CONNECTING IDEAS - Writing Tips

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An important aspect of formal writing is the appropriate use of sentence structures to convey your ideas clearly and effectively. It is necessary to have a variety of sentence structures, drawing on the use of coordinate  and subordinate conjunctions to form both compound and complex sentences. 

Sentences can express both simple and complex ideas. Connecting ideas in sentences correctly is important because this makes the relationship between ideas clear and meaningful. A sentence must have a subject and a verb, and is also referred to as an independent clause. A dependent clause also contains a subject and verb, but is not regarded as a sentence because its meaning is incomplete.


COORDINATION AND SUBORDINATION

Ideas can be connected in a number of different ways. 

Coordination is used to connect ideas that are of equal importance, joining independent clauses, which express ideas of equal content. An independent clause is, in fact, a simple sentence.

Subordination is used to connect main ideas with supporting ones. Sentences of this type join independent clauses with dependent clauses or phrases.

Conjunctions are used to join ideas together. There are two types of conjunctions – coordinating and subordinating.

Coordinating conjunctions join independent clauses (simple sentences) to form compound sentences.

There are seven coordinating conjunctions: and, but, or, so, for, yet, nor. Each expresses a different relationship between the clauses. 






Subordinating conjunctions connect a dependent clause to an independent clause to form a complete sentence, which is called a complex sentence.

There are a number of different dependent clauses, for example dependent adjective clauses and dependent adverb clauses. The subordinating conjunctions used in the various clauses express a variety of different relationships with the dependent clauses.




Complex Sentences with dependent adjective clauses
Adjective clauses provide information about a noun or pronoun. They are sometimes referred to as relative clauses because they begin with a relative pronoun, such as who, whom, which, that or a relative adverb, such as when, where.





Complex Sentences with dependent adverb clauses
Adverb clauses provide the following kind of information: when, where, why, for what
purpose, and so on.





The punctuation of a complex sentence with a dependent adverb clause is contingent on the order of the clause in the sentence. A comma separates the clauses only when the dependent clause comes first.

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