Compound sentences

Simple sentences are all very well. They can convey meaning perfectly adequately. But they quickly become tedious to read. A succession of simple sentences will not please your examiners.

John rode his bicycle but Janet drove her car.

When writing compound sentences, you need to be careful with your use of the joining words (or conjunctions) which you use to link the two clauses. The most common are

and;

or;

and

but.

The use of however presents a difficulty. Technically, it is an adverb and not a conjunction, although in informal communication this distinction is often lost and it tends to be used as a conjunction. For example, I missed my train, however I still got home on time. Clearly, in contexts such as this, however is being used interchangeably with nevertheless, and it is unlikely that anyone with any knowledge or intuition of grammatical convention would write I missed my train, nevertheless I still got home on time, without breaking it into two sentences. Bearing in mind, therefore, that this chapter is concerned with formal usage, our advice must be to avoid using however as a conjunction. This leaves you with a straightforward choice. The first possibility is to use a genuine conjunction:

I missed my train but I still got home on time.

Alternatively, you could retain however but use two simple sentences

I missed my train. However, I still got home on time.

(The use of the comma after however in the second example is explained at p. 169.)

There is an old-fashioned ‘rule’ that and and but cannot properly be used to begin sentences, because (being conjunctions) their function is to join clauses together. Like many other ‘rules’, this one is based on a sound principle. However, also like many other ‘rules’, this one can be applied too strictly. The occasional use of and and but as opening words can be very striking. For example:

He was handsome. And I do mean handsome.

Similarly:

She had only one talent. But what a talent it was.

You will relatively seldom need such rhetorical devices in academic writing, but the possibility is worth noticing. In any event, of course, such usage may occasionally be justified on the ground of variation of sentence structure.

Just as compound sentences are one stage on from simple sentences, so complex sentences are one stage on from compound sentences. It is, therefore, to complex sentences that we now turn.