How Do You Use Dependent Clauses In A Sentence?
In communications, clauses can be dependent or independent. Both dependent and independent clauses can have nouns and verbs, but independent clauses can stand alone as complete sentences or thoughts. Many writers vary their sentences, using both independent and dependent clauses. Use dependent clauses to avoid short choppy sentences and to pull your thoughts together tightly. You could write,”She got up. She turned off the alarm. She yawned noisily.” Or you could pull these sentences together by using a dependent clause, “After getting up and turning off the alarm clock, she yawned noisily.” Add dependent clauses to provide descriptive information about nouns and to tell when, where, how, why or under what conditions something happened. “The book, which is overdue, was left on the desk” uses a dependent clause to provide information about the book left on the desk. “I left the book on the desk because I forgot that it was overdue” explains why the book was left. “Jumping up at the soun
