What Is Sentence Combining and How Does It Work?
What Is Sentence Combining and How Does It Work? Find out about sentence combining–a friendly (and generally more effective) alternative to traditional grammar instruction. Then begin developing your sentence-combining skills here at About.com Grammar & Composition.Answer: An alternative to traditional forms of grammar instruction, sentence combining gives students practice in manipulating a variety of basic sentence structures. Despite appearances, the goal of sentence combining is not to produce longer sentences but rather to develop more effective sentences–and to help students become more versatile writers. How Sentence Combining Works Here’s a simple example of how sentence combining works. Consider these three short sentences: • The dancer was not tall. • The dancer was not slender. • The dancer was extremely elegant. By cutting out the needless repetition and adding a few conjunctions, we can combine
