Clauses and phrases

When building anything, be it a car, a house, or even a sentence, being familiar with the tools you are using is important.  For this course, grammatical elements are the  main “tools” you use when building sentences and longer written works such as reports.  As such, having some understanding of grammatical terminology in order to construct effective sentences is critical. If you would like to review some basic parts of speech (nouns, pronouns, articles, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and so on), see the Parts of Speech Overview at the Purdue OWL website. Now let’s get into it!

The two essential parts of a sentence are the subject and the verb. The subject is the topic being discussed; the verb conveys the action or state of being expressed in the sentence. When you combine these two elements, you get a clause. All clauses must contain both a subject and a verb.

Here are two simple examples of a clause.

There are also phrases, which lack either a subject or a verb or both, so they need to relate to or modify (i.e. change) other parts of the sentence. Don’t worry about that too much, though. We are going to focus on clauses here.

Independent clauses, also called main clauses, can stand on their own as a sentence and convey an idea. Let’s look at some examples.

Here is a sentence:

Can you identify the subject, verb, clause, and phrase in that sentence? If not, that’s okay.

Here’s a break down of the difference parts of the sentence.

Notice the independent clause (The engineers stood around the table) is a complete idea. If we took at the phrase, the independent clause would work as a complete sentence. The phrase (looking at schematics for the machine) is not. It has a verb (looking), but not a subject, which is why it isn’t a clause. It could not be a complete sentence on its own.

Dependent clauses rely on another part of the sentence for meaning and can’t stand on their own as a sentence.

Here’s an example:

Can you identify the different parts we have discussed so far? Below is a break down of the sentence.

Sentence 2 has one dependent clause and one independent clause, each with its own subject-verb combination (“they discussed” and “they decided”). The two clauses are joined by the subordinate conjunction, “after,” which makes the first clause subordinate to (or dependent upon) the second one.

Being able to identify the critical parts of the sentence will help you design sentences that have a clear and effective subject-verb relationship.

If you need some more guidance on clauses, please watch one or both of the videos below. The first video takes a humorous approach, while the second is more formal.

Sentence structures

Sentence structures are how we combine independent clauses, dependent clauses, and phrases to create complete ideas in our writing. There are four main types of sentence structures: simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex. In the examples above, Sentence 1 is a simple sentence, while Sentence 2 is complex.

We will go over each sentence structure now.

SIMPLE SENTENCES have one main clause and any number of phrases. Below is the formula for a simple sentence.

The following are all examples of simple sentences:

Can you identify the subject, verb, and phrases (if any) in the above sentences?

COMPOUND SENTENCES have two or more main clauses joined by coordinating conjunctions (CC) such as and, but, for, yet, nor, or, so. A common acronym for remembering all of the conjunctions is FANBOYS. You can also connect them using punctuation such as a semi-colon or a colon. By coordinating the ideas, you are giving them roughly equal weight and importance.

Please note that these coordinating conjunctions are different from subordinate conjunctions, which show a generally unequal relationship between the clauses.

Below is the formula for a compound sentence:

In formal writing, avoid beginning a sentence with a coordinating conjunction.

COMPLEX SENTENCES express complex and usually unequal relationships between ideas. One idea is “subordinated” to the main idea by using a subordinate conjunction (such as “while” or “although”). One idea is “dependent” upon the other one for logic and completeness. Complex sentences include one main clause and at least one dependent clause (see Example 2 above). Often, beginning your sentence with the dependent clause and placing the main clause at the end for emphasis is stylistically effective.

The following are all examples of complex sentences. Subordinate conjunctions are in bold.

Check out this link for a list of subordinate conjunctions if you would like to see more examples.

COMPOUND-COMPLEX SENTENCES have at least two independent clauses and at least one dependent clause. Because a compound-complex sentence is usually quite long, you must be careful that it makes sense; the reader can easily get lost in a long sentence.

Given the complex nature of the structure, let’s look at a few examples and break them down into their parts:

Independent Clause #1: Alphonse doesn’t like action movies.

Dependent Clause: because they are so loud

Independent Clause #2: he doesn’t watch them.

Dependent Clause: Although it will be close

Independent Clause #1: I think we will meet the deadline

Independent Clause #2: we will complete the project.

Dependent Clause: While our supervisor can be a bit of a jerk at times

Independent Clause #1: he genuinely cares about the work

Independent Clause #2: he wants to see us succeed

Now that you have an idea of different sentence structures, let’s focus on specific issues that can damage your writing. Below, you will find links to other chapters, each with it’s own specific writing focus. Since everyone’s needs are going to be different, we want you to focus on one chapter that you think you need the most help with.

As you self-assess your opportunities for improvement, ask yourself the questions below. Consider focusing on any questions you don’t feel confident you can answer the way you’d want to confidently answer it.

• Are your sentences often too short and not conveying complete ideas? (Sentence Fragments)
• Do you write in long, confusing sentences and not know how to break them up? (Run-On Sentences)
• When should you use the passive voice? Is a nominalization a good choice? (Verb Tense)
• Do you know how to use a semicolon or colon? (Punctuation)
• Have you ever been told that your writing needs to be trimmed down? (Achieving Conciseness)

References

Attributions

This chapter was adapted from Effective Professional Communication: A Rhetorical Approach by Rebekah Bennetch, Corey Owen, and Zachary Keesey, which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Bennetch, Owen, and Keesey adapted their chapter from Technical Writing Essentials by Suzan Last (on BCcampus). It is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.