Writing Exercise: Various Sentence Patterns



Writing Exercise: Various Sentence Patterns

| |I, should you unfaithful, will immediately break this relationship between us. |

| |To Japanese men, wives are like artworks which they can appreciate/enjoy at home. |

| |He shouted at the monster, a creature with burning eyes and flaming wings, while he took up his sword and shield. |

| |“Zombies! Coming!” Yelled the woman. |

| |Love is like a red red rose. |

| |Who knows? |

| |I am here, My Lord. |

| |Vincent is our dictionary. |

| |She is/looks/poses herself as gorgeous as Venus. |

| |The river cries./The wind shrieks. |

| |Tears dropped. |

| |The little boy stood beside the swimming pool, his eyes twinkling. |

| |He exploded with rage. |

| |The ceremony, weather permitting, will be held outside. |

| |The little boy stood beside the swimming pool, his eyes bleeding. |

| |Oh, you are my flower. |

| |The little boy stood beside the swimming pool, his eyes glistering with tears. |

| |Mother is my fountain of inspiration, sword of courage and pillow of comfort. |

| |Heart devastated. |

| |What on earth is that! |

| |The little boy stood beside the swimming pool, his eyes glaring. |

| |Silence/Time lasted/screams/speaks/kills/sings. |

| |The little boy stood beside the swimming pool, his eyes peeping out at those wonders, God’s given. |

| |Literally speaking, to civilize Junior High students is a job coming straight from Hell. |

|24 |Figurative language |

| |Simile |

| |It is not easy as striking a match on a mirror. |

| |metaphor |

| |He is her 7-11. |

| |They stepped forth into the sea of matrimony and found it a very rocky road. |

| |allusion |

| |Tender is the night. (alludes to Keats’s nightingale ode) |

| |Flee now; pray later. (alludes to the familiar advertising slogan “Fly now; pay later.”) |

| |Linguistics is my Achilles’’ heel. |

| |personification |

| |The storm screams defiance. |

| |This is a society in terminal illness. |

| |irony |

| |I couldn’t wait for joining the army! |

| |Hyperbole/understatement |

| |A hundred years should go to praise/ Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;/ Two hundred to adore each breast,/ But |

| |thirty thousands to the rest/ --Marvell’s “To This Coy Mistress” |

| |Seeing the house collapsed, he did nothing but humming a childhood song. |

| |(your own sentence) |

|23 |The deliberate fragment |

| |(in a description) And those daffodils dancing in the spring breeze! |

| |(for transition) First, the chocolate and the roses. |

| |(for indicating conclusions) All too late. |

| |(for structuring a question or an answer) Based on love? No kidding. |

| |(for making exclamations or emphasis) What a price to pay! |

| |(for making explanation) All because of love. |

| |(in aphorisms or fragments of cliches) The more the merrier for us. |

| |(your own sentence) |

|22 |A short question for dramatic effect |

| |Who cares? |

| |What if the president calls? |

| |You made an A in Professor Killer’s class? |

| |What comes next? |

| |Who will bell the cat? –William Langland, Piers the Plowman |

| |(your own sentence) |

|21 |The short, simple sentence for relief or dramatic effect. |

| |Days passed. |

| |Perseverance pays. |

| |All efforts wasted. |

| |It so happened. |

| |Jesus wept. –The Bible |

| |Know thyself. –Plutarch, Lives. |

| |Call me Ishmael. –Melville, Moby Dick. |

| |(your own sentence) |

|20 |Absolute construction (noun plus participle) anywhere in the sentence |

| |The worldwide economy, God willing, will soon return to normal. |

| |I plan to settle in Hualing (my pension permitting) as soon as I retire. |

| |All things considered, the situation looks favorable. |

| |Casesar continues his march through Gaul, his army tattered, exhausted, hardened—but victorious. |

| |As absolute construction has no grammatical connection with the sentence, it mush always have some punctuation, such as|

| |a pair of commas, dashes, or parentheses. |

| |The little boy stood beside the swimming pool, his eyes ____________. |

| |The accordion player’s hands raced over the keys, his right hand ____________, his left hand __________. |

| |(your own sentence) |

|19 |Dependent Clause |

| |S (dependent clause as subject) V . |

| |S V (dependent clause as object. |

| |Why he deserted his family is a mystery to me. |

| | |

| |Genius, not stupidity, has limits. |

|18 |A paired construction for contrast only |

| |…this …not that; not this but that |

| |The symphony conductor was convinced that it was she, not the orchestra, and certainly not the music, that the audience|

| |had come to honor. |

| |Genius, not stupidity, has limits. |

| |Count the nights by stars, not shadows. |

| |The reason that KMT won the presidential campaign lies not in the charm of their candidate but in ____________. |

| |The purpose of taking a writing class is not to train students to write perfect sentences but ____________. |

| |(your own sentence) |

|17 |Paired Constructions |

| |Not only … but also |

| |Just as …, so too … |

| | |

| |If not … at least |

| |The more …the more |

| | |

| |The Former…, the latter…. |

| |Whether …or |

| | |

| |So …that |

| |Such …that |

| | |

| |Not only … more than that |

| |Both …and |

| | |

| |As …as |

| |Neither …nor |

| | |

| |Not so …as |

| | |

| | |

| | |

| |If not praise, at least not blame. |

| |American tourists must realize that violations of laws in China are serious not only because they flaunt traditional |

| |codes of behavior but also because they reflect contempt for Oriental culture. |

| |The more I saw films by that director, the less I liked to recommend him. |

| |To accomplish great things, we must not ony act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe. –Anatole France |

| |The more earnest he tries to please his girl friend, ____________. |

| |Even though I broke up with my boyfriend, I feel that I owe him nothing, neither in ____________ nor in ____________. |

| |(your own sentence) |

|16 |Complete inversion of normal pattern |

| |Object or complement or modifier V S. |

| |From the guru’s prophecy radiated a faith that ultimately all would be well. |

| |Down the street and into the village the presidential candidate shook hands with every potential supporter. |

| |From his years of suffering came eventual ____________. |

| |(your own sentence) |

|15 |Object or complement before S V |

| |His kind of sarcasm I do not like. |

| |Content he can remain with his money; true friends he will never have. |

| |Honest and sincere a president should always be. |

| |__________ a child seldom understands. |

| |(your own sentence) |

|14 |Prepositional phrase S V (or V S). |

| |Down under the roller coaster, the world has a peculiar horror. |

| |After that, he stopped day-dreaming. |

| |“From his tongue flowed speech sweeter than honey.” –Homer, Illiad. |

| |__________ stood the housewife holding a loaded shot gun. |

| |(your own sentence) |

|13 |A single modifier out of place for emphasis |

| |Modifier ______, S V. |

| |As a whole, people tend to be forgetful. (Notify the comma) |

| |Below, the traffic looked like a necklace of ants. |

| |The general demanded absolute obedience, instant and unquestioning. |

| |The autumn leaves, burgundy red and fiery orange, showered down like a cascade of butterflies. |

| |I always have this dream in my mind that, if possible, __________. |

| |(your own sentence) |

|12 |Introductory or concluding participles |

| |Overwhelmed by the tear gas, the rioters groped their way toward the fountain to wash their eyes. |

| |Wet-eyed, dumbstruck by his performance, I pulled a five-dollar bill out of my wallet and dropped that into the paper |

| |bag. |

| |(rewrite the following sentence, beginning with the participle) |

| |If you water your African violets carefully they will burst into bloom. |

| |The residents of the apartment obeyed the water restriction rule and they watered the lawn on Thursdays. |

| |(your own sentence) |

|11 |A variation: same word repeated in parallel structure |

| |S V repeated key word in same position of the sentence. |

| |“Lust and Caution” captures a moment of time, a moment of passion, a moment of perverse indulgence. |

| |“Villainy is the matter; baseness is the matter; deception, fraud, conspiracy are the matter.” –Charles Dickens, David |

| |Copperfield |

| |“You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt, as young as your self-confidence, as old as your despair.” |

| |–-Stanley Ullman, 15th C French essayist. |

| |Your grandmother was right; there is nothing new under the sun, nothing __________, nothing ____________, (only) |

| |____________. |

| |(your own sentence) |

|10 |Repetition of a key term |

| |S V key term, repeated key term. . |

| |We all inhabit a mysterious world—the inner world, the world of the mind. |

| |In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson mocks community worship of outworn customs, customs that no longer have meaning, |

| |customs that deny man his inherent dignity and link him with the uncivilized world of beasts. |

| |Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing great or small, large or petty--never give in |

| |except to convictions of honor and good sense. –by Winston Churchill, Address at Harrow School, October 1941 |

| | |

| |The destruction made by the earthquake is devastating, devastating to __________, devastating also to ____________. |

| |(your own sentence) |

|9 |Dependent clauses in a pair or in a series. |

| |If . . . , if . . . , if . . . , then S V. |

| |When . . . , when . . . , when . . . , S V. |

| |S V that . . . , that . . . , that . . . |

| |When he smelled the pungent odor of pine, when he heard the chatter of jays interrupting the silence, when he saw the |

| |startled doe, the hunter knew he had reached the center of the forest. |

| |Whether one needs fantasy or whether one needs stark realism, the theater can become a mirror of life. |

| | |

| |If you have ______________, if ______________, if ______________, you don’t have to be nervous before the exam. |

| |When I __________, when I ____________, when I ________, I know I am reaching home. |

| |(your own sentence) |

|8 |An internal series of appositives or modifiers. |

| |S—appositive/modifier, appositive/modifier, appositive/modifier—V. |

| |The necessary qualities for political life—guile, ruthlessness and garrulity—he learned by carefully copying his |

| |father’s style. |

| |Many of the books kids enjoy reading (Snow White, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood) portray women in traditional and |

| |often single-dimentional roles. |

| | |

| |The basic necessities in life-- ______________, ______________, ______________--make you qualified as a modern man. |

| |_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________|

| |_____ . |

|7 |An introductory series of appositives. |

| |Appositive, appositive, appositive—summary word S V. |

| |Vanity, greed, corruption-which serves as the novel’s source of conflict? |

| |An old photograph, a haunting fragrance, a sudden view of a half-forgotten scene—something unexpectedly triggers our |

| |nostalgia for the past. |

| |The petty, the wronged, the fallen, the dignified, the cowardly, the righteous, the lustful—each played an important |

| |role on the stage of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. |

| | |

| |To ______________, to ______________, to ______________--such are the goals of the average Taiwanese university |

| |students. |

| |_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________|

| |_____ . |

|6 |A series of balanced pairs. |

| |A and B, C and D, E and F. |

| |The story of Spain is a history of kings and poets, saints and conquistadores, emperors and revolutionaries, Cervantes |

| |and Picasso. |

| |It’s amazing how lifeless elements like stone and wood, nails and plaster, glass and metal take on a soul after you |

| |turn them into a house. |

| |Eager yet fearful, confident but somewhat suspicious, Jason eyed the barber who would give him his first haircut. |

| | |

| |______________ and ______________, ______________ and ______________, ______________ and ______________, he stands on |

| |the podium and accepts the award from the President. |

| |_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________|

| |_____ . |

|5 |A series with a variation. |

| |A or B or C. A and B and C. |

| |Peering down from the hill, Merlin could see the castle swathed in gloom and fear and death. |

| |Despite his handicaps, I have never seen Larry angry or cross or depressed. |

| |During World War II from fall into the summer of 1940, Germany rolled into Poland, and Denmark and Norway and Holland |

| |and Belgium and finally France. |

| | |

| |Looking toward Mount Jade, I could see that the fading afternoon sun had tinted it ______________ and ______________ |

| |and _______________. |

| |What will be the main issues in the next presidential campaign, ______________ or ______________ or _______________? |

| |_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________|

| |_____ . |

|4 |A series with a conjunction. |

| |A, B, C. |

| |Since unification in Berlin, walls have come down, barriers have been broken, bonds have been formed. |

| |Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the love of wonder, the sweet amazement of the stars and the |

| |starlike things, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite of “what-next” in the joy of the |

| |game of living. |

| |Our priorities run to safety over style, value over flash, comfort over speed. |

| |Oil booms are short-lived, speculative, ruinous to those who rely on them. |

| | |

| |______________, ______________, _______________ are my favorite summertime activities. |

| |______________, ______________, _______________, the boy staggered away from the girl with only a letter in his hand. |

| |_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________|

| |_____ . |

|3 |General statement (idea): specific statement (example). |

| |Darwin’s Origin of Species forcibly states a harsh truth: only the fittest survive. |

| |Remember what the old saying prudently advises: be careful what you wish for because you may actually get it. |

| |Weekdays are very similar to identical suitcases: they are all the same size, but some people can pack more into them |

| |than others. |

| | |

| |______________ are very similar to ______________: ________________________________. |

| |_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________|

| |_______ . |

|2 |S V DO or SC; S, DO or SC. |

| |We like classical music; George, punk rock. |

| |An artist’s instinct is intuitive, not rational; aesthetic, not pragmatic. |

| | |

| |For some students the party was a chance of making new friends; ______________. |

| |An owl symbolizes wisdom; ________________________________. |

| |_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________|

| |_______ . |

|1. |S V; S V; S V. |

| |To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornamentation is affectation; to make judgment |

| |wholly by their rules is the humor of a scholar. |

| |Touch not; taste not; handle not. |

| | |

| |He was daring; he was radical; but mostly ________________________. |

| |Some people blamed the mayor; ____________________; ___________. |

| |_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________|

| |________ . |

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