SENTENCE BASICS

A Clear and Logical Sentence

A clear and correct sentence is easily understood. The statement that is inherent in every
sentence conveys facts and ideas that usually answer certain essential questions posed by the five
W’s and the one H. Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How?

Cause and Effect Relationship

Confusion may arise when two unrelated ideas are mixed together in one sentence.

Sweeping Statements
These are statements that make use of faulty generalizations with the use of words as all,
always, never.

Use of Idioms and Figurative Language

The use of clinch in an effort to be colorful may lead to non-originality or a dead
language. What is worse is when it results in confusion and creates utter misunderstanding
between writer and reader.

Use of Context Clues

The cardinal word is: never define a word by using the same word or its cognates.
Certainly, you should avoid repetitions of the word being defined.

THE GOOD SENTENCE

A Unified Sentence
This is a sentence which has only one particular purpose. Whatever component parts a
sentence may have, everything results in only one particular intention or impression. With simple
sentences achieving unity may not be so difficult.
A Coherent Sentence
This means that a sentence should have all its component parts hold on to each other.
From word to word, phrase to phrase, clause to clause, between or among them, proper
relationships must always establish. Success in unity leads to coherence.

An Emphatic Sentence
Emphasis here means only one focus. Whatever units of thought a sentence may contain,
everything must be so properly tied to reflect only one developed thought.

An Accurate Sentence
Accuracy here refers to the sentence grammatical correctness according to standard
English yardstick. This calls again for agreement of subject and verb, of the verb tense and the
adverb of time, of pronoun and its antecedent and other pertinent considerations.

An Appropriate Sentence
A good speech requires appropriateness. So does a good sentence. This means speaking
or writing in sentences which consider well status, age, sex of the person talked to, and the
occasion, connection with appropriacy is that what may be taken as appropriate in one given
communication situation may not be so in another.

An Acceptable Sentence
It can be safely said that an appropriate sentence is likewise an acceptable sentence.