1. The Well-Crafted Sentence

2. It depends. For everyday speech, Intuitive grammar is enough. For everyday writing at school and work, You need to know enough terminology to comprehend a handbook and to understand editing suggestions. To become a masterful writer, Read other writers and analyze their style.

3. Clause Structure

4. A group of words containing a subject and a predicate Subject: A noun phrase Noun Phrase: A noun or a group of words headed by a noun Predicate: A verb or a group of words headed by a verb The verb may be a single word or an auxiliary such as could or have; auxiliaries precede the main verb to establish the time. There are three types of verbs: Transitive: A verb that takes an object Object: A noun phrase naming the person or thing that receives the action Intransitive: A verb that does not take an object Linking: A verb that links the subject to a word or phrase that appears after the verb (the complement)

5. Identify the head word (the key noun in the noun phrase, the verb itself in the predicate) Oliver Sacks is a neurologist. Sacks studies patients with unusual neurological disorders. He sometimes publishes his case studies in The New Yorker. His description of Mr. I also appears in the book An Anthropologist on Mars. Mr. I’s world changed profoundly. As an artist, he could speak of his colorblindness with special insight.

7. There are a number of ways to significantly alter clause structure and meaning: Ex: He drove his car through two red lights. Negation: He didn’t drive his car through two red lights Question: Did he drive his car thorough two red lights? Passive Voice: His car was driven through two red lights. “It” in subject position: It was he who drove his car through two red lights.

9. Independent Clause: A clause that can stand alone and constitute a complete sentence Three means of extension for independent clauses: Join two independent clauses Modifiers Join an independent clause with a dependent clause

10. Joining two independent clauses closely related in meaning Join them with a conjunction: Seven coordinating conjunctions: And Or Nor But For Yet So

11. Semi-colon When sentences are equal to each other and function similarly in the overall passage He constantly smoked as he talked; his fingers, restless, were stained with nicotine. Colon When the first sentence sets the stage for the next Locke, in the seventeenth century, had held to a “sensationalist” philosophy (which paralleled Newton’s physicalist one): our senses are measuring instruments, recording the external world for us in terms of sensation. Dash Suggests spontaneity; usually used to set off brief phrases inserted into sentences or added to the end

12. Options for joining independent clauses: Coordinating conjunction Semi-colon, colons, and dashes Comma Splice Using a comma only is not an acceptable option Pasting two independent clauses together with a comma is an error known as a comma splice: It is not a job, it is an adventure.

13. A word, phrase, or clause that elaborates upon some other element in the sentence, describing it, limiting it, or providing extra information. The longer and more complex, the more interesting from a stylistic point of view The most common modifier is the prepositional phrase Must P-OP Preposition and Object of the Preposition

14. A.K.A. Subordinate Clause Contains a subject-verb pair, but does not forma complete sentence. As he talked. Even though he knew there was a reading quiz. Despite the fact that the brick was balanced on the step above Mr. Hooten’s head. Three types of dependent clauses Adverb Adjective Noun

15. Adverb clauses are introduced by subordinating conjunctions AsEven thoughAfterAs soon asWhereas BecauseIfUntilAs long asWhere SinceAs ifProvided thatWhenWhenever UnlessAs thoughIn order thatJust asWherever ThoughIn caseNow thatInasmuch as AlthoughBeforeSo thatWhile

16. Recognized by the subject-verb pair and the subordinate conjunction at the beginning Do the characteristic work of an adverb Tells when, where, why, or how some action takes place Subordination with adverb clauses helps manipulate emphasis Even though I want a piece of cherry pie, I’m committed to my diet. Even though I’m committed to my diet, I want a piece of cherry pie.

17. Identify the subordinating conjunction If he could bring himself to use the blackish stuff Although his brown dog would stand out sharply in silhouette against a light road When it moved into soft, dappled undergrowth Whereas something bizarre and intolerable occurred Wherever he looked at colored images

18. Begins with a relative clause Used to modify nouns WhoWhoseThatWhere WhomWhichWhen

19. Dependent clauses that perform the function of nouns They do not serve as modifiers They do serve an essential grammatical function, serving as a subject or an object He would dream that he was about to see color, but then he would wake and find that nothing had changed.

20. Identify each clause as independent or dependent; then describe which type of dependent clause it is I sometimes went along with my father on housecalls on Sunday mornings. He loved doing housecalls more than anything else, for they were social and sociable as well as medical. He would have a typed list of a dozen patients and their addresses, and I would sit next too him in the front seat of the car while he told me, in very human terms, what each patient had.