Sentences and Paragraphs

Sentences
Characteristics of a sentence

• A subject (I, he, it, research, plans, wind-powered generators)

• A verb (is, are, lives, plans, carries out)
• A complete idea
• A capital letter at the beginning
• A full stop at the end

How do you form a sentence?

Part 1 (subject): A person or a thing or a concept

John – Person
Post-modern literature – Thing
The main point of all this debate – Concept

Part 2 (predicate): Something you want to say about the person or thing or
concept

Something about ‘John’ – talks.

Something about ‘Post-modern literature’ – deals with the individual in
society.
Something about ‘The main point of all this debate’ – is to generate
new ideas.

To make a sentence you need Part 1 + Part 2, subject + predicate

- John talks.
- Post-modern literature deals with the individual in society.
- The main point of all this debate is to generate new ideas.

You can keep adding more info to the subject, e.g. My sister’s first
boyfriend at university, John. And more info can be added to the
predicate, e.g. John talks all the time in a really annoying voice. But, that
basic structure of the sentence doesn’t change.

My sister’s first boyfriend at university, John talks all the time in a really
annoying voice.

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Remember to always finish off the idea... Whenever John talks. -...is not a
sentence because it is not a complete idea.

What is not a sentence?

Fragments

Because there are several different ways to approach this problem.

This is a fragment – a sentence that is not complete.

This sentences starts with ‘because’, a word that is used to join two
sentences together (other words like this are: until, once, if, whenever)
‘Because’ tells us that there must be two parts. PUT THE SECOND PART IN!

Another types of fragment: Many students.

What about them!?! What did they do? What do you want to tell me
about the ‘many students’? This is a fragment because it is only a
subject – no predicate. We’ve got someone, but not what the writer
wants to say about them.

One more type of fragment: Attended the lecture.

Who did? What did? What are you talking about!?! Here the subject is
missing… the thing, person or concept that the writer is talking
about.

You always have to combine them, e.g.

Many students attended the lecture.
Now, that’s nice, isn’t it?

Run-ons

My brother lost twenty-eight pounds in three months, he was on a

strict diet and exercise plan.

The first sentence starts and it runs on into the second one. OK, the writer
has put in a comma between them, but this does not correctly join them.

There are some different ways these two sentences could be joined
together:

My brother lost twenty-eight pounds in three months because he was

on a strict diet and exercise plan.
My brother lost twenty-eight pounds in three months through a
strict diet and exercise plan.
My brother lost twenty-eight pounds in three months; he was on a
strict diet and exercise plan.

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Note: A semi-colon can directly link two sentences that have a closely
related meaning.

Paragraphs
Each paragraph has only ONE main idea

Start with your topic sentence – a nice, clear statement of the main idea.
Everything else works with the topic sentence – all other sentences give
support.

Often, the topic sentence is the first one. However, you may want to link
this paragraph to the previous one, and a linking sentence can go first.

Support the main idea

Here are some types of support you can give to your main idea:

• Explanation
Clarify your point. Define any important terms. Rephrase what you
said. Work through any difficult or confusing concepts.

• Expansion
Give details. Give additional information. Build a bigger, broader
understanding.

• Illustration
Give examples. Use real incidents, recorded activities or anecdotes.
Quote the experts. Compare and contrast to other ideas.

• Evidence
Give facts, facts, statistics or a chronology of events. Quote the
experts.

• Application
How does the idea work? What does it imply or what effects does it
have? What examples of the idea in action can you cite?

Make the main idea clear

I met John yesterday. She said she needs to see you.

This is confusing because John is a man. Therefore ‘she’ clearly doesn’t

refer to John. Think of John as the main idea of your paragraph. If the
second sentence, the supporting sentence, doesn’t refer to John, the main
idea, then it doesn’t belong in this paragraph.

I met John yesterday. He said he needs to see you.

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John is the main idea, and the supporting sentence refers to John as ‘he’.

Referencing like this is the glue that holds a paragraph together – you need
to make it clear that each of your supporting sentences are taking about the
same main idea.

Different kinds of referencing glue are:

• key words
Repeating key words from the main idea, or synonyms (words with
the same meaning)

• pronouns
(it, she, they) referring to a person or thing already mentioned

• reference words
(that, this) which link related ideas, e.g. One such experiment...; In
this way,...; These academics...

• general class words

(these characteristics, this process, theories like this)

• linking expressions
(Another example of this is..., To support this concept,...)

What is not a paragraph?

1. A paragraph with more than one main idea

Read the following paragraph:

Academic writing must have clearly written sentences. It must also have clearly
written paragraphs. Clear sentences are short, to the point and have both subject
and predicate. Clearly written paragraphs give main ideas in a topic sentence,
supported by other sentences. They must have coherence. This is, each part of the
sentence must be logically related and show the links between sentences.

There’s a problem here... This paragraph deals with two main ideas:
1. Academic writing must have clear sentences
2. Academic writing must have clear paragraphs

You know these are main ideas because both of them are supported by other
sentences (e.g. ‘Clear sentence are...’ and ‘Clearly written paragraphs
give...’).

But the big danger in mixing up main ideas is that the reference words can
get confused and the idea being talked about can get mixed up. For
instance, what does ‘they’ in ‘They must have coherence’ refer to?

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It would be possible to interpret ‘they’ to refer to sentences only,
paragraphs only, or sentences and paragraphs together. It’s not clear.

2. A paragraph with an undeveloped main idea

You must write clear paragraphs when you are writing an academic essay. Simple
as that.

This example paragraph has a topic sentence and states a clear main idea –
‘clear paragraphs’. However, it tells us nothing about them. Gives no
further information, and gives nothing to support the main idea. That makes
it a little hard to accept.

This paragraph is undeveloped. The main idea has no support.

3. A paragraph with an unclear main idea

Keep it simple, you don’t need three huge words when one little one will do.
Short, simple sentences and simple words; you’ll understand much better than any
super-long, jargon-filled academic diatribe will get you. You’ve got to show what
links your thinking as well and the best way to do that is to plan it all out with
diagrams, map it out, shape up the structure before you actually start to write the
thing and that’s what makes it work.

It’s hard to pick out a main idea in this paragraph. It seems to introduce
several: using short words; using short sentences; linking ideas together;
planning an essay. And yet, it is unclear which of these, if any, is intended
as a main idea, and none of them are developed.

Remember what you want:

• One idea, clearly stated in a topic sentence
• The main idea developed in supporting sentences
• The links between the sentences clearly shown