WRITING MENTOR :The
Sentence, Capital Letters, and Periods
A sentence is a
group of words that express a complete
idea or thought.
What that means is that every sentence has an ACTOR (subject)
and an ACTION (verb).
Which is a
complete sentence?
The first
American colonists
The first
American colonists came from Europe.
Yes! Number
two is a complete sentence, with a
complete thought, an ACTOR (American colonists) and an action
(came).
THE
ACTION
The action or verb
is the word that can change to show the time of the sentence.
Jaime
worked hard and fast.
The time of the
sentence is past because the action worked
is
in the past.
If you are talking
about the future, you would say, "Jaime will
work hard and fast." the word worked
changed to will work.
What would you say
if you were talking about the present? Change the action word or
verb in the sentence.
Which words can you change to
show different time frames?
drive
sky
drew
paper
THE
ACTOR
So great, you have
an action. Who is acting? Who or what is causing the action?
The person or thing
causing the action is the actor, or subject.
Who is the actor in
the sentences above? Who worked, or will work? The answer is
Jamie.
Look at the picture
below. Write a few sentences about it. Find the actor and the action
in each of your sentences. Following are some examples:
A
girl is skiing
in the winter.
The
mountains look
beautiful
It snowed
a lot.
In writing, a
sentence begins with a capital letter (A) and ends with a period
(.). A sentence may be very short and simple.
Henry loves
his horse.
Or a sentence may
be long and complicated.
Crazy
Henry loves one thing only: his horse,
King, a beautiful stallion with a fiery spirit.
Notice that both
sentences start with a capital letter and end with a period.
The
second sentence needs other punctuation, a colon (:) and
commas (,). It is still only one
sentence. It is one complete idea because it has a subject or actor
(Crazy
Henry) and a verb or action (loves)
and nothing critical is missing to complete the thought.
Watch out for parts
of sentences that tell
a specific time, place,
or cause.
These are parts of an idea, but they are NOT a complete idea. We
call them fragments
because they are pieces of a sentence. Look
at the following examples.
Time:
In the morning,
While sleeping,
When John got
to town,
All of these are
times, but they are incomplete.
They are fragments. Contrast them with the following complete
sentences:
In the morning,
I always think about my day.
While sleeping,
Mary dreamed about her perfect job.
When John got
to town, he went straight to the sheriff’s office.
Place:
At work,
In the United States,
Across the border,
All of these tell
you about places, but they are incomplete.
They are fragments. Contrast them with the following complete
sentences:
At work, we are
required to keep our desks clean.
In the United States, many language are spoken.
Across the border, you can sometimes find cheaper products.
Cause:
Because of the
weather,
Since the city wasn't prepared for the hurricane
Due to higher gas prices,
All of these tell
you about causes, but they are incomplete.
They are fragments. Contrast them with the following complete
sentences:
Because of the weather, the
delivery was late.
Since the city wasn't prepared for the
hurricane, many people are without work.
Due to higher gas prices, tourism
has decreased.
With the following groups of words,
write S (sentence)
in the
blank if the group is a complete sentence. Write F (for
fragment) in the blank
if the group of words is not a sentence. Check your answers.
1. Some hunting dogs hate
thunder
2. Many times,
early in the morning, with the sun shining
3. My raccoon,
Charlie, gets in trouble when he decides that the dog food belongs
to him
4. Without
refrigerators, people had to salt or smoke their meats to keep them
from spoiling
5. At night, when
the moon shines brightly and the fields are ready for harvest
