“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety.”
Gary Provost
This is the first part of a quote you might have seen popping up in various posts on English. Quite rightly, this is a monotonous and boring piece of writing. How can it be improved? The only way is by varying sentences. Let’s us explore this idea!
Varying sentence types
The simplest way to vary sentences is to add other types of sentences like an interrogative sentence (a question) or an exclamatory sentence (an exclamation that expresses a strong emotion) into your writing. To help you along, let us just do a quick revision on the Four types of sentences:
- A declarative sentence simply makes a statement or expresses an opinion. For example, James is good writer.
- An imperative sentence gives a command or makes a request. For example, please sit down.
- An interrogative sentence asks a question. For example, when are you going to complete your assignment?
- An exclamatory sentence is a sentence that expresses great emotion such as excitement, surprise, happiness and anger, and ends with an exclamation point. For example, watch out!
Vary the length of your sentences
Short sentences show action and create a faster pace while longer sentences slow down the action and make the reader think more. In other words, when your child is trying to show lots of action, make him write short sentences. When the child is supposed to slow down (remember stretching the tension?) or describing thoughts and emotions, then ask your child to write longer sentences.
By using a variety of long and short, your child’s story will sound more interesting. This will help him score well for language. I know that some children may struggle with long sentences. In the next tip, I will cover synthesising sentences within an essay to achieve a better flow of sentence structures within a story.
To go back to the index to access the earlier materials, please click here
Remember to ‘like’ our FB page for more news and other important information.
RGC Future School has been offering English, Math and Science tuition and enrichment classes since 1988. We pride ourselves as subject specialists, creating exploratory, educational and inspirational programmes for each subject taught in the centre.
Click here to find out more about range of comprehensive programmes.
At RGC, your children are not just our students. They are our extended family. We love mentoring them, following their development and seeing them turn into young adults.
If you have any questions about our programme, please fill free to call us at 6344-3398 or WhatsApp us at 8793-7133.