Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
This video is about Sentences.
In this video, we will look at some tips for writing effective sentences.
Clarity, as we’ve seen in oth- other videos, is essential to ensuring
that, that your reader can follow your argument,
and to persuading your reader that your argument is valid.
We will be looking at what makes an effective sentence,
different types of sentences, and some of the common grammar errors
that undermine the effectiveness of sentences.
Most of the tips for writing sentences will sound quite obvious,
but it is remarkable how many people write without regard
for even the most basic grammar rules.
While I don’t want to review all the basic grammar rules,
there are a few key things to go over.
I strongly recommend that if I mention something you don’t know about already,
that you get a good grammar book and review those basic structural rules.
One of these basic rules is that every sentence needs to have at least
one verb and one noun – it needs a subject, verb, and usually an object.
A complete sentence must have a complete idea.
You could have a sentence that says, "I walk."
It is complete, but it leaves the reader wondering
where did you walk to, how did you walk,
why did you walk, et cetera.
It leaves, it seems to leave the reader hanging, waiting for more.
"I walk to the store."
"I quickly walk to the store to buy milk and bread," and so on.
In addition, most sentences should be written in active voice,
rather than passive voice.
Passive voice is not the same as past tense.
With active voice, the subject is doing the action.
With passive voice, an action is being performed on the subject.
So, if we look at a, at an example of the active voice,
"Lightning hit the neighbour’s house."
Lightning is the subject doing the action.
Now, look at an example of passive voice.
"The neighbour’s house was hit by lightning."
Here we have the result of the action – the house was hit.
Sometimes, it is more appropriate to use passive voice,
but having all your sentences in passive voice
can make the essay very monotonous.
Let’s look at some more examples.
With this first sentence,
“Many bridges across the Red River were closed by the flood.”
Do you think it is written in passive or active voice?
This an is- this is an example of passive voice.
Look at how it changes with active voice.
“The flood closed many bridges across the Red River.”
Here the subject, flood, is acting upon the ridge- the bridges.
In this next example,
“Soldiers from Saskatchewan and Ontario were called in by the government.”
Think about who is doing the action – the government.
Who is being acted upon? The soldiers.
This is passive voice, because it gives the result of the action first,
followed by who did the action.
Here is the sentence rewritten in active voice –
“The government called in soldiers from Saskatchewan and Ontario.”
The subject, government, is acting upon the soldiers.
Another example – “As the waters rose, deer, prairie dogs, and other animals
were forced to flee the plain, flee the flood plain.”
This one's a little trickier.
What is the subject here?
The water is.
So, to rephrase this in active voice, it would look like,
“The rising water forced the deer, prairie dogs, and other animals
to flee the flood plain.”
The subject, water, is acting upon the animals.
How do you decide which is the best to use?
Sometimes it depends on what you want to emphasize.
Usually, authors want to place emphasis on the subject or the actor.
Sometimes, however, you want to emphasize the result of the action,
and de-emphasize the subject,
in which case you would use passive voice.
Here are some more examples of passive voice.
Note here that writing in active voice also helps to improve conciseness.
In this first example of passive voice –
“The road was repaired by the construction company” –
rewriting it in active voice –
“The construction crew repaired the road" –
reduces the word count by two words.
Although this may seem minor, if you were writing something
that had a very strict word count limitation,
such as a grant application,
these little things can add up to a big difference.
In this example, “When tests were run,
it was discovered that good wear is not exhibited by the new material.”
passive voice makes the sentence more complicated,
as well as long – 17 words in this case.
In active voice, “Tests showed the new material did not wear well",
the point is clearer, and the word count is reduced to nine words.
So, we know that a sentence has verbs and nouns, subjects and objects.
We know that the choices of voice and word order
can affect the sentence’s impact.
Here we will look at the periodic sentence.
A periodic sentence is a complex sentence
in which the main clause comes last
and is preceded by the subordinate clause.
Why would you use this structure?
It makes your w- writing a little bit more interesting
as it will cause suspense
as the reader's attention is propelled forward to the end.
Let’s look at an example.
We have three different sentences on the same topic.
"Elmer was lonely."
"Elmer met Ellen Jones, a wealthy widow."
"Elmer married the widow and was not lonely."
We could leave them as is,
but your paragraph will not be very interesting.
How could you combine these three sentences into one sentence
without using a semicolon?
Think about it.
How about this?
We have three possible revisions.
“After Elmer met and married Ellen Jones,
a wealthy widow, he was not lonely."
Or, “Since Elmer married Ellen Jones, a wealthy widow,
he has not been lonely.”
And finally, “Before Elmer met and married Ellen Jones,
a wealthy widow, he was lonely.”
All of these are good revisions.
The decision of which one to use
would depend on what you want to emphasize.
Each of these sentences are periodic sentences,
but they are fairly simple sentences.
There is a drawback to using very long periodic sentences.
If you have too many clauses,
your sentence may become too convoluted and long,
and therefore more difficult to understand.
You may want to start with short sentences,
then in the revision stage, look for ways
to have a variety of sentence types.
Alternatively, when you are revising, look for the long sentences
and make sure they are clear and not rambling.
If there is any doubt,
revise the sentence into two or more shorter sentences.
Another type of sentence, which you are probably familiar with,
is the compound sentence.
A compound sentence is one that has two main or independent clauses
that are connected in some way.
The way in which the clauses are connected may be different.
For example, you could use a semicolon or a conjunction as cond- connectors.
If you have two long clauses that can each stand as sentences,
you can connect them with a semicolon.
Students regularly use semicolons incorrectly.
The general rule of thumb is that if you can replace the semicolon
with a period, both parts still make sense,
then you have used the semicolon correctly.
For example, “At daybreak, wood pewees sing;" semicolon,
"at dusk, they sing again."
If we replace the semicolon with a period, we get,
“At daybreak, wood pewees sing. At dusk, they sing again.”
Do the two parts of the sentence
still make sense as two separate sentences?
Yes, they do.
A second way to connect two long clauses
is with a coordinate conjunction and a comma.
For example, “Wood ducks nest in hollow trees,
but they go into the woods for nuts and insects.”
How do you know if you have used it correctly?
Check to see if there are two subjects and two verbs.
So the subjects are "Wood ducks" and "they,"
and the verbs are "nest" and "go."
Parallel structure is an excellent way
to make a good impression on your readers,
partly because so many people do not write parallel sentences.
Learning to do this well will move your writing up a level
in terms of sis- sophistication.
Parallel structure is about the construction of sentences
so that they are in the same verb tense, the same voice,
grammatical structure, and so on.
This requirement applies to lists in a series,
clauses in a sentence, verbs and so on.
In this first sentence, “Penguins seem to be calm, are reserved, and proud.”
Okay, so each item in the list must be in the same form
in order for the sentence to be parallel.
And of course these are not.
So, how would you make this sentence parallel?
You do so by changing the items in the list
so that they are in the same form.
"Penguins seem calm, penguins seem reserved, penguins seem proud."
If you look back at the original sentence,
all three parts don't make sense.
So we have, "Penguins seem to be calm,"
"Penguins se- seem- are reserved."
"Penguins seem proud."
So that doesn't make sense.
So you would write, "Penguins seem calm, reserved and proud."
And they are now parallel.
Let’s look at another example.
“Jack threw them a peanut, but they ignored it.”
This sentence is not para- parallel because the two clauses
are in different verb tenses.
The first one, "threw" is in past tense, and "ignore" is in present tense.
To be parallel,
the two clauses must have the same verb tense, as seen here.
“Jack threw them a peanut, but they ignored it.”
Here are two more examples.
“Penguins dive, can catch fish, and stayed underwater a minute or so.”
Here the verbs are not parallel, because they are in different forms.
If we change it to make it parallel, we get,
“Penguins can dive, catch fish, and stay underwater a minute or so.”
Now the verbs are in the same form and tense, and you can check it.
"Penguins can dive. Penguins can catch. Penguins can stay...."
In the next example, “Penguin parents share egg hatching;
they take turns holding the egg in a pocket of their skin on their abdomens.”
The sentence is already parallel here – the two main clauses are parallel.
Once you get used to watching for parallel structure,
it will come naturally.
Until then, take the time to check each sentence.
When you read such a sentence out loud,
lack of parallel structure will likely stand out and sound awkward.
While we don’t have time for all the grammar rules,
let me just wention- mention one more
that impacts the quality of your sentence –
one that is often a problem, but it- not always easy to spot.
So here is an exa- a sentence.
"Either software problems or inadequate planning
are responsible for the production delays."
Now, which one is the right answer?
Is it A, "Either software problems, or inadequate planning,
are responsible for the production delays."
Or B, "Either inadequate planning or software problems
is responsible for the production delays."
Or C, "Either software problems or inadequate planning
is responsible for the production delays."
The only thing wrong in the original sentence
is that the verb must agree in number to the closest noun –
so C is the correct answer.
Okay? So it's with the verb agreement.
In this video, we discussed everything you wanted to know about sentences
but were afraid to ask.
In other words, we looked at what makes an effective sentence.
Although there are still many, many more grammar rules that are useful,
we've highlighted some of the important ones
for making your writing more professional.
We covered passive and active voice, parallel structure,
per- periodic and compound sentences, and noun-verb agreement.
Now, the hard part is to remember these tips
and apply them to your writing.
One thing you can do is analyze good writing as you're reading.
One of the best ways to improve your writing is to read a lot.
As you do, when you see a sentence or paragraph that is really effective,
try to figure out why it works.
Thank you for listening.