This blog is for students registered in ENGL 155, 177 or 189 at Athabasca University.
Friday, November 29, 2013
*SENTENCE COMBINATION*
Learning to combine ideas into more complex sentences is an important writing skill. There are many ways to do this. Try to combine the following three sentences.
Sentence 1: We are well into December.
Sentence 2: The first snowfall of the season was weeks ago.
Sentence 3: It won’t be long until the Christmas vacation.
7 comments:
Sarahba50 (155)
said...
We are well into December; the first snowfall of the season was weeks ago and it won't be long until the Christmas vacation.
Sarah, don't be satisfied just to connect your sentences with a semicolon. It may combine them in a technical sense, but it avoids the real challenge of the exercise, which is to bring the different sentences together into a single meaningful unit.
Remember, it's not just about joining the sentences into a single grammatical unit. The challenge is to come up with a logical connection that will justify the connection.
I would suggest something like the following:
It won't be long until the Christmas vacation, for we are well into December, and the first snowfall of the season was weeks ago.
Here, the last two clauses serve to justify the first.
7 comments:
We are well into December; the first snowfall of the season was weeks ago and it won't be long until the Christmas vacation.
We are well into December, and the first snowfall of the season was weeks ago, in fact it won’t be long until the Christmas vacation.
We are well into December, and the first snowfall of the season was weeks ago, in fact it won’t be long until the Christmas vacation.
The first snowfall of the season was weeks ago; and since we are well into December, it won't be long until the Christmas vacation.
The first snowfall of the season was weeks ago; therefore, it won’t be long until the Christmas vacation because we are well into December.
Good try, everyone.
Sarah, don't be satisfied just to connect your sentences with a semicolon. It may combine them in a technical sense, but it avoids the real challenge of the exercise, which is to bring the different sentences together into a single meaningful unit.
Watch the comma splice, Alexandra.
Remember, it's not just about joining the sentences into a single grammatical unit. The challenge is to come up with a logical connection that will justify the connection.
I would suggest something like the following:
It won't be long until the Christmas vacation, for we are well into December, and the first snowfall of the season was weeks ago.
Here, the last two clauses serve to justify the first.
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