You can make your writing more interesting by using a mixture of simple, compound, and complex sentences. Before we look at sentences, we need to get to grips with a few terms first:
Clause:
A clause is a part of a sentence that contains a subject and a verb.
Main Clause:
A clause that makes sense on its own. It does not need anything adding to it for it to make sense.
Subordinate clause:
A subordinate clause gives additional information about the main clause. It begins with a conjunction like when, because, if or although.
Simple Sentence: a single main clause
For example:
- The student studied all night.
- Tom watched the cricket.
Compound Sentence: two main clauses joined together by a word like and, but, so, or, for.
For example:
- Helen loves books and she likes films.
- The boy loves football but he does get muddy.
Complex Sentence: a main clause and a subordinate clause.
For example:
- Tom ran to the bus stop because he was late.
The subordinate clause can be moved to the beginning or middle of the sentence:
- Because he was late, Tom ran to the bus stop.
- Tom, because he was late, ran to the bus stop.
Oh, and you can start a sentence with ‘because’, so long as you complete the explanation that is linked with the ‘because’.
