From elementary to today, my writing has improved immensely. One of the most basic aspects of my writing that has changed throughout time is the length of each sentence. In elementary, which was the time I first learned what a sentence even was, my sentences were extremely short; honestly, I doubt that they were even grammatically correct. Everything I had written for school was abrupt and choppy; it consisted of three to four word sentences for every single sentence.
Later, it evolved to more fluent scripture in middle school. I incorporated more information into each sentence and made it as long as I could. The concept of compound sentences came very easily to me. However, the issue with this was that there were too many details and extra words. As a result, everything became long and readers would drown in words. In high school, I have now learned to maintain a balance of sentence structure.
The amount of progress I have made since I first walked into my literature class this year is astonishing. Not only do I actually know the different elements of a sentence, but I can also now arrange these sentences in a variety of ways. The proper name of this is sentence variety. Applying this concept of different sentence structures helps create more diverse writing. It helps refrain text from becoming repetitive and boring. With this skill, I can take one single phrase and modify it at least five different ways.
Sentence variety is a concept that I find extremely useful. One of the articles that helped me understand the idea better is “Strategies for Variations.” This goes in depth to explain each way you can arrange a sentence along with the proper punctuation that goes with it. It also provided various examples and revisions of sentences; this helped with applying each concept.
I hope this provided some insight on sentence variety and why it is useful. Let me know if you have any questions or writing tips in the comments below. Thanks for reading 🙂
Priya's Blog 