14 Combining Clauses
Examine these three sentences for a moment. What do you think of them? If these were in a piece of writing you were proofreading for a friend, what kind of advice/feedback would you give?
I’ll tell you what I think. I think that, from a grammatical standpoint, these sentences are all perfectly correct. Each includes a subject, a verb, and a complete thought.
But as a reader, I don’t like how they work together. They don’t have any flow — to me, they are starting and stopping abruptly. I’d call the writing choppy. I also think the sentences are a bit confusing. If this person hates talking on the phone, why are they getting a new phone? Did the person even need to mention talking on the phone in the first place? I don’t see how these ideas are connected to one another.
So, the sentences are grammatically correct, but they don’t sound great, and they aren’t clear. There are a million ways to fix the problem (including scrapping these sentences and starting over). One of those ways is to combine some or all of the sentences together into one longer sentence that indicates more clearly how they are related.
To do that, we’ll need to introduce a new term: the clause.
Clauses
A clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a verb.
Clauses can be classified several different ways, but we’re going to focus on two types: independent and dependent.
Independent Clauses
Independent clauses (ICs) express a complete thought. They can be sentences all by themselves. That’s why we refer to them as independent; they don’t any need help.
We ate all the food on our plates.
It’s got a subject (we), a verb (ate), and it expresses a complete thought. An independent clause like this can also be considered a simple sentence.
Dependent Clauses
Dependent clauses (DCs), also known as subordinate clauses, don’t express a complete thought on their own; they are not sentences by themselves. That’s why we call them dependent — they need help to express a complete thought and become part of a sentence (specifically, they need us to add an independent clause before or after).
Because we ate all the food on our plates.
Notice that I created that dependent clause by adding a word (Because) to the start of that same independent clause we saw earlier. These words have fancy names, but we’ll just call them signal words. Every dependent clause you create will start with a signal word. Here’s a handy list:
after, although, as/as if, as long as, as soon as, because, before, even if / even though, if, once, provided that, since, so that, that, though, unless, until, what / whatever, when / whenever, where / wherever, whereas, whether, which / whichever, while, who, whom, whose
Dependent clauses can’t function as sentences by themselves, as I’ve mentioned (a dependent clause on its own is a type of sentence fragment). Instead, dependent clauses function the same way adjectives, adverbs, and prepositional phrases do — they modify/describe other things in a sentence.
So a dependent clause (DC) depends on something else to create a complete sentence. But what is that something? What do we need to add to the DC to help it out? The answer is — an independent clause (IC).
Because we ate all the food on our plates.
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- Dependent clause = not a sentence
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Because we ate all the food on our plates, Dad gave us dessert.
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- Dependent clause + independent clause = sentence!
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PRACTICE: Independent Clause or Dependent Clause?
Combining Clauses
So, now that we know what clauses are, let’s learn how to properly connect them.
To put it into context, let’s review the short series of independent clauses (ie., simple sentences) from the start of the chapter.
I hate talking on the phone. I love texting. I need a smartphone.
(IC 1) (IC 2) (IC 3)
We said earlier that these short sentences (ICs) had an unpleasant, “choppy” flow, and they weren’t quite as clear as they could be. Connecting clauses to make longer sentences allows you to express richer ideas and mix up the structure of your writing — readers like that. Unfortunately, you can’t just cram clauses together any way you want. Instead, you’re going to combine them using specific methods called coordination and subordination.
Coordination: Creating Compound Sentences
Coordination is simply joining multiple independent clauses (ICs) together into one sentence. In other words, you’re taking two short sentences and turning them into one longer sentence, called a compound sentence. Coordination is pretty easy; you just have to make sure you use the right words and punctuation. Don’t worry — there aren’t too many to remember.
There are only three ways to do coordination. We’re going to demonstrate all three by combining two independent clauses:
I can’t go to the movies. I don’t have enough money.
(IC #1) (IC #2)
Method 1: Change the period between the clauses to a semicolon.
I can’t go to the movies; I don’t have enough money.
Method 2: Add a semicolon AND a conjunctive adverb.
I don’t have enough money; therefore, I can’t go to the movies.
List of Conjunctive Adverbs
also, however, otherwise, consequently, indeed, similarly, finally, likewise, then, furthermore, moreover, therefore, hence, nevertheless, thus, nonetheless
Method 3: Add a comma AND a coordinating conjunction.
I don’t have enough money, so I can’t go to the movies.
Review: Coordinating Conjunctions
Remember that we talked about coordinating conjunctions in Chapter 1. You can remember them with the acronym FANBOYS: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so.
Subordination: Creating Complex Sentences
Subordination is cool. I like to use it because it creates a little more rhythm to my writing, and because it helps me express the relationship between different ideas.
Subordination works by taking one of your independent clauses (ie., one of your short sentences) and turning it into a dependent clause (DC). Let’s go back to the examples we used above to show how this works.
I can’t go to the movies. I don’t have enough money.
(IC #1) (IC #2)
So what I want to do here is turn one of these ICs into a DC by adding a signal word to the start of the clause. In other words, you’ll add a signal word either here
______ I can’t go to the movies, I don’t have enough money.
or here.
I can’t go to the movies ______ I don’t have enough money.
Take a moment to review the list of signal words and find one that might fit this situation.
Did you find any good ones? I think the word because might work here. I’m going to add it before the second IC, transforming it into a DC. Now I have two clauses:
I can’t go to the movies. Because I don’t have enough money.
(IC) (DC)
Now I just need to connect them properly. When the IC comes first, it’s really simple. Just remove the period!
I can’t go to the movies because I don’t have enough money.
(IC) (DC)
A sentence combining a dependent clause (DC) and an independent clause (IC) is called a complex sentence.
In a complex sentence, it doesn’t matter what order the clauses are in; if you didn’t like the order we used above, you can place the dependent clause at the start of the sentence instead, like this:
Because I don’t have enough money, I can’t go to the movies.
(DC) (IC)
The only difference between the two is that when the DC comes first, you place a comma on the end of it, like this:
If my barber gives me another bad haircut, I’m going to find a new one.
(DC) , (IC)
If the IC comes first, a comma is not required, unless the sentence would be ambiguous without it.
I’m going to find a new barber if this one gives me another bad haircut.
(IC) (DC)
PRACTICE: Coordination, Subordination, or Neither?