dependent because of this word don't forget that part okay so now we we have our dependent clause here and okay so it's not done you cannot finish a sentence you cannot do that if you put a period here you've created a fragment okay you don't want fragments so what you do want to do is put a pause a comma okay right here there's the comma okay and then you finish off with the independent clause the simple sentence the important part of this sentence okay so because everyone was hungry the meaning the subject ended verb quickly here's our independent clause okay the only difference between the one i just showed you in this one is that we reordered and we added a comma the comma is important because it signals to the reader that you're going to make a point and that your main point actually comes after this and it comes next okay so it's signaling to the reader that the point of your sentence starts with the subject of the main important independent clause and also when people are talking or reading they will they will signal that this is happening so listen to my intonation because everyone was hungry goes up that's a signal that the person's not done talking that they have more to say because everyone was hungry pause not a period a comma pause the meeting ended quickly done

Channel: Breaking English

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Keywords: Sentence Variety, English Writing Tips, Sentence Variety Practice Online, Sentence Variety Practice, Breaking English, Importance of Sentence Variety, Variety Practice Online, Sentence Variety - English, writing, essay writing, sentence types, english grammar, sentence variety practice quiz, sentence variety practice handbook, sentence variety practice english, learn english, learn english writing, writing skills, english gramm, learn english grammar, basic english grammar

Id: qxvYhW-f8Uo

Length: 20min 11sec (1211 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 26 2021