What makes sentence effective

The temporary enactments of the earlier days were then superseded by laws based upon a more accurate knowledge of local conditions and rendered possible by the effective administration which had been set up throughout the country.

To render their powers effective they were given the right to sue the Egyptian government in the Mixed Tribunals for any breach of engagement to the bondholders.

Mariette, who was appointed by the viceroy Said Pasha at the instance of the French government, succeeded in making his office effective and permanent, in spite of political intrigues and the whims of an Oriental ruler; he also secured a building on the island of Bulak Bulaq for a viceregal museum in which the results of his explorations could be permanently housed. The prescriptions are often fanciful and may thus bear some absurd relation to the disease to be cured, but generally they would be to some extent effective.

It is possible that these incantations were recited as part of the funerary ritual, but there is no doubt that their mere presence in the tombs was supposed to be magically effective for the welfare of the dead.

The mere recitation of such similar cases with their happy issue was supposed to be magically effective ; for almost unlimited power was supposed to be inherent in mere words. The development of glazing at the beginning of the dynasties was sudden and effective. As the fire delivered under weigh was not effective , the offshore squadron anchored at about Lord Hartington replied that the government did not consider that a demonstration of this kind could be effective , and again suggested stronger measures.

There was some foundation for this claim, although of course it could not have been made effective against Theodoric, who was more powerful than his supposed suzerain. The central authority was gradually made effective , and a definite system of payment, by removing the original cause of brigandage, and the establishment of a strict discipline learnt perhaps from the English troops, gradually stamped out the most serious of the many evils under which the country had suffered.

It remained an independent principality until the 12th century, resisting the repeated attacks of the princes of Kiev; those of Pskov, Lithuania, and the Livonian Knights, however, proved more effective , and Polotsk fell under Lithuanian rule in The Turks, on their side, organized a body of equally effective troops called Martelossi, for defence and reprisals. The rapidity with which walls, piles and pontoons - stone, wood and iron - become covered with marine plants is well known, while the discovery of some effective means of preventing the fouling of the bottoms of ships by the growth of algae would be hailed as a boon by shipowners.

He took a leading part in safeguarding the results of the Reformation and was indefatigable in his endeavours to unite the different sections of Protestantism for the sake of effective resistance against the Catholic reaction. The great Puritan hero was a man after his own heart, and the portrait drawn by so sympathetic a writer is not only intensely vivid, but a very effective rehabilitation of misrepresented character. Although the rocks throughout the Southern Uplands have a persistent northeasterly and south-westerly strike, and though this trend is apparent in the bands of more rugged hills that mark the outcrop of hard grits and greywackes, nevertheless geological structure has been much less effective in determining the lines of ridge and valley than in the Highlands.

The expedition which we have made mention of took place almost in the middle of the 9th century, and exactly fifty years after the effective opening of the Viking Age. Their course was not unchequered; but it was only in Wessex that they met with any effective resistance, and the victory of Ashdown put no end to their advance; for, as we know, Alfred himself had at last wander a fugitive in the fastnesses of Selwood Forest.

The greatest precautions must be taken to ensure the secrecy of the examination papers before the examination, and the effective isolation of individual candidates during the examination. On this account malarial subjects living in the Persian Gulf should take especial care to have an effective course of treatment in order to eradicate the disease as far as possible.

Joint Anglo-French action at any time during would probably have been effective in stopping the traffic. This motive, which is the one assumed throughout the Old Testament, is effective for the mass of men, and becomes ethically high when the advantage had in view is of an elevated moral character.

The Xenien succeeded as a retaliation on the critics, but the masterpieces which followed them proved in the long run much more effective weapons against the prevailing mediocrity. O'Connell joined the Whigs on entering parliament, and gave effective aid to the cause of reform.

Without a regular revenue no effective administration could be organized; but the attempt to raise taxes showed that it might raise the people, so that for both men and money the shah's government was still obliged to rely principally upon British aid.

Nevertheless the political situation was still embarrassing, for as the whole country beyond the range of British effective military control was masterless, it was undesirable to withdraw the troops before a government could be reconstructed which could stand without foreign support, and with which diplomatic relations of some kind might be arranged.

Abdur Rahman executed or exiled all those whose political influence he saw reason to fear, or of whose disaffection he had the slightest suspicion; his administration was severe and his punishments were cruel; but undoubtedly he put down disorder, stopped the petty tyranny of local chiefs and brought violent crime under some effective control in the districts.

Themselves of necessity stylists, because their professional success largely depended upon skilful and effective exposition, the sophists both of culture and of rhetoric were professedly teachers of the rules of grammar and the principles of written and spoken discourse. He was for the most part merely a tool in the hands of the Committee of Union and Progress, and though he was supposed to dislike the pro-German policy of Enver Pasha, he was unable to take any effective steps to oppose him.

When the ring of St Zanobius and the blood of Cape Verde turtles gave him no relief from his last illness, he showered gifts upon his patron saints, secured for his own benefit the masses of his clergy, and the most potent prayers in Christendom, those of the two most effective saints of his day, Bernardin of Doulins and Francis of Paolo. After the treacherous murder of his brother by Sasanka, king of Central Bengal, he was confirmed as raja, though still very young, by the nobles of Thanesar in , though it would appear that his effective rule did not begin till six years later.

A place in the history of philosophy can be yielded to Hamann only because he expresses in uncouth, barbarous fashion an idea to which other writers have given more effective shape. Port Louis, which is governed by an elective municipal council, is surrounded by lofty hills and its unhealthy situation is aggravated by the difficulty of effective drainage owing to the small amount of tide in the harbour. Miall saw that if the programme of Nonconformity was to be carried through it must have more effective representation in Parliament.

His propaganda, aimed at the small body of Filipinos who had sufficient education to appreciate political satire, was very effective. At the same time, since the invoking of the divine powers was the essential element in the incantations, in order to make the magic formulae as effective as possible, a large number of the old local deities are introduced to add their power to the chief ones; and it is here that the astral system comes into play through the introduction of names of stars, as well as through assigning attributes to the gods which clearly reflect the conception that they have their seats in the heavens.

The international position of the Ottoman empire was strengthened by the able, if Machiavellian, statecraft of the sultan; while the danger of disruption from within was lessened by the more effective central control made possible by railways, telegraphs, and the other mechanical improvements borrowed from western civilization. In 18 3 a select committee of the House of Commons went into the whole subject of secondary punishment and reported that, as the difficulties in the way of an effective classification of prisoners were insurmountable, they were strongly in favour of the confinement of prisoners in separate cells, recommending that the whole of the prisons should be altered accordingly and the expense borne by the public exchequer.

Neither of these was a conspicuous success; they were too remote for effective supervision; and although they lingered on for some years they were finally abolished.

No effective supervision was maintained over these convicts at large. The committee last quoted gave it as their opinion that "penal servitude as at present administered is on the whole satisfactory; it is effective as a punishment and free from serious abuses. He was quick to grasp the situation, and effective in the measures he took to cope with it.

On the other hand the doctrine became effective if the manors in question had been granted by later kings to subjects, because if they remained in the hand of the king the only remedy against ejectment and exaction lay in petitioning for redress without any definite right to the latter. Scholasticism embodied what the Christian community had saved from the wreckage of Greek dialectic. Yet with all its effective manipulation of the formal technique of its translated and mutilated Aristotle, Scholasticism would have gone under long before it did through the weakness intrinsic to its divorce of the form and the matter of knowledge, but for two reasons.

His general theory of knowledge deriving from Kant and Reid, and including among other things a contaminatio of their theories of perception, 3 in no way sustains or mitigates his narrow view of logic. He makes no effective use of his general formula that to think is to condition.

The defeat of Marcus Lollius, the legate commanding on the Rhine, by a horde of German invaders, seems to have determined Augustus to take in hand the whole question of the frontiers of the empire towards the north, and the effective protection of Gaul and Italy.

His works were highly effective in. Many of these Indian grass-mats are admirable examples of elegant design, and the colours in which they are woven are rich, harmonious and effective in the highest degree. Prayer and praise also are effective only as the congregation intelligently join in them; hence they are not to be solely by a priest nor in a strange tongue, as the clergyman is simply the leader of the devotions of the people. No effective census of the population has ever been taken, and vast areas in Dutch Borneo and in British North Borneo remain unexplored, and free from any practical authority or control.

Of the two, the former is under the more complete and effective control. The outbreak of war in Java caused Borneo to be more or less neglected by the Dutch for a considerable period, and no effective check was imposed upon the natives with a view to stopping piracy, which was annually becoming more and more unendurable. At the present time, though effective administration of the more inaccessible districts of the interior cannot be said to have been established even yet, the pacification of the native population is to all intents and purposes complete.

The Roman colonies were thus not merely valuable as propugnacula of the state, as permanent supports to Roman garrisons and armies, but they proved a most effective means of extending over wide bounds the language and the laws of Rome, and of inoculating the inhabitants of the provinces with more than the rudiments of Roman civilization.

It has also been ascribed to quarantine, but no effective quarantine was established till , so that the cessation of plague in England must be regarded as spontaneous. The heavy mist, and the fact that the weight of the enemy bombardment had worked great destruction among the telephone wires, combined to prevent any effective reply on the part of the Italian guns.

But the task is so judiciously performed that it would probably be difficult to get a more effective statement of the external evidences of Christianity than Paley has here presented.

Hence mi, my, m2 is called the actual or effective force on m. According to dAlemberts formulation, the extraneous forces together with the effective forces reversed fulfil the statical conditions of equilibrium.

In other words, the whole assemblage of effective forces is statically equivalent to the extraneous forces. The effective radius, or radius of the pitch-circle of a circular pulley or drum, is equal to the real radius added to half the thickness of the connector. The angular velocities of a pair of connected circular pulleys or drums are inversely as the effective radii. The length L of an endless belt connecting a pair of pulleys whose effective radii are r,, r,, with parallel axes whose distance apart is c, is given by the following formulae, in each of which the first term, containing the radical, expresses the length of the straight parts of the belt, and the remainder of the formula the length of the curved parts.

Under more favourable political conditions, the sacerdotal class might perhaps, in course of time, have succeeded in imposing something like an effective common creed on the heterogeneous medley of races and tribes scattered over the peninsula, just as they certainly did succeed in establishing the social prerogative of their own order over the length and breadth of India.

In the forms of worship favoured by votaries of these creeds the emotional and erotic elements are allowed yet freer scope than in those that preceded them; and, as an effective auxiliary to these tendencies, the use of the vernacular dialects in prayers and hymns of praise takes an important part in the religious service.

From the beginning, however, he treated the Italians, as indeed was only natural, less as rebellious subjects than as conquered aliens; and it must be admitted that in regard to them the only effective portion of his procedure was, not his energetic measures of repression nor his brilliant victories, but, after the battle of Legnano, his quiet and cheerful acceptance of the inevitable, and the consequent complete change in his policy, by which if he did not obtain the great object of his ambition, he at least did much to render innoxious for the Empire his previous mistakes.

The difference lies essentially in the belief held as to the means by which the truths defined in these dogmas are to be made effective for the salvation of the world. But the most effective protest against them was a movement which began when Michel de Bay, a professor at the Flemish university of Louvain, put forward certain theories on grace and free-will in the latter part of the 16th century.

In addition to his knowledge of law and of commercial matters he had considerable eloquence, and a power of marshalling facts and arguments that rendered him extremely effective , particularly before judges. Some careful reading of good books there must have been, however, for in spite of pervading illiteracy, common in that age, in matters of grammar and spelling, he acquired a dignified and effective English style..

A clearer perception of the conditions under which the effective attainment of revenue is possible is another outcome of financial development. Finally, in all countries though with diversities due to national peculiarities, the modes of account and control have been brought into a more effective condition. The act, however, was declared unconstitutional by the state supreme court, on the ground that it would force elected officers out of office before the expiration of their constitutional terms; and in a new charter on the Houston plan was adopted by the legislature, to become effective on the 1st of January , providing for a government by five commissioners, each having charge of a separate department.

The Scottish divines in the Westminster Assembly were only five in number, while the assembly contained effective parties of Erastians and Independents. In his powerful defence of establishments against the voluntaries in both Scotland and England, in which his ablest assistants were those who afterwards became, along with him, the leaders of the Free Church, he pleaded that an established church to be effective must divide the country territorially into a large number of small parishes, so that every corner of the land and every person, of whatever class, shall actually enjoy the benefits of the parochial machinery.

There is no staff, and no effective supervision of ancient sites or monuments. This region has never been thoroughly explored, or brought under effective Turkish rule, on account of the inaccessible character of its mountains and forests, and the lawlessness of its inhabitants - a group of two Roman Catholic and three Moslem tribes, known collectively as the Malsia Jakovs, whose official representative resides in J akova.

This bracing of the vital feeling takes place by means of imaginative appeal to the great forces man perceives stirring within him and about him, such appeal proving effective doubtless by reason of the psychological law that to conceive strongly is XXIII.

Anthropologists have, it is true, taken widely different views of the relation of ethics and religion, and the stage at which an effective alliance between them might be recognized. In many cases the water and oil are applied by less automatic, but equally effective , means. The principles upon which the reorganization ofwas based are: a that in peace the army at home must be maintained at such an effective standard that all necessary drafts for the army abroad shall be forthcoming, without undue depletion of the army at home; b the home army on mobilization for service should be brought up to war strength by the recall of reservists in sufficient, but not too great, numbers; c the wastage of a campaign shall be made good by drafts partly from the remaining army reserve, but above all from the militia, now converted into the special reserve; and d the volunteers and yeomanry, reorganized into the territorial force, shall be responsible, with little regular help, for the defence of the home country, thus freeing the regular army at home for general service.

Indeed, a cardinal principle of the Indian forces, British and native alike, is that the units are maintained in peace at full war effective , often a little above their field strength. The consequence of this simple but effective reform was that Athens was never again disturbed by the agitation of insolvent debtors. Lee was one of the delegates from Virginia to the first Continental Congress at Philadelphia in , and prepared the address to the people of British America, and the second address to the people of Great Britain, which are among the most effective papers of the time.

In the effective fighting force consisted of 1 battleship, 2 belted cruisers, 4 protected cruisers, 3 torpedo gunboats, 6 destroyers and 8 modern torpedo boats. According to statistics published for the Persian army has an effective force of about 91, men, but the number of men actually serving with the colors does not exceed 35, The Lagidae, especially, with their much more compact and effective empire, employed every means to weaken their Asiatic rivals; and auxiliaries were found in the minor states on the frontierAtropatene, Armenia, Cappadocia, Pontus and Bithynia.

In spite of this, however, the rise of the Arsacid Empire marks the beginning of a reaction against Hellenismnot, indeed, a conscious or official reaction, but a reaction which was Reaction all the more effective because it depended on the impetus against of circumstances working with all the power of a natural ilelienism.

Where it is impossible for the patient to visit Carlsbad, half a teaspoonful or a teaspoonful of salt may be taken in a large tumbler of hot water on rising every morning; but when taken at home the treatment is not so effective as at Carlsbad, because at the wells sipping water is associated with early rising, considerable exercise and a very carefully regulated diet.

At the consecration of the baptismal water the burning Paschal Candle is dipped into the font " so that the power of the Holy Ghost may descend into it and make it an effective instrument of regeneration.

Parliament may alter the qualifications for the vote, but no law which would deprive coloured persons in the Cape province of the franchise can be effective " unless the bill be passed by both houses of parliament sitting together and at the third reading be agreed to by not less than two-thirds of the total number of members of both houses.

Now, however effective against Plato's contemporary Cynics or Atomists, the reasoning is thrown away upon the Stoics, who take boldly the one horn of this dilemma.

An infinitive is a verb paired with the word to ; for example, to run , to write , or to reach. Although infinitives are verbs, they can be used as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs. You can correct a fragment that begins with an infinitive by either combining it with another sentence or adding the parts of speech that are missing. Incorrect : We needed to make three hundred more paper cranes. To reach the one thousand mark.

Correct : We needed to make three hundred more paper cranes to reach the one thousand mark. Correct : We needed to make three hundred more paper cranes. We wanted to reach the one thousand mark. Copy the following sentences onto your own sheet of paper and circle the fragments. Then combine the fragment with the independent clause to create a complete sentence.

Working without taking a break. We try to get as much work done as we can in an hour. Unless the ground thaws before spring break. Turning the lights off after he was done in the kitchen. Robert tries to conserve energy whenever possible. On the shelf next to the potted plant. Just as short, incomplete sentences can be problematic, lengthy sentences can be problematic too.

Sentences with two or more independent clauses that have been incorrectly combined are known as run-on sentences. A run-on sentence may be either a fused sentence or a comma splice. Fused sent ence: A family of foxes lived under our shed young foxes played all over the yard.

Comma splice : We looked outside, the kids were hopping on the trampoline. When two complete sentences are combined into one without any punctuation, the result is a fused sentence. When two complete sentences are joined by a comma, the result is a comma splice. Both errors can easily be fixed. One way to correct run-on sentences is to correct the punctuation. For example, adding a period will correct the run-on by creating two separate sentences. Run-on : There were no seats left, we had to stand in the back.

Correct : There were no seats left. We had to stand in the back. Using a semicolon between the two complete sentences will also correct the error. A semicolon allows you to keep the two closely related ideas together in one sentence. When you punctuate with a semicolon, make sure that both parts of the sentence are independent clauses. For more information on semicolons, see Capitalize Proper Nouns. Run-on : The accident closed both lanes of traffic we waited an hour for the wreckage to be cleared.

Complete sentence : The accident closed both lanes of traffic; we waited an hour for the wreckage to be cleared. When you use a semicolon to separate two independent clauses, you may wish to add a transition word to show the connection between the two thoughts. After the semicolon, add the transition word and follow it with a comma. You can also fix run-on sentences by adding a comma and a coordinating conjunction.

A coordinating conjunction acts as a link between two independent clauses. These are the seven coordinating conjunctions that you can use: for , and , nor , but , or , yet , and so.

Use these words appropriately when you want to link the two independent clauses. Run-on : The new printer was installed, no one knew how to use it. Complete sentence : The new printer was installed, but no one knew how to use it. Adding dependent words is another way to link independent clauses.

Like the coordinating conjunctions, dependent words show a relationship between two independent clauses. Run-on : We took the elevator, the others still got there before us. Complete sentence : Although we took the elevator, the others got there before us. The e-mail ends with another fragment. What effect would this e-mail have on Mr. Blankenship or other readers? Communications written in precise, complete sentences are not only more professional but also easier to understand.

A reader can get lost or lose interest in material that is too dense and rambling. Use what you have learned about run-on sentences to correct the following passages:. I told the project manager that we would be able to get the report to her later that day she suggested that we come back a day early to get the report done and I told her we had meetings until our flight took off.

Without a doubt, my favorite artist is Leonardo da Vinci, not because of his paintings but because of his fascinating designs, models, and sketches, including plans for scuba gear, a flying machine, and a life-size mechanical lion that actually walked and moved its head. Choose this link for more information on how to correct run-on sentences. In the workplace, you want to present a professional image.

Your outfit or suit says something about you when meeting face-to-face, and your writing represents you in your absence. Grammatical mistakes in your writing or even in speaking make a negative impression on coworkers, clients, and potential employers. Subject-verb agreement is one of the most common errors that people make. Having a solid understanding of this concept is critical when making a good impression, and it will help ensure that your ideas are communicated clearly.

Agreement in speech and in writing refers to the proper grammatical match between words and phrases. Parts of sentences must agree, or correspond with other parts, in number, person, case, and gender. Subject-verb agreement describes the proper match between subjects and verbs. Because subjects and verbs are either singular or plural, the subject of a sentence and the verb of a sentence must agree with each other in number.

That is, a singular subject belongs with a singular verb form, and a plural subject belongs with a plural verb form. For more information on subjects and verbs, see Sentence Writing. Regular verbs follow a predictable pattern. For example, in the third person singular, regular verbs always end in -s.

Other forms of regular verbs do not end in -s. Study the following regular verb forms in the present tense. Singular Form. Add an — es to the third person singular form of regular verbs that end in — sh , -x , — ch , and -s.

In these sentences, the verb form stays the same for the first person singular and the first person plural. In these sentences, the verb form stays the same for the second person singular and the second person plural. In the singular form, the pronoun you refers to one person.

In the plural form, the pronoun you refers to a group of people, such as a team. In this sentence, the subject is mother. Because the sentence only refers to one mother, the subject is singular. The verb in this sentence must be in the third person singular form. In this sentence, the subject is friends. Because this subject refers to more than one person, the subject is plural. The verb in this sentence must be in the third person plural form.

Many singular subjects can be made plural by adding an -s. Most regular verbs in the present tense end with an — s in the third person singular. This does not make the verbs plural.

Singular subject, singular verb : The cat races across the yard. Plural subject, plural verb : The cats race across the yard. On your own sheet of paper, write the correct verb form for each of the following sentences. Not all verbs follow a predictable pattern. These verbs are called irregular verbs. Some of the most common irregular verbs are be , have , and do. Learn the forms of these verbs in the present tense to avoid errors in subject-verb agreement. Study the different forms of the verb to have in the present tense.

Complete the following sentences by writing the correct present tense form of be , have , or do. Use your own sheet of paper to complete this exercise. Recognizing the sources of common errors in subject-verb agreement will help you avoid these errors in your writing. This section covers the subject-verb agreement errors in more detail.

A compound subject is formed by two or more nouns and the coordinating conjunctions and , or , or nor.

A compound subject can be made of singular subjects, plural subjects, or a combination of singular and plural subjects. Two singular subjects : Alicia and Miguel ride their bikes to the beach. Two plural subjects : The girls and the boys ride their bikes to the beach. Singular and plural subjects : Alicia and the boys ride their bikes to the beach. Compound subjects combined with or and nor are treated separately. The verb must agree with the subject that is nearest to the verb.

Two singular subjects : Neither Elizabeth nor Rianna wants to eat at that restaurant. Two plural subjects : Neither the kids nor the adults want to eat at that restaurant. Singular and plural subjects : Neither Elizabeth nor the kids want to eat at that restaurant. Plural and singular subjects : Neither the kids nor Elizabeth wants to eat at that restaurant.

Two singular subjects : Either you or Jason takes the furniture out of the garage. Two plural subjects : Either you or the twins take the furniture out of the garage. Singular and plural subjects : Either Jason or the twins take the furniture out of the garage.

Plural and singular subjects : Either the twins or Jason takes the furniture out of the garage. If you can substitute the word they for the compound subject, then the sentence takes the third person plural verb form. As you read or write, you may come across a sentence that contains a phrase or clause that separates the subject from the verb. Often, prepositional phrases or dependent clauses add more information to the sentence and appear between the subject and the verb.

However, the subject and the verb must still agree. If you have trouble finding the subject and verb, cross out or ignore the phrases and clauses that begin with prepositions or dependent words. The subject of a sentence will never be in a prepositional phrase or dependent clause.

The following is an example of a subject and verb separated by a prepositional phrase:. The students with the best grades win the academic awards. The puppy under the table is my favorite. The following is an example of a subject and verb separated by a dependent clause:. The car that I bought has power steering and a sunroof. The representatives who are courteous sell the most tickets.

Indefinite pronouns refer to an unspecified person, thing, or number. When an indefinite pronoun serves as the subject of a sentence, you will often use a singular verb form. However, keep in mind that exceptions arise.

Some indefinite pronouns may require a plural verb form. To determine whether to use a singular or plural verb with an indefinite pronoun, consider the noun that the pronoun would refer to. If the noun is plural, then use a plural verb with the indefinite pronoun.

View the chart to see a list of common indefinite pronouns and the verb forms they agree with. Singular : Everybody in the kitchen sings along when that song comes on the radio.

The indefinite pronoun everybody takes a singular verb form because everybody refers to a group performing the same action as a single unit. Plural : All the people in the kitchen sing along when that song comes on the radio. The indefinite pronoun all takes a plural verb form because all refers to the plural noun people. Because people is plural, all is plural. Singular : Al l the cake is on the floor.

In this sentence, the indefinite pronoun all takes a singular verb form because all refers to the singular noun cake. Because cake is singular, all is singular. A collective noun is a noun that identifies more than one person, place, or thing and considers those people, places, or things one singular unit.

Because collective nouns are counted as one, they are singular and require a singular verb. Some commonly used collective nouns are group , team , army , flock , family , and class. Singular : The class is going on a field trip. In this sentence, class is a collective noun. Although the class consists of many students, the class is treated as a singular unit and requires a singular verb form. You may encounter sentences in which the subject comes after the verb instead of before the verb.

In other words, the subject of the sentence may not appear where you expect it to appear. To ensure proper subject-verb agreement, you must correctly identify the subject and the verb. In sentences that begin with here or there , the subject follows the verb. Here is my wallet!

There are thirty dolphins in the water. If you have trouble identifying the subject and the verb in sentences that start with here or there ; it may help to reverse the order of the sentence so the subject comes first. My wallet is here! Thirty dolphins are in the water. When you ask questions, a question word who , what , where , when , why , or how appears first.

The verb and then the subject follow. Who are the people you are related to? When am I going to go to the grocery store? If you have trouble finding the subject and the verb in questions, try answering the question being asked. When am I going to the grocery store? I am going to the grocery store tonight! Correct the errors in subject-verb agreement in the following sentences. If there are no errors in subject-verb agreement, write OK.

Copy the corrected sentence or the word OK on your own sheet of notebook paper. Correct the errors in subject-verb agreement in the following paragraph. Copy the paragraph on a piece of notebook paper and make corrections. I feels that I am the ideal candidate for the receptionist position at your company. I has three years of experience as a receptionist in a company that is similar to yours.

My phone skills and written communication is excellent. These skills, and others that I have learned on the job, helps me understand that every person in a company helps make the business a success. At my current job, the team always say that I am very helpful. Everyone appreciate when I go the extra mile to get the job done right. My current employer and coworkers feels that I am an asset to the team.

I is efficient and organized. Is there any other details about me that you would like to know? If so, please contact me. You can reach me by e-mail or phone. I looks forward to speaking with you in person.

Imagine that you are a prospective client and that you saw this ad online. Would you call Terra Services to handle your next project? Probably not! Mistakes in subject-verb agreement can cost a company business. Paying careful attention to grammatical details ensures professionalism that clients will recognize and respect. Use your knowledge of subject-verb agreement to write one of the following:. Suppose you must give an oral presentation about what you did last summer.

How do you make it clear that you are talking about the past and not about the present or the future? Using the correct verb tense can help you do this. It is important to use the proper verb tense. Otherwise, your listener might judge you harshly. Mistakes in tense often leave a listener or reader with a negative impression. Verbs indicate actions or states of being in the past, present, or future using tenses.

Regular verbs follow regular patterns when shifting from the present to past tense. For example, to form a past-tense or past-participle verb form, add — ed or -d to the end of a verb.

You can avoid mistakes by understanding this basic pattern. Verb tense identifies the time of action described in a sentence. Verbs take different forms to indicate different tenses.

Verb tenses indicate. Helping verbs, such as be and have, also work to create verb tenses, such as the future tense. Present Tense : Time walks to the store. Singular subject. Present Tense : Sue and Kimmy walk to the store. Plural subject. Past Tense : Yesterday, they walked to the store to buy some bread. Complete the following sentences by selecting the correct form of the verb in simple present, simple past, or simple future tenses.

Write the corrected sentence on your own sheet of paper. The Dust Bowl is, was, will be a name given to a period of very destructive dust storms that occurred in the United States during the s. Historians today consider, considered, will consider The Dust Bowl to be one of the worst weather of events in American history. Dust storms continue, continued, will continue to occur in these dry regions, but not to the devastating degree of the s.

The dust storms during The Dust Bowl cause, caused, will cause irreparable damage to farms and the environment for a period of several years. When early settlers move, moved, will move into this area, they remove, removed, will remove the natural prairie grasses in order to plant crops and graze their cattle.

They did not realize, realized, will realize that the grasses kept the soil in place. There is, was, will be also a severe drought that affects, affected, will affect the region. The worst dust storm happens, happened, will happen on April 14, , a day called Black Sunday. The Dust Bowl era finally came to end in when the rains arrive, arrived, will arrive. Dust storms continue, continued, will continue to affect the region, but hopefully they will not be as destructive as the storms of the s.

The past tense of irregular verbs is not formed using the patterns that regular verbs follow. Complete the following sentences by selecting the correct form of the irregular verb in simple present, simple past, or simple future tense. Copy the corrected sentence onto your own sheet of paper. These combinations of subjects and predicates come in two types:.

An independent clause on its own plus combinations of these two types of clauses make up the four varieties of sentences we use everyday in our writing. Two or more independent clauses joined together with a comma and coordinating conjunction see Table 4. When combined with a main clause by a subordinating conjunction , a subordinate clause makes a complex sentence Darling, e.

That subordinating conjunction see a variety of them in Table 4. You can combine compound and complex sentences into compound-complex sentences, like the sentence that precedes this one, though you should keep these streamlined so your wordcount 29 words in the sentence just before Table 4. Subject: We noun Predicate: quickly updated our computer systems verb phrase :. If the subject is the same in both clauses, omit both the comma that precedes the conjunction, as well as the repeated the subject:.

When the subordinate clause precedes the main clause, a comma separates them, as in the example above. When the subordinate clause follows the main clause, a comma is unnecessary, as in the example below. However, if the subordinate clause strikes a contrast with the main clause preceding it, a comma separates them:.

Combinations of sentence moods and varieties are all possible, so we have many hybrid sentence structures available to express our thoughts.

For instance, an introductory subordinate clause can precede an interrogative main clause:. If you are available to update our computer systems on the 12th, can you please sign and return the attached contract at your earliest convenience? Combining clauses to communicate your ideas is a skill like any other that requires practice, which you do whenever you draft a message.

The more you do it, the better you get at it and the easier it becomes. Worse, disorganized sentences betray a scattered mind. Rather than stop to help you, your readers are more likely to avoid you because they have no time for the lack of professionalism signalled by poor writing and the miscommunication it leads to.

What is the appropriate length for a sentence? Ten words? The answer will always be: it depends on what you expect your audience to be able to handle and what you need to say to express a complete thought to them. A page market analysis report aimed at business executives with advanced literacy skills, on the other hand, will have sentences of varying lengths, perhaps anywhere from 5 to 45 words. Ultimately, you should treat your audience to a variety of sentence lengths Nichol, Sentences in most business documents should average around 25 words, which you may consider your baseline goal for sentence length.

Sentences can technically go on forever with compounding and subordination, yet still be grammatically correct, because a long sentence is not the same as a run-on Darling, f. But too many word sentences in a row will betray a lack of skill in concision and respect for audience attention spans. Ultimately, no hard and fast rules for sentence length keep us from writing sentences that are as short or long as they need to be, but there is such a thing as too much if length becomes a barrier to understanding.

There is a mountain of meaning buried in those eight words. Eugene Schwartz has the answer to the question: What is a good sentence? It must also contain emotion, image, logic, and promise. Get more tips in our article on how to write like Hemingway. They just have to say the right things. Our imaginations will fill in the blanks. So, when you are trying to get people to respond to your requests, subscribe to your email newsletter, or donate to your cause … you need to write seductive sentences, and you need to do it naturally.

The building blocks of a story. All by one word. Those new facts heighten the emotional appeal of that simple story. Imagination is the capacity for people to see the world you are trying to paint. Intelligent people like to use their imagination. Use active verbs and concrete nouns and you will naturally create images. In those two sentences you learn the color of the shirt, the state of the cuffs, the condition of his knuckles. I tell you where he is and what he is doing in concrete detail.

You must carefully plan and manufacture emotion in your copywriting offers. This starts by asking: What is the dominant mood of your reader or customer? What problem is he or she trying to solve?

Is it fear over losing a job? A spouse? A scholarship? Pride of donating to a good cause? Joy for finally getting muscular definition in his calves? You must know what keeps your ideal customer up at night. What makes him get up early? What are his hopes, dreams, and fears?

And then you must insert that emotion into your sentences. Take a look at this copy that addresses the benefits of Copyblogger Pro :. I identified the relevant pain and agitated it so the solution was a no-brainer.

In other words, if you can identify with those conditions, then the solution is probably a good thing for you. But notice those four conditions are all about rejection. I simply showed it to you. Big difference in the quality of writing. At first, it might feel mechanical, wooden. Sort of like when a golf instructor stops your swing to adjust your mechanics. That may feel mechanical and unnatural, but eventually your swing becomes natural and he stops interrupting you.

Each sentence in a word landing page may not be great, but the more you pay attention to the fundamentals above and practice the techniques, the closer you are going to get with each draft. Want to graduate from the minor to the major leagues? Dominate your domain with an authorial voice that people listen to? Demian Farnworth can help you go from being a good writer to a great one. Learn more. You can also follow him on Twitter. Seriously, you guys are on fire lately with the quality of your writing.

Perhaps you guys have an office pool going for the best post or something? Study every word of it. Those guys get paid big dollars to create those mailings. Yes, there is an inner office competition. Not official or even spoken. Just is. The cool thing about it is we applaud each other for our successes because we understand the company wins when someone on our team wins.

Just brings up the level of the play in all of us. And yes, great point about the junk mail. I would say the same thing about spam, too. Another thing I was going to add is to try reading your copy in reverse order, from last sentence to the first. They should contain something that is useful for the reader. Just a thought. And I do it for that very reason … does it makes sense? Great post once again. I always put a lot of thinking in my sentences, this will help.

Research and read anything by Leo Burnett ad man and Mary Wells ad woman. This is just one sample. Simple, yet effective. Create a swipe file consisting of direct mail, flyers, e-blasts, newsletters, advertorials, infographics, blog posts, articles, white papers, magazine headlines, etc.