Kindle Edition
Write to Fit
Category:
Language
Pages: 39
Copyright: August 31, 2014
Price: $0.99 (eBook)
This book is a guide for anyone who has trouble writing simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences.
This book is for anyone who has trouble with sentence structure and punctuation. You may be a high school or college student. You may be a beginning writer who hasn't been inside a classroom for years and needs to refresh your writing skills. You may have learned English as second (or third or more) language. If you've ever had the words "run-on sentence," "fragment," or "comma error" filling the margins of your essays or stories, this book will give you clear directions on eliminating those errors from your writing.
Excerpt
Chapter One: Four Sentence Types
There are four sentence types: commands, exclamations, statements, and questions.
Commands and directions
We are all familiar with commands. Most of us first heard them from our parents. The grammatical term for this type of sentence is imperative.
• Stop.
• Don't go there.
• Clean your room.
Directions tell us how to complete a process. We write directions for everything from how to cook a steak to how to change oil in a car, from how to plan a wedding to how to get a divorce. Many sentences included in a set of directions will be imperative. The subject of an imperative sentence is understood to be the person receiving the direction: you.
Here is an example of a partial set of directions. The sentences are all imperative:
• Put charcoal in the grill.
• Light the charcoal.
• Wait for the charcoal to heat.
• Season the steaks.
The second type of sentence is exclamatory. This sentence expresses strong feeling and may be only one or two words.
Imagine you are an actor on stage and read the following exclamatory sentences aloud with feeling. Listen for the change in your voice as the meaning changes:
• I won't!
• Catch the baby!
• Help!
• Don't move!
• You're the best!
Use exclamatory sentences sparingly. They are the equivalent of shouting. If someone shouts all the time, people stop paying attention. The same is true of sentences ending in exclamation points.
The third sentence type is the question. The grammatical name is interrogative. We learn these sentences early in our lives.
Here are some examples of interrogative sentences:
• When may we open our presents?
• Where is my sweater?
• How much money will you give me for the party?
• Why can't I go?
• Who will be there?
Before examining the fourth sentence type, let's take a look at the end punctuation for the first three and see how changing the end punctuation changes the meaning of the sentence. Take the word run.
• Run. Here is a simple instruction. Perhaps you are going through some exercises and your coach or personal trainer, instructs you to run next.
• Run? If you have been instructed to run and you are not sure it is what you should do, you might question that instruction.
• Run! If a mad dog has gotten loose and is coming toward you or a huge rock is rolling down the side of a mountain and you are at the bottom, someone might shout this direction to you, but it is no longer in a calm matter of fact voice.
Look at these one word sentences again. Say them aloud in a tone that fits the meaning.
• Run.
• Run?
• Run!
Always choose punctuation that fits meaning.
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