Even though we may not understand all the terms for parts of sentences, nevertheless, we are able to recognize when a writer varies their sentence structure and should be able to understand why they do this.
As student authors writing the synthesis essay or any future essay for high school or college, try and think about varying your sentence structure. Writers who use only simple sentences are like truck drivers who do not know how to shift out of first gear. They would be able to drive a load from California to New York, but they would have a great deal of trouble getting there.
If you use phrases and clauses carefully, your sentences will become more interesting and your ideas will be more clearly stated.
Here are a list of possible structures:
- A long complex sentence can show what information depends on other information.
- A compound sentence can emphasize balance and parallelism.
- A short simple sentence can grab a reader's attention.
- A loose sentence will tell the reader in advance how to interpret your information.
- A periodic sentence will leave the reader in suspense until the very end.
- A declarative sentence will avoid any special emotional impact.
- An exclamatory sentence, used sparingly, will jolt the reader.
- An interrogative sentence will force the reader to think about what you are writing.
- An imperative sentence will make it clear that you want the reader to act right away.
Example:
Sentence: Call me Ishmael. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
Type of sentence? A short simple sentence to grab the reader's attention.
My imitation: Tell her nothing.
Notice that I am imitating the tone of the example. You are not striving for a word-for-word correspondence with the model sentence, although you can do this.
Sentence 1.) The gallons stood in a small yard, separate from the main grounds of the prison and overgrown with tall prickly weeds. Burmese Days, George Orwell.
Type of sentence: ?
Your imitation of this sentence:
Sentence 2.) He went through the narrow alley of Temple Bar quickly, muttering to himself that they could all go to hell because he was going to have a good night of it. "Counterparts," James Joyce.
Type of sentence: ?
Your imitation of this sentence:
Sentence 3.) To regain the stage in its own character, not as a mere emulation of prose, poetry must find its own poetic way to the mastery the stage demands--the mastery of action. "The Poet as Playwright," Archibald MacLeish
Type of Sentence: ?
Your imitation of this sentence:
Sentence 4.) If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you really want to know the truth. Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
Type of Sentence: ?
Your imitation of this sentence:
Sentence 5.) All at once, the instant her foot touched those shifting sands, everything wobbled; her character, her principles, her world---all suffered a sea of change. "Harriette Wilson" Virgina Woolf
Type of Sentence: ?
Your imitation of this sentence:
Sentence 6.) As most of these Custom House officers had good traits and as my position in reference to them, being paternal and protective, was favorable to the growth of friendly sentiments, I soon grew to like them all. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Type of Sentence: ?
Your imitation of this sentence:
Sentence 7.) I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. Walden, Henry David Thoreau
Type of Sentence: ?
Your imitation of this sentence:
Sentence 8.) We've created for ourselves a culture that undervalues education (compared with the rest of the industrialized world, to say the least), undervalues breadth of experience (compared with our potential), downright discourages critical thinking (judging from what the majority of us watch and read), and distrusts foreign ideas. "How Mr. Dewey Decimal Saved My Life," Barbara Kingsolver
Type of Sentence: ?
Your imitation of this sentence:
Sentence 9.) Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at hoe and around the world. "Inaugural Address," John F. Kennedy
Type of Sentence: ?
Your imitation of this sentence:
Sentence 10.) The real art that dealt with life directly was that of the first men who told their stories round the savage camp-fire.
Type of Sentence: ?
Your imitation of this sentence:
Due Date: Tuesday, April 18th. Worth 100 points
Please copy/paste the sentences above into a word doc; then identify the type of sentence and compose your imitation of that sentence into the same word doc. Paste your completed work into the blog posting.
By completing this exercise with care, you will increase your ability to recognize when authors use syntax (sentence structure) to achieve their purpose. For example, now you can comment on why an author delays the intent of his sentence, or why an author creates a long complex sentence. Is the author trying to hide meaning, sound lofty or academic, or purposely want to confuse the reader? And if so, why?
