EFFECTIVE SENTENCES

I.THE SIMPLE SENTENCE

2 BASIC ELEMENTS: SUBJECT + VERB
• A Subject is the WHO or WHAT word that performs the action: The teacher
played the piano.
• Sometimes a sentence has a COMPOUND SUBJECT: Her aunt and uncle love
country music.
• Sometimes an –ING word can be the subject: Dancing is fascinating.

5 SENTENCE ELEMENTS: SUBJECT (S), VERB (V), COMPLEMENT (C),

OBJECT (O), ADVERBIAL (A): John(S) carefully (A) searched (V) the room(O).
The girl (S) is (V) now (A) a student (C) at a large university (A).
• Sometimes a sentence is in the ACTIVE VOICE, in which the Subject acts: The
police officer caught the thief.
• Sometimes a sentence is in the PASSIVE VOICE, in which the Subject is acted
upon: The thief was caught by the police officer.
• Sometimes we use PARALLEL CONSTRUCTION to show the relationships
among similar ideas: Do not ask what your country can do for you. Ask what you
can do for your country.

II. COORDINATION
It refers to the use of COORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS to link parts of
sentences: AND, BUT, FOR, NOR, OR, SO, YET.
1) The dog barked all night.
2) The neighbors didn’t complain.
We join the above 2 simple sentences by placing a COMMA and a
COORDINATING CONJUNCTION between them: The dog barked all night, BUT
the neighbors didn’t complain.

III. SUBORDINATION
It refers to placing ideas of lesser importance in subordinate (dependent) clauses and
placing more important ideas in the main clause. We use appropriate SUBORDINATING
CONJUNCTIONS: AFTER, ALTHOUGH, AS, AS IF, AS THOUGH, BECAUSE,
BEFORE, EVEN THOUGH, IF, SINCE, SO THAT, THAN, THAT, THOUGH,
UNLESS, UNTIL, WHEN, WHERE, WHEREAS, WHILE.
1) After they went shopping, they talked about the current state of affairs in
government..
2) I worked on the project all night long even though I knew our group would fail.