Compound Sentences and Commas Using Commas Correctly

Why are we learning this? Observed weakness in writing “Comma Placement Epidemic”

What’s in a Sentence? a subject a predicate a complete thought A complete sentence needs three things: a subject a predicate a complete thought

What’s a subject? The subject is who or what the sentence is about. Examples: The audience littered the theater floor with spilled popcorn and torn wrappers. The sun beat down on the exhausted team.

What is the predicate? The predicate tells something about the subject. Examples: The audience littered the theatre floor with spilled popcorn and torn wrappers. My cousin never wanted to go out on the boat as a child. He forgot to bring his homework to class.

Why does this matter? Understanding subject and predicate helps improve your writing in a few ways: avoid sentence fragments combine sentences to create more interesting and complex writing use commas correctly

Necessary Vocabulary Simple sentence: contains one subject and one predicate Independent clause: simple sentence; a unit that can stand by itself as a complete sentence Dependent clause: a group of words that contains a subject and a predicate but does not express a complete thought

Creating Compound Sentences A compound sentence is created when you join two or more independent clauses together using coordinating conjunctions.

Coordinating Conjunctions For And Nor But Or Yet So

FANBOYS OR ND OR UT R ET O

Commas and Coordinating Conjunctions Rules: Use a comma before the conjunction when it is followed by a complete sentence. Do not use a comma when the conjunction is not followed by a complete sentence.

Examples Paul didn’t pay for the trip yet he still gets to go. We left early but arrived late. Debra tries very hard in school so she can go to college. David want to play guitar and Andrea wants to play piano. We could go camping or fishing.