27.1 – Sentence structure
Sentences can be combined in different ways. For journalists, the most common combinations are simple sentences, compound sentences, and complex sentences:
Simple sentence
1. Simple Sentence: One (subject + predicate)
o Twenty Freeport citizens protested the ban against smoking.
Compound Sentence
2. Compound sentence: Two complete sentences joined by a comma + coordinating conjunction (and, or, nor, but, for, because, etc.)
o Twenty Freeport citizens protested the smoking ban, but the newspaper failed to cover the story.
Complex sentence
3. Complex Sentences: One complete sentence (also known as an independent or main clause) + 1 subordinate (or dependent ) clause (missing either a subject or a predicate, or introduced by a conjunctive adverb — although, however, moreover, etc.)
Although 20 Freeport citizens protested the smoking ban, the newspaper failed to cover the story.
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. Identify these sentences by choosing (a) Simple, (b) Compound or (c) Complex
1. The training rooms of these college athletes smell of grease and gasoline.
2. Their practice field is a stretch of asphalt, and their heroes make a living driving cars
3. Their tools are screwdrivers and spanners rather than basketballs and footballs.
4. This new brand of college athlete is involved in the sport of auto racing.
5. Most of the students are engineering majors, and they devote every minute of their spare time to their sport
6. Although the sport is new, it has already attracted six collegiate teams in the Southeast.
7. The students work on special cars designed for their sport.
8. The cars are called Legends cars, models of Ford and Chevys from 1932 to 1934, and they are refitted by the students with 1200 cc motorcycle engines.
9. Although their usual speed ranges from 50 to 90 miles an hour, Legends cars can move up to 100 miles an hour on a straightaway
10. The Saturday morning races of the competing teams have attracted as many as 3,500 fans, but the students concede they are no threat to the nation’s fastest-growing sport of stock car
Varying your sentences
Varying Your Sentence Length
By varying sentence length, you can create a rhythm that
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- Emphasizes important points
- Enlivens your writing style
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- Makes your information appealing to your reader
Each sentence length has its advantages:
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- Short sentences can be processed quickly and are easier for non-native speakers to interpret.
- Medium-length sentences are useful for showing the relationships among ideas.
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- Long sentences are often the best way to convey complex ideas, list multiple related points, or summarize or preview information.
Each sentence length also has disadvantages:
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- Too many short sentences in a row can make your writing choppy.
- Medium sentences lack the punch of short sentences and the informative power of longer ones.
- Long sentences are usually harder to skim and harder to understand than short sentences because they are packed with information that must all be absorbed at once.