Welcome back. In the prior post, labeled Stage 2-c, we explored — and in some ways exploded — the idea of any universally proper sentence length. I hope that essay helped you to take an interesting and useful step along our Stage 2 pathway.
We now move to the next lesson, Stage 2-d, where we build upon the idea that sentences can work great, in many ways, and at many lengths, from one word to hundreds or even thousands. True! That’s the overall aim of this second main “stage” of my System of Activated Writing: how and why to add to a sentence, beyond just its essence.
That’s how we began this whole program by looking at the brief side of sentences — their essence, the team of subject and predicate.
A sentence of 100 words could be “grammatically reducible” to a two-word “kernel,” that is, the simple (one-word) versions of the S and P. In this way (to give a brief example), the sentence “My talented and courageous friend, Alex, rocked the pregame show in front of half the town” reduces to the kernel, “Alex rocked.”
From the minimum, the kernel, we can either stop there (pretty rare, but occasionally a cool move) or go on and add further substance, as we craft our present “stepping stone.” We can “add substance” in many ways, whether we’re adding description to our subjects and predicates or, quite differently, adding new “parts“ to the sentence.
Q: How many parts can a sentence have? A: How many rooms can a house have?
That’s an analogy I have used in class, for years. But I always added that making the house large, with lots of rooms, requires knowing how to build such a house, which requires more “engineering,” or else it might fall down or have other problems . . . just like a sentence!
Then I would teach them this very sentence engineering, as you are learning, yourself, if you are putting in the mental effort. I am doing my best to hold your attention and clarify my system. You have to try, too.
In this next lesson, we will take a close look at one very common, important, and versatile method for adding substance to a sentence: adding a second main clause! We can add “lesser” parts, too. We’ll look at many options for that in lesson Stage 2-e, which follows this one. But, for now and for reasons I’ll soon present, let’s focus on adding not a lesser, but a “greater” part to our sentence — namely, another sentence!
Before we dig into the hows, whys, whens, and when-nots of this prospect, here’s a brief pre-quiz to check on what you might already know and also to preview where we’re going, here in Stage 2-d.
Results
Congrats! You’ve correctly answered at least three of the four questions. If you aced the quiz with four of four correct, you are way ahead of most writers, at least in this important regard
Oopsie. Passing this quiz requiires at least three correct answers. Now that you’ve seen these items once, why not try again?
#1. Which of these sentence show correct punctuation? Select all that apply.