Need-to-Know Grammar
In order
to improve your writing skills, there are certain elements of grammar
that you must know. Following is a list of some of the basics. Sentence fragments
are just what they sound like—parts of sentences or incomplete
sentences. They may be missing a subject or a verb, or they may not
express a complete thought.Complete sentences have
subjects and verbs and express a complete thought.Run-on sentences are just
what they sound like—a series of clauses and/or phrases that continue
on and on without the proper connecting words and without the proper
punctuation.The subject is the person or
thing performing the action in the sentence.The verb is the action being
performed.A phrase is a series of words
without a subject or a verb; therefore, phrases are always sentence
fragments unless they are part of a longer sentence. |
A clause consists of a
subject and a verb. Clauses could be called very simple sentences, but
since a clause does not always express a complete thought, it is often
a sentence fragment even though it contains a subject and a verb.Independent clauses can
stand alone as sentences and make perfect sense even if other clauses
are removed.Dependent clauses rely on
independent clauses in order to make sense. Alone, they do not
represent a complete thought, even though they contain subjects and
verbs.A noun clause is a clause
that acts as a noun (a person, place, thing, or idea) in a sentence.
Since it acts as a noun, it can sometimes act as the subject of a
sentence.Conjunctions are
words that connect other words or groups of words to each other.