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Sentence basics

Using the correct verb with a subject

Pronouns - singular or plural two

Compounded and non-compounded subjects

Pairs of things

Quantity describing expressions

Expletive constructions

Abbreviations

I.e. versus e.g

Mr and Mrs Smith

Date and time abbreviations

Name initials

Abbreviations of units

Avoiding sentence fragments

When its OK to use sentence fragments

Capitalisation

Proper nouns

The first word of any sentence

Capitalisation of titles

I gets capitalised

Using italics

To make something stand out

Onomatopoeia

Titles

When you are talking about the word itself not using it for what it represents

Names of vehicles

Short sentences

Joining parallel sentence subjects or objects

Compounding parallel objects

Compounding parallel subjects

Linking two sentences together more closely

The simple linking relationship

The contrast relationship

Intentionally subordinating a clause to another

Connecting using an absolute phrase

Connecting using appositive phrases

Connecting using a participial phrase

Using the correct sequence of tenses

Writing numbers correctly

Numbers of units

Decimal and fractional numbers

The number zero

Approximate numbers

Common phrases

Starts of sentences

Multiple numbers one after the other

Writing lists

Lists

Bullet point lists

Numbered lists

Short sentences

Short sentences can be very useful in an essay, but having too many of them can also make it appear as though an eight year old has written the essay:

Jeremy stood waiting. The ball came. He hit it. The ball flew high in the air.

It doesn’t sound very professional does it? One of the problems with having lots of short sentences is that you get a lot of words like ‘the’ and ‘he’ in them. It’s often much better if you combine some of these short sentences into longer, more fluent ones:

Jeremy stood waiting. When the ball came, he hit it making it fly high in the air.

Language that consists of all short sentences is often called primer language. In most situations, your goal is to avoid primer language in your writing. That’s not to say though that the occasional short sentence isn’t a good thing. It’s just that having all short sentences can be monotonous and boring.

Click here to move on to the next topic: Joining parallel sentence subjects or objects