If you find this is true, try to revise a few sentences using a different pattern. If you favor one particular pattern, your writing might be kind of boring if every sentence has exactly the same pattern. When you are drafting your own papers or when you’re revising them for sentence variety, try to determine how many of these patterns you use. Four Basic PatternsĮvery sentence pattern below describes a different way to combine clauses. You can tell that it’s only one clause because all of the subjects in one clause come before all of the verbs in the same clause. Javier, his colleagues, and their advisor drafted and revised the article several times. Javier conducted the experiment and documented the results. Javier and his colleagues collaborated on the research article.Ĭompound verb (two verbs related to the same subject): These are called “compound” subjects or verbs because there are two or more of them in the same clause.Ĭompound subject (two subjects related to the same verb): Something trickyīefore we move on to the sentence types, you should know a little trick of subjects and verbs: they can double up in the same clause. We’ll talk more about dependent clauses later on, but also see our handout on fragments for a more detailed description of these types of clauses. Dependent clauses always need to be attached to an independent clause (they’re too weak to stand alone). Dependent clause: a subject and verb that don’t make a complete thought.Independent clauses are called independent because they can stand on their own and make sense. Independent clause: a subject and verb that make a complete thought.Pretty easy, isn’t it? We’re going to concentrate on clauses in this handout, with emphasis on these two in particular: When you have a subject and verb, you have a clause. What’s a clause?Ī clause is the combination of a subject and a verb. Heavy isotopes react more slowly than light isotopes of the same element.ĭespite the extra information, each of these sentences has one subject and one verb, so it’s still just one clause. We usually want to convey much more information, so we modify the main subject and verb with other words and phrases, as in the sentences below: It can be an action verb, like “run,” or a state verb, like “seem.”Įxamples of simple two word sentences include: The verb shows the action or the state of being.It is always some form of noun or pronoun. The subject shows who or what is doing the action.In its simplest form, an English sentence has two parts: a subject and a verb that express a complete thought when they are together. It will help you identify subjects, verbs, and clause connectors so you can analyze your writing style and improve it by using a variety of sentence patterns.Ĭlick here for a one page summary of the English sentence patterns discussed on this handout.
This handout gives an overview of English sentence patterns. Sentence Patterns What this handout is about
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