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English Level 2 Writing and Grammar Creating complex sentences Using a mix of different sentence types makes your writing more interesting and engaging for your readers. It adds detail and helps the text to flow more smoothly. This fact sheet covers writing sentences of different lengths and complexity. It covers: the different sentence types and clauses subordinating conjunctions relative clauses. Different sentence types and clauses Sentences can be simple, compound or complex. All sentences contain a main clause. A clause is the smallest part of a sentence that contains a verb. Type of sentence Simple What it’s is for? An example It’s the most basic type of sentence. It expresses a single thought and contains: The dog ate my homework. a subject (the thing or person who does something) a verb (the action that the subject does). Compound It joins together two or more simple sentences by using conjunctions. Conjunctions are connecting words such as and, but, although and because. In this example, ‘the dog’ is the subject and ‘ate’ is the verb. These examples have the conjunctions highlighted: Complex A complex sentence contains at least two clauses. It contains an independent clause (this is the main clause) and at least one subordinate clause – sometimes called a dependant clause because it depends on the first clause to make sense. Page 1 of 3 learndirect Limited February 2013. All rights reserved. You can go to the fair or you can do your homework. He likes cabbage but he doesn’t like cauliflower. I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until the afternoon, so I was late for Bill’s party. The cat waited at the bottom of the tree because it had spotted the birds’ nest in the branches. In this sentence, English Level 2 Writing and Grammar The independent clause can stand alone, it makes sense even without the subordinate clause. A subordinate clause gives more information about the main clause. It may be linked to the main clause by a subordinating conjunction or a relative pronoun. the first clause is: ‘The cat waited at the bottom of the tree’. This is the main clause. ‘waited’ is the verb in the first clause. The second clause is: ‘it had spotted the birds’ nest in the branches.’ ‘had spotted’ is the verb in the second clause of the sentence. ‘because’ is the subordinating conjunction that joins the main and second clauses together to make the full sentence. Subordinating conjunctions These are slightly different from other conjunctions like and, but and or, which join together clauses that are of equal importance. For example, I can look for a job or I can apply to college. The two clauses, which both start with ‘I can’, are equal because they make sense on their own and neither is more important than the other. The conjunctions in the list below are different. They are called subordinating conjunctions. They’re called that because they turn a clause into a subordinate or dependent clause when they link it to a main clause. Subordinating conjunctions include: because although unless wherever if. You can pick out a subordinating conjunction because the clause it belongs to can’t stand on its own as a proper sentence. For example: …because it was raining. …although he had plenty of money. …unless his dad lets him borrow the car. Page 2 of 3 learndirect Limited February 2013. All rights reserved. English Level 2 Writing and Grammar …wherever you try to hide it. …if you want to travel on Saturday. None of these can make a proper sentence on their own. Their job is to give us more information about the main clause they’re linked to. Subordinate or dependent clauses have different uses in a complex sentence. Their role is to: Add more interest Help your writing to flow better Give the reader more information Describe a noun. Relative clauses Dependent clauses that describe a noun are known as relative clauses and do the same job as an adjective For example: Jo quickly feeds the pets that are hungry. The highlighted clause is describing ‘the pets’. It tells us which pets Jo feeds. Relative clauses are linked to the main clause by a relative pronoun. These include: who, whom, that and which. They’re dependent clauses because they can’t stand alone: ‘that are hungry’ doesn’t make sense on its own. Page 3 of 3 learndirect Limited February 2013. All rights reserved.