Sentence Combining Lesson

Sentence Combining Lesson

Combining Sentences Will Greatly Improve your Writing.

Combining Sentences: Things to Remember

Short sentences can sometimes express your idea well. But if you use only short sentences, your writing will sound choppy and dull.

Combining short sentences to form longer sentences will make your writing clearer and more interesting to read.

One way to combine sentences:

Take a key word from one sentence and insert it into another sentence.

Original - The grizzly is a type of bear. The bear is brown.

Combined - The grizzly is a type of brown bear.

Another way to combine sentences is to change word forms in the sentence.

To change word forms, you can add an ending such as -ed, -ing, -ful, or -ly. In its new form, the key word can be used to describe another word in the sentence.

Example -

Original - Our neighbor raises giant daisies. The giant daisies

interest me.

Combined - Our neighbor raises interesting giant daisies.

Another way to combine sentences is to use the coordinating conjunctions,

and, but, and or.

Original - Elena enjoys bowling. Theo like to bowl, too.

Elena and Theo enjoy bowling.

Original - Kevin swung at the ball. He missed it.

Combined - Kevin swung at the ball but missed it.

(No comma needed with "and" here because the groups of words after it does not contain a subject.)

A final example -

Original - Rudy threw the ball to Mike. Mike dropped it.

Combined - Rudy three the ball to mike, but Mike dropped it.