Grammar made easy
Photo by Jean Louis Paulin
Complicated sentences are clumsy.
Simple sentences are elegant.
Let's simplify the grammar.
Nouns and Verbs
A noun is a person, place, thing, or idea.
scientist, database, New York, the office, method, happiness, analysis
A verb is an action or a state of being.
work, motivate, analyze, appear, seem, resemble
Subjects and Objects
A subject is the thing that does the action of the verb. It's at the beginning of a sentence; it tells us what the sentence is about.
The subject is usually a noun (motivation) but it can also be a verb in the -ing form (motivating).
The -ing form of the verb is a verb masquerading as a noun.
The object is the thing that receives the action of the verb. It comes after the verb.
SVO structure
Now we have a basic sentence structure: "subject--verb--object". We call this SVO structure.
Of course, many things can come after the verb, but to simplify, we'll just call everything that comes after the verb the object. Like this:
We chose this method.
We analyzed the way the treatment impacted the quality of life.
The method has been extensively researched in other fields.
Whenever you are struggling with a sentence, you can always come back to subject-verb-object structure. This SVO sentence structure is your foundation.
Active and Passive Voice
Verbs can be in the active voice or the passive voice.
In the active voice, the subject does the action of the verb.
We asked three questions.
In the passive voice, the subject receives the action of the verb.
Three questions were asked.
The passive voice is essentially the active voice backwards.
It uses TWO verbs:
- the verb to be (am, is, are, was, be, being, been) and
- the past participle of the main verb (usually -ed except for irregular verbs like went, done, understood, and written).
Adding other bits
You can add bits of sentences onto your main sentence structure (SVO), but everything you add needs to connect clearly to the main sentence.
Adding an introductory bit ("an introductory clause")
After asking the questions, we evaluated the responses.
The verb in the introductory bit (asking) needs to connect with the subject of the main sentence (we):
we asked and we evaluated.
Adding an extra bit ("a relative clause")
We evaluated the responses, which ranged from 1 (completely disagree) to 5 (completely agree).
The extra bit (, which ranged from...) needs to go right next to the word that it describes (the responses).
The extra bit usually starts with that or which. Put a comma before which.
Photo by Vardan Papikyan
Now you have moving parts or puzzle pieces
If you have both an introductory bit AND an extra information bit, your sentence is getting complicated: it has three moving parts already!
(1) After asking the questions, (2) we evaluated the responses, (3) which ranged from 1 (completely disagree) to 5 (completely agree).
Each moving part is a sentence or bit of sentence that we can move around and fit together in different ways, just like we would try out a puzzle piece in different places.
When the sentence has multiple moving parts, you need to make sure each part connects with the others clearly. In the sentence above, (2) and (3) are moments of connection.
We can rearrange these moving parts in different ways:
(1) We first asked the questions, (2) then evaluated the responses, (3) which ranged from 1 (completely disagree) to 5 (completely agree).
(2) Before evaluating the responses, (3) which ranged from 1 (completely disagree) to 5 (completely agree), (1) we first asked the questions.
Some ways are better; some are worse.
We can also break apart each moving part into its own simple SVO sentence. Of course, three short, choppy sentences is not ideal, which is why we work to connect sentences together logically.
(1) We first asked the questions.
(2) Then we evaluated the responses.
(3) The responses ranged from 1 (completely disagree) to 5 (completely agree).
All the other learn pages on ReallyWrite help you understand where you can best place these bits of information.