English grammar and sentence structure is very mathematical. How can you construct a sentence that has many parts (clauses) correctly? The easiest way to do that is to count how many subjects and how many verbs there are in each sentence. They must be equal to be correct. And you must count how many connecting words there are. If you have 2 parts to the sentence (clauses), then you must have only 1 connecting word. 3 parts needs 2 connecting words. 4 parts needs 3 connecting words.
Examples: Can you find the correct sentence?
- a. My academic advisor told me not to take 18 credits for the fall semester I regret I didn’t listen to her.
- b. My academic advisor told me not to take 18 credit hours this semester, and now I regret not having listened to her.
- c. When my academic advisor told me not to take 18 credit hours this semester, and now I regret not having listened to her.
- d. My academic advisor told me not to take 18 credit hours this semester, now I regret that I did not listen to her.
Answers:
- a. Incorrect because there are 2 clauses and no connecting idea.
- b. CORRECT because there are 2 clauses and 1 connecting idea (,and)
- c. Incorrect because there are 2 clauses and 2 connecting ideas (too many) (when, and)
- d. Incorrect because there are 2 clauses and no connecting idea. Please note that a comma (,) DOES NOT CONNECT. It tells you to pause and then continue, but it does NOT connect. The only punctuation that can connect clauses is a semi-colon ( ; ).
What to Look for To Find the Main Idea