How to Construct
Sentences
Effective writing is
about expressing what is in your mind. You can construct different types of
sentences to express your ideas. There is no right or wrong way to do that, but
your sentence construction reflects what is in your mind.
a bomb exploded
many children killed
a tragedy
Writing sample one
It was a beautiful day
that ended in a tragedy. A bomb exploded and killed many children.
“It was a beautiful
day that ended in a tragedy.”—a complex sentence (a simple
sentence + a subordinate clause joined by a subordinating conjunction “that”).
“A bomb exploded and
killed many children.”—a compound sentence (two simple
sentences joined by a coordinating conjunction ”and”).
Writing sample two
It was a beautiful
day. But it ended in tragedy: a bomb exploded, killing many children.
“It was a beautiful
day.”—a simple sentence for emphasis.
“But it ended in
tragedy: a bomb exploded, killing many children.”—a compound sentence (two
simple sentences joined by the punctuation mark “:” to replace a coordinating
conjunction e.g. ”and”, “but”, “or “ , “nor”, and "yet."
Of course, there are
other ways of expressing the same ideas. Remember these:
A simple
sentence is often used to express a simple idea, and usually for emphasis.
A compound
sentence is joining two or more simple sentences to show their
relationship: “A bomb exploded and killed many children.”
“A bomb exploded,
killing many children.” becomes a simple sentence, putting emphasis more on “bomb
exploded” than on “killing many children.”
A complex
sentence is joining a simple sentence and one or more subordinate
clauses. In the complex sentence “a bomb exploded that killed many children”,
the emphasis is more on “bomb exploded” than on “killed many children.”
As mentioned earlier,
there is no right or wrong way of constructing your sentences, but remember the
importance of variety and emphasis.
Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen
Lau
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