Sentence FAQs

A sentence is a statement. It is a complete thought beginning with a capital letter and ending with a period, question mark, or exclamation point. A grammatically complete sentence communicates something about a subject.

Vocabulary for Sentences

Subject: who or what the sentence is about, the main point

• The *food* on the plate grew cold.

Object: something that receives an action

• The students revised their *drafts.*

Predicate: the main action and/or description of a sentence, the verb phrase

• The pizza on my plate, a large slice, *was growing cold.*

Nominalization: making words or phrases into nouns

• *The distribution* of the pizzas was fair.

Phrase: a small group of words without a subject or verb used for a single idea

• The pizza on my plate, *a large slice,* was growing cold.

Clause: a group of words with a subject and verb communicating a larger, but not complete, idea

• While I ate, *chewing slowly as I thought of other things,* the food grew cold.

Fragment: a phrase or clause punctuated as if it were a sentence

• While I ate.

Run-on: a sentence where clauses are not properly separated with punctuation, or that makes more than one statement

• Students achieve their goals they study many hours a week.

Vocabulary for Words

Noun: a person, place, thing, or idea

• writer, America, period, theory

Pronoun: a substitute for a noun

• I, you, it, their, this, who, anyone

Verb: an action or way of being

• write, begins, is, communicate

Adjective: describes nouns or pronouns

• complete, capital, precise

Adverb: describes verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs

• clearly, quickly, first

Preposition: describes words in terms of their relationship to place or time

• before, during, near

Conjunction: describes relationship of words, phrases, and clauses to each other

• for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so

Interjection: expresses emotional tone, usually at the beginning of a sentence

oh, wow, hey, indeed

At the end of a sentence:

• Periods imply neutral statements.
• Question marks ask something?
• Exclamation points indicate excitement!
• Numbers above the text at the end of a sentence indicate a footnote or endnote used for citation or explanation of something relevant.¹

Inside a sentence:

• Commas separate ideas, notions, or simple lists.
• Em dashes highlight important ideas—notions that are related but slightly different.
• Semicolons; indicate closely related clauses.
• Colons: introduce an independent clause, a complicated list, a block quote, dialogue, an indented list, or separate titles from subtitles.
• “Quotation marks” go at the beginning and end of words that are exactly quoted from a source or for dialog; most punctuation is placed inside the mark at the end, “like this.” Semicolons and colons go outside them. If there is a citation, place the period after the second parenthesis, “like this” (Author, Page).
• Parentheses are used to set apart points (that can be left out but explain something useful) or citations (Author, Year, Page).
• Square brackets are used inside a quote for “things like that are [added or changed] to make the quotation useful” in the context of the sentence.
• Ellipses are three spaced periods indicating, “Something . . . was left out of a quote.”
• Apostrophes can indicate ownership, as in “the writer’s pen”; a contraction, as in “don’t”; or mark a secondary “quote ‘inside’ a quotation.”

Tips for Proofreading

• Read the piece backward, starting with the last paragraph
• Only work with one sentence at a time
• Read very slowly or out loud; it is best if someone who is not the original writer reads

Clarity

Read the sentence slowly to someone else. If it seems unclear to either one of you, use other words, punctuate, or rearrange the phrases.

• Unclear: I ate, thought other thoughts chewing slowly while the food lost its taste the plate grew cold.
• Revised: While I ate, chewing slowly as I thought of other things, the food grew cold and lost its taste.

Sentence Fragments

Either add what is missing or attach it to another sentence in order to make a complete statement.

• Fragment: While they slowly ate.
  • Revised 1: While they slowly ate, the food lost its taste.
  • Revised 2: The food lost its taste while they slowly ate.

Run-on Sentences

Separate the ideas with punctuation or explain how they are related. Split it into two sentences by using a period. Use a semi-colon to connect closely related clauses. Use a comma and a conjunction so your reader knows how the ideas are related.

• Run-on: Metro students reach their goals they study many hours.
  • Revised 1: Metro students reach their goals. They study many hours.
  • Revised 2: Metro students reach their goals; they study many hours.
  • Revised 3: Metro students reach their goals, but they study many hours.