My blog provides tips for new writers on writing paragraphs, tackling grammar, and designing essays. There are also prompts for creative writers and ideas for tutoring and teaching writing. Enjoy!

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Dressing a sentence in all its parts: Part 1

Ice cream (a subject and also a noun)
Ice cream melts. (a verb in the present tense)
Soft ice cream melts. (an adjective that describes ice cream)
The soft ice cream melts. (an article - one of three: a, an, the - that describes soft ice cream)
The soft ice cream melts in my hand. (a prepositional phrase starting with the preposition "in")
The soft ice cream melts quickly in my hand. (an adverb modifying melts, explaining "how")
When I sit outside, the soft ice cream melts quickly in my hand. (a subordinate clause)

Get that much down, with those fancy terms, and folk will consider you a grammatical genius.

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