Good Writers Vary Their Sentence Patterns

Writers sometimes make the mistake of repeating simple patterns in their sentences. A simple pattern would begin with the subject and the verb. Although such sentences are correct, using only one sentence pattern can become boring to the reader.

For example, Jane went to the zoo for her birthday. Two large, scary snakes lay in the window of the reptile house.

Good writers vary their sentence patterns by sometimes placing phrases or clauses at the beginning of their sentences to achieve variety. A longer introductory phrase or introductory clause should be followed by a comma.

For example, For her birthday, Jane went to the zoo. In the window of the reptile house, lay two large, scary snakes.

The twenty Christmas-themed sentences in the exercise shown above all begin with the subject and the verb. Learning to rewrite the sentences without changing their meaning is good practice for students to achieve sentence variety. At the same time, they will be reminded of things that are associated with the Christmas season.

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Happy Holidays to you and your family. I hope you are safe and surrounded by those you love.

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Best regards,

Charlene

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Practice with Sentence Patterns for Christmas

Good writers vary their sentence patterns by sometimes placing phrases or clauses at the beginning of their sentences. The twenty Christmas-themed sentences in this exercise all begin with the subject and the verb.

Learning to rewrite the sentences without changing their meaning is good practice for students to achieve sentence variety. At the same time, they will be reminded of things that are associated with the Christmas season. Enjoy!

If your students need more help with recognizing and using phrases and clauses correctly, Simple Steps to Sentence Sense explains everything clearly and provides notes, practice exercises, tests, and writing connection exercises.

Click here for more information about Simple Steps to Sentence Sense. You may wish to purchase the book, or just the individual steps on phrases and clauses.

Click here for Step 6 Phrases

Click here for Step 7 Clauses

Have a blessed Christmas and Holiday Season!

Thanks for reading,

Six Easy Ways to Vary Your Sentences

Six Easy Ways to Vary Your Sentences

Good writers vary their sentences to make their writing more interesting. Readers appreciate writing that is vivid and varied. Here are some techniques found in my book, Simple Steps to Sentence Analysis.

Try these six easy ways to vary your sentences:

1.  Begin with a prepositional phrase.

After the winter storm, the trees began to bud again. 

2. Begin with one or twoadjectives. 

Cold and hungry, the dog howled at the moon. 

3.  Begin with an adverb. 

Quietly, she began her journey up the stairs. 

4.  Begin with a verbal phrase, but be careful that the word the phrase modifies is placed near it to avoid a misplaced modifier. 

Incorrect: Lying in the grass, the sky looked beautiful.

Oops! Was the sky lying in the grass? 

Correct: Lying in the grass, I thought the sky looked beautiful. 

5.  Vary the length of your sentences. 

Use short sentences for emphasis and to quicken the pace of your writing. 

Don't go.

Use longer sentences to slow the pace and make the writing more formal. 

Take your time and remain here with me for a while.

6.  Vary the patterns of your sentences. 

Use all four of the sentence types: 

• simple sentences
• compound sentences
• complex sentences
• compound/complex sentences

If you need more help with any of the techniques or sentence parts above, everything you need to know will be found in my grammar handbook: Simple Steps to Sentence Analysis. You will find here for only $6. For a limited time, everyone who purchases the book will get a link to a free set of practice exercises. The link is in the book. 

Thanks for reading,