Writing: Grammar

Sentence Structure

---

Golden Rule No.1

---

 

Full, grammatically correct sentences are needed in your writing

This means that they need to make sense by themselves, and are begun with a capital letter, and ended with a full stop.

 

---

Golden Rule No.2

---

 

Sentences will need a verb – an ‘action‘ word

These show what is happening, for example, ‘she was humming’, ‘they are cooking’, ‘we flew’…

 

---

Golden Rule No.3

---

 

Sentences need a subject – something/someone ‘doing‘ the verb

The subject is also called the ‘noun‘, and can be a person, place, or thing, or: the chef, the kitchen, the meal.

Articles

---

There are two forms of articles:

• Indefinite
• Definite

 

Articles go before nouns to either describe general or specific things.

 

Indefinite articles are not specific to a particular thing:

‘A‘ or ‘an‘ are the indefinite articles – ‘an’ before a vowel

 

Definite articles are specific to a particular thing:

‘The‘ is the definite article

 

---

 

Modal Verbs

---

Modal verbs:

• Are used to refer to likelihood, capability and necessity
• Go before the main verb
• Change the meaning of the sentence

 

The most common modal verbs are:

Irregular Plurals

---

You may need to write about more than one thing at once in your text, such as:

 

• a group of people

or

• the reasons why you support an idea

 

---

 

 

But, what does this mean?

 

Well…

When you add an ‘s‘ or an ‘es‘ to the end of a word to make it into a plural…

…it is a regular plural.

 

And…

When you change a word in a different way to make it into a plural…

…it is a irregular plural.

 

---

 

Have a look at these lists of regular and irregular plurals to see this pattern for yourself!

---

 

Compound Sentences

---

A compound sentence is a sentence that links two clauses together.

These clauses usually make sense on their own too.

 

These are connected by:

• Joining words such as or and but
• Either a comma or a semicolon

 

For example:

“We had pizza for lunch, but fajitas are my favourite food”

 

See how this sentence make sense on its own without the ‘but‘?

 

Compound sentences are useful as they allow writers to build more detail into writing. However, it is easy to get carried away with building them up!

 

---

 

For example:

 

“Katie went to the gym today before work but ended up being quite late so she went for lunch early and stayed after for a while longer then got in the car and drove home with a little bit of traffic but managed to make dinner for the kids in time.”

 

Try this instead:

 

“Katie went to the gym today before work, but she ended up being quite late. She went for lunch early and stayed for a while longer afterwards. Then, she got in the car and drove home despite a little bit of traffic, and managed to make dinner for the kids in time.”

 

---

 

Remember that connectives shouldn’t be used in a sentence more than twice if it can he helped.

 

This ensures that sentences are broken up, easy to read and make grammatical sense.

 

---

 

Paragraphs

---

A paragraph is simply a group of sentences which follow on from each other. They ensure your writing is clear.

 

To signify you have started a new paragraph, make sure you write on a new line.

 

Within your writing, make sure you give each paragraph a main point using this structure:

1. The first paragraph should introduce the topic
2. The second paragraph should provide additional detail
3. The last paragraph should summarise the main points addressed

 

Within a new paragraph, make sure that you talk about a new thing, place, person or time.

 

---