Simple, Compound or Complex? The Choice Is Yours!

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Professor David Crystal explains, "Sentences make words yield up their meanings." To be able to express your ideas effectively, you need to know the variety of sentence structures and how to use them appropriately in your piece of writing.

Study the examples below, and you will see how your idea can be expressed in three different ways without changing the meaning.

Example 1:
  • It was raining cats and dogs. (simple sentence 1)
  • The boys refused to stop playing football in the field. (simple sentence 2)

Example 2:
  • It was raining cats and dogs, but the boys refused to stop playing football in the field. (compound sentence)

Example 3:
  • Even though it was raining cats and dogs, the boys refused to stop playing football in the field. (complex sentence)
For more information, read Fokus SPM (February 2013, page 38-39)

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