Ask OASISStructuring Sentences: Combining Sentences
Last updated 6/9/2016
Audio: Guitar background music plays.
Visual: Video opens to a blank notebook with the Walden University and Writing Center logo. The words “Walden University Writing Center” and “Your writing, grammar, and APA experts” appears. The screen then fades to the video’s title slide with the playlist name “Structuring Sentences” and the Walden University and Writing Center logo. The video title “Combining Sentences” fades in.
The screen changes to the following slide:
Why Combine Simple Sentences
- Too many short sentences in a row can seem choppy.
- Simple sentences can be redundant.
- Combining sentences allows your writing to become more sophisticated.
I am often busy and tired. I struggle to meet my deadlines. I also struggle to fulfill my other obligations. I need to work on my time management skills.
Audio: So, simple sentences are great. They're very important in academic writing and all types of writing. And in academic writing, I encourage you to use simple sentences. However, using simple sentences all of the time would cause a couple of issues. Like I have on the slide here, too many short sentences in a row can seem choppy. It can also make the writing seem a little bit redundant. So, sometimes combining sentences can allow your writing to become more sophisticated and really be more engaging to the reader. It’ll also help you show some of the connections between ideas.
So I have an example of a, a few sentences together here. They're all simple sentences: “I am often busy and tired. I struggle to meet my deadlines. I also struggle to fulfill my other obligations. I need to work on my time management skills.”
As I mentioned, it seems a little bit choppy, and notice how every sentence begins the same, “I am…I struggle…I also struggle…I need to work.” So it’s the same subject beginning every sentence, and it just seems a little bit redundant.
Visual: The same sentence changes to the following:
I am often busy and tired, and I struggle to meet my deadlines. Because I also struggle to fulfill my other obligations, I need to work on my time management skills.
Audio: So, one way we could change this to make it maybe more sophisticated, show the relationships between ideas, and also just make it more engaging to the reader, is to kind of combine some of those sentences and add a little bit of information to help show the relationships between the ideas. So, in this case: “I'm often busy and tired, and I struggle to meet my deadlines. Because I also struggle to fulfill my other obligations, I need to work on my time management skills.”
So, notice how just a couple of commas and a couple of words really kind of help to bring the ideas together and show how the ideas are related.
Visual: The video ends with the image of a notebook, the Walden University and Writing Center logo, and the following words:
Walden University Writing Center
Questions? E-mail writingsupport@mail.waldenu.edu.