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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.
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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.
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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.
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