Sentence Variety

Here is a refresher on the two methods on achieving sentence variety we have been studying.

One way is to vary sentence beginnings.
1. Use single-word modifiers.

• Adjectives - Angry, the student stormed off.
• Adverbs - Unfortunately, the Celtics look like a pick up team playing at the YMCA.
• Participles - Sighing, Coach Rivers couldn't explain how they lost a 25 point lead.

2. Use phrases.

• Prepositional - In the corner of the room, the students played chess.
• Participal - Smiling broadly, she announced checkmate.
• Infinitive - To succeed in this class, a student must turn in essays.

3. Use subordinate clauses.
If an essay illustrates effective sentence variety, the writing will be interesting.

The second way is to vary sentence structure. The three major sentence types are below.

• Simple - The dog barked.
• Compound - The dog barked, and the cat ran away.
• Complex - When the dog barked, the cat ran away.