Grammar: Sentences
A sentence is a group of words that express an idea
- They start with a capital letter and end with a full-stop, exclamation mark or question mark (in academic writing, there's no need for an exclamation mark and rarely a question mark)
- Sentences are made of clauses
- Clauses contain at the very least a subject and a verb
- "The sky is blue"
- "Orla cycled to school"
- Sentences can be short or long, but longer sentences will need joining words like "and" "but" and "then" (called conjunctions") or commas or other punctuation marks to separate clauses.
- "James didn’t go to work yesterday because he had a headache" - "because" joins together two clauses - "James didn't go to work yesterday" + "he had a headache"
- "I’ll take the train and you can take the car" "and" joins together two clauses "I'll take the train" + "you can take the car"
- Run-on sentences are when two clauses that can stand by themselves are joined without using conjunctions or punctuation marks
- "I have to go to the library I need to return a book"
- 1st clause - "I have to go to the library"
- 2nd clause "I need to return a book"
- Instead either:
- "I have to go to the library because I need to return a book" - one sentence, clauses joined by "because"
- "I have to go to the library. I need to return a book" two shorter sentences
- If your sentences are longer than a couple of lines, check that they make sense - that clauses are joined with conjunctions or proper punctuation
