How can you create a balance between short and long sentences, and how does that change the flow of ideas in your writing? This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences ...

An independent clause is basically a complete sentence; it can stand on its own and make sense. An independent clause consists of a subject (e.g. “the dog”) and a verb (e.g. “barked”) creating a ...

There are three types of sentence - simple, compound and complex. All three have an equally important role in writing. Complex sentences can be useful for presenting ideas that need layers of ...

When combining two complete sentences with a conjunction ("and," "but," "or," "for," or "yet"), precede the conjunction with a comma. Example: Still, the sun is slowly getting brighter and hotter, and ...

Clear sentence structure depends on establishing where a sentence ends and the next one begins. Every sentence must have an independent clause. The clause is called independent when it includes a ...

Express one idea per sentence. Use your current topic — that is, what you are writing about — as the grammatical subject of your sentence (see Verbs: Choosing between active and passive voice).

Some professors require you to create a sentence outline for your paper in advance of writing the final draft. They ask you to do this to ensure that you are progressing with the assigned paper, to ...

It's designed to equip you with the skills you need to write to the standards required by the BBC. The first sentence of an article Get straight to the point. People are impatient when they read ...

Emphasis—Capitalize the first word after the colon only if it is a proper noun or the start of a complete sentence. (She had one love: Western Michigan University.) Dialogue—Write the speaker's name, ...

Using complex sentences can make it easier to add layers of information and detail when writing. Complex sentences have at least one subordinate clause that adds more detail and information to the ...