Sentences!

 During the play, and after the opening the students drank tea. If I had practiced my lines after school, when I had nothing to do and I did nothing, I would have done better at the auditions. It is now about how you feel about the situation, it is about how he feels about the situation, or how they feel about the situation.
 * Parallelism/Repetition/Preposition/Dependent Clauses**

11/2/09 We leave out the verb in the second clause BECAUSE AND ONLY IF it would needlessly repeat the verb of the first clause. Notice also, you may have a direct object (DO), which receives the action of the verb; or you may have a subject complement describing the verb.

You need parallel wording in both clauses, and the verb must be exactly the same.

Examples: The mother and son each had a goal; hers, educational; his, recreational. For many of us, the new math teacher was a savior; for others, a pain.

"Thought is the blossom; language, the bud; action, the fruit." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson


 * Be sure that each sentence really has two independent clauses in it (even thought the second has an unexpressed verb).
 * Be sure that the verb omitted in the second clause matches exactly, in form and tense, the verb in the first clause.
 * Use a semicolon if there is no conjunction; if there is a conjunction, many writers use a comma. A semicolon does not go with a coordinating conjunction.

1. Which of the following doesn't work? Why. b. Lou Williams was in for adultery; John Jones for gambling. c. His mother told him to rent a car; his sister, to pack the suitcases.
 * a. Bill played a musical number by Bach; Joan, Beethoven.**

2. Write your own original example. I like studying, Jungah partying.

3. Find one from something you have read (this may take a couple of weeks).

__Frankenstein__ begins with a series of letters from a man named Robert Walton to his sister, Mrs Saville. These letters convey who he is, what he wants to do, and why he wants to do what he wants to do. It is revealed that at the time he wrote these letters he cared about one thing, and one thing only:

The following sentence has a lengthy series joined by repeated possessive pronouns. Do you think the sentence is effective or weak? What feature contributes strength or detracts from the rhetorical effectiveness?

"Walled off from the roaring traffic of the Embankment and Fleet Street and High Holborn, each Inn is a self-centered community with its own gardens, lush with cherry and magnolia, camelia, and crocus; its own library; its own dining hall; its labyrinth of walks and lawns; its blocks of offices and flats let out mostly to barristers." Robert Wernick, //Smithsonian//, May 1992

This sentence is weak. The use of the repeated possessive pronouns towards the end of the sentence take away from the effect that the writer is trying to create. Although the beginning of the sentence puts emphasis on the inn by describing it before mentioning it, the rest of the sentence is simply too much. The writer should have ended the sentence after describing the gardens and created a few more sentences with what is left of the initial sentence.

EXERCISE -- Copy and paste this entire exercise into your own page. Write your answers in a different color or font. We will chose two people's in class to go over. 1. Look carefully at the following sentence. Does it work? If so, why? If not, where can the sentence be broken into two or shorter ones that are not overwhelming.

Robert Mondavi's father, Cesare, came from Sassafarento near Ancona, on the Adriatic coast of the Marches -- not a particularly rich or fertile part of Italy even now, nor, except for Verdicchio, much of a wine-growing region, and a good deal less so, no doubt, in 1883, when Cesare was born, the son of a large, simple family and possibly the first member of it, I have read somewhere, to be able to sign his name. -- by Cyril Ray "Robert Mondavi of the Napa Valley"

No, the sentence does not work. There is so much information that it is hard to understand what the sentence means or what message it is trying to give.

Robert Mondavi's father, Cesare, came from Sassafarento-near Ancona-located on the Adriatic coast of the Marches. The marches are not a particularly rich or fertile part of Italy, even now, except for Verdicchio which is the wine-growing region. In 1883, when Cesare was born, the first member of a large, simple family was able to sign his name.

2. Does this sentence work? If so, why? If not, please correct. //The typical teenage user of snuff is white, active, and athletic, and subjected to very heavy peer pressure.// No, the sentence does not work. "and athletic, and subjected" is repetitive. I would omit the and before the athletic and the is before the white. This would put emphasis on the descriptions of what a typical teenage user of snuff really is. The typical teenage user of snuff: white, active, athletic and subjected to very heavy peer pressure.

3. Same instructions --

The children gathered around the clown wishing for a balloon, angling for a smile, bowing before the childhood consumerism. In this case I would add in a conjunction before the word bowing so that the sentence flows better. The children gathered around the clown wishing for a balloon, angling for a smile, and bowing before the childhood consumerism

1/13/2010 In Frankenstein, the first four letters and the preface were not mainly about the main story. Instead, it covered the intention of the writing and background of the narrator starting with his exploration. These letters foreshadow the upcoming themes: loneliness and the risks associated with the discovery of new knowledge.