type of sentence essay

Types of Sentences

On average, a person says about 7,000 words every day. However, what really forms our speech is not really about words, but rather about sentences and how we use them.

We use different types of sentences in both written and oral speech. Each type serves a specific designated purpose, and, though you may not realize it, all sentence types are different from one another.

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How many types of sentences exist in the English language? What are their purposes and how is each formed? Knowing the answers to these questions is important. You will be able to bring your writing skills to a whole new level, and make your speech more thoughtful, effective, and purposeful — which is especially important for students. In this article, the EssayPro research paper writing service has made a comprehensive guide on the different types of sentences and their characteristics.

What Are the Four Types of Sentences?

In the English language, we can identify four types of sentences. They are classified based on their purposes:

• The declarative sentence type is used for making a statement;
• The interrogative type is used to ask a question;
• Imperative sentences are used to tell somebody to do something (i.e. give a command or an order);
• The exclamatory type is used to express (e.g. surprise).

Apart from their purposes, these sentence types require the use of different punctuation marks. Also, if we are talking about oral speech rather than writing, every type uses different intonations to highlight their purposes.

In the chart below, you can find a short overview of all these types with their key characteristics from our dissertation writing services :

Now, when you have grasped the general idea, let’s take a close look at each sentence type separately.

Also, read our: PUNCTUATION GUIDE to bring your writing skills to a whole new level.

Declarative Sentence

What is a declarative sentence? The main goal of this type of sentence is to make a statement. So, in a nutshell, any sentence that tells us something can be attributed to this category. It doesn’t matter what kind of information it delivers, whether it is a proven fact or a theoretical statement, the only thing that matters is if it declares something – if it does, it is a declarative sentence.

The standard order of words in such sentences is as follows:

• Subject + verb + object… = where the subject is usually a noun or pronoun (a person, thing, place, etc.); the verb is the action or state of being; and the object is any word (or multiple words) that are influenced by the verb.

Example: The girl (subject) lost (verb) her favourite doll (object).

As a rule, a declarative sentence ends with a period. Sentences that fit the definition for being of declarative type, can be further categorized into two groups – positive and negative. Respectively, the difference between them is whether you intend to make a positive or negative statement:

Where are declarative sentences used most often, you might ask? This type of sentence is the most common type of sentence. We use it in oral and written speech whenever we intend to share some information. Therefore, declarative sentences are widely used in all types of academic papers, written documents, dialogues, etc.

Interrogative Sentence

What is an interrogative sentence? A declarative sentence aims to share information, whereas an interrogative one strives to receive information. According to the interrogative sentence definition, any sentence that asks a question can be attributed to this category and will always end with a question mark. Unlike the other types of sentences, interrogative sentences have a different word order: (wh-word or how) + auxiliary verb + subject

Example: Where (wh-word) is (auxiliary verb) Kate (subject)?

Similar to other types of sentences, interrogative sentences can be either positive or negative. Here are a few interrogative sentence examples of both:

Where can you use this type of sentence? Generally, interrogative sentences can have a variety of applications in your speech. However, when it comes to writing, especially academic papers, questions don’t always fit in context. For example, if you write a narrative essay, you will likely not be required to ask questions, as the purpose of a narrative essay paper is to provide information, not to collect it. Interrogative sentences are more commonly used in persuasive essays to encourage readers to reflect upon or reinforce the effect of the author’s arguments (e.g. “Did you know that…?”).

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Imperative Sentence

What is an imperative sentence? The main goal of these sentences is to tell others to do something, or, in other words, give a command. Imperative sentences can end with either a period or an exclamation mark.

The word order and form of such a sentence are different from other types. It often doesn’t have a subject, because an imperative sentence, by default, speaks to the recipient or reader (if it is a written text). Generally, such sentences consist of a base verb + any additional details.

These sentences can also be negative and positive, here are a few imperative sentence examples to help you grasp the idea:

As for possible applications of imperative sentences, they are mostly used in oral speech, or, if we are talking about writing, can be used in dialogues between characters, or in the form of a “call to action” that encourages readers to do something.

Exclamatory Sentence

What is an exclamatory sentence? The last of the four sentence types is the exclamatory sentence. It is used to express a strong surprise of emotion and always ends with an exclamation mark. Here are a couple of examples of how the basic order of words in such sentences might look:

• What (+ adjective) + noun + subject + verb
• How (+ adjective/adverb) + subject + verb

For example: What wonderful (adjective) weather (subject)! or How generous (adjective) you (subject) are (verb)!

Unlike previous types, exclamatory sentences do not have a negative form. Look at these exclamatory sentence examples to see how they are formed:

• What a beautiful painting!
• I feel terrible!
• What an excellent idea it was to throw him a surprise party!
• How nice it was!

Exclamatory sentences express powerful emotions, and, respectively, strive to evoke the same emotions in readers. In many cases, using this type of sentence in academic papers is inappropriate. However, if you are writing a descriptive or narrative essay, exclamatory sentences are great tools for helping your story to become even more vivid by delivering the right emotions to the reader.

Extra Tips on Variety

What is the key to having the perfect writing style? Some may say it is a solid vocabulary, others may not and suggest that it is being able to include an abundance of details. Furthermore, people might suggest that it is the number of ideas, examples, and arguments you include in your writing. But, if you put it all together, it turns out that the true key to literary mastery is variety!

So, here is our best tip for empowering your writing – add more variety. It may seem a bit tricky at first. But, as soon as you fully understand the concept behind every sentence type and get a bit more comfortable with each, you can try experimenting with them.

Here are some of the best tips on how you can use different types of sentences to your benefit in writing:

• Make a hook with a question. The introduction of a paper should be intriguing and engaging to make the reader want to continue reading. A good way to draw attention is to put a hook, in the form of a question, at the beginning of your introduction.

Example: “Have you ever thought how much benefit school uniforms can bring to students?”

• Use imperative sentences to establish the right guidance. The right command, presented in the right tone, can have a powerful effect on readers and stimulate their interest.

Example: “The way people thought of uniforms in schools has often been controversial. Some like the idea of it, while others don’t. However, studies show that uniforms have more pros than cons. Get ready to change your opinion!”

• Try different word orders. Although we have shared some basic formulas for shaping sentences with you in this article, they don’t necessarily always have to follow the “subject + verb” scenario. In fact, changing the order of words can occasionally add variety to your style and make your text look and sound better.

Example: Instead of writing - “I know what it means to be a part of a large team, so I know how hard it can be to find compromises.” Try using a different format - “Knowing what it means to be a part of a large team, I do know how hard it can be to find compromises.” See the difference?

• Use a question to summarize key points. Here’s another way to use interrogative sentences – put them at the beginning of a paragraph to create a quick summary of your ideas.

Example: “What was the result of a study on the pros of uniforms? – that’s what we are going to talk about.”

This trick will help you to create a smoother transition between paragraphs.

• Use different structures. As a rule, most writing tips say the same thing – “Keep it Simple!” While this advice makes sense, sometimes adding a bit of variety won’t hurt. To keep readers engaged, writers often use this trick. They alternate simple, compound, and complex constructions. This tip helps to significantly improve the readability of the text. The thing is that people find it hard and tiring to read the same sentence types one after another.

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What Are The Four Types Of Sentences?

Which one of the following types of sentences asks a question and always ends with a question mark.

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is a seasoned educational writer focusing on scholarship guidance, research papers, and various forms of academic essays including reflective and narrative essays. His expertise also extends to detailed case studies. A scholar with a background in English Literature and Education, Daniel’s work on EssayPro blog aims to support students in achieving academic excellence and securing scholarships. His hobbies include reading classic literature and participating in academic forums.

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Essay Writing Guide

Types Of Sentences

Last updated on: Jun 28, 2024

Types of Sentences With Examples

By: Nova A.

Reviewed By: Melisa C.

Published on: Apr 9, 2019

What makes a great sentence?

A simple answer is, it depends. Making sentences may seem an easy task but, don't be fooled it is trickier than you know.

The types of sentences you use in your  essay writing can make or break the flow. For example, if you start off with a long sentence that leads into another long sentence, it's much harder to keep reading than when you start off with two short sentences (ironic).

When planning out your post, remember to mix up the lengths of your sentences so they are all easy to read and interesting!

Follow us below to know about the different kinds of sentences and how to use them correctly in your content.

On this Page

What are the Different Types of Sentences? 

Writing is a part of our daily lives and we have been doing it since our childhood. Do you know that a sentence also has different types? It may come as a surprise for many of us but it is true. A sentence has different types and all of them are used for different reasons and intentions.

Knowing about different types of sentences helps in writing excellent analytical and descriptive essays . These essays are extremely visual and illustrative and this is what actually makes them so appealing and interesting. 

‘What are the 4 types of sentences?’

Following are the 4 types of sentences used in the English language:

Declarative Sentences

This is the most basic kind of sentence. A declarative sentence is a sentence that makes a statement and presents basic information. It could be a simple one-line sentence or a long-form complex one having connectors. 

It is usually an active voice and is the most commonly used type of sentence. Moreover, declarative sentences usually end with a period. 

• My daughter is a volleyball champion.
• Students do not work hard and this is why they often fail.
• Italian food is usually based on spaghetti and meatballs.
• The United States has fifty states.
• I love to have desserts at breakfast.
• The dog chased the boy.
• My sister loves to run, but my brother prefers to walk.
• She wears black nail polish.
• London is the capital of England. 
• The dog is sleeping on the couch.

Interrogative Sentence 

Interrogative sentences are based on asking questions and end on a question mark. They represent that a person is asking a question. 

They can be simple and have what, how, when, and where in them and they can also be complex like the rhetorical type of questions. But, generally, a simple form is used. 

These sentences ask questions and could be both simple and compound-complex sentences having both an independent clause and a dependent clause.

• What is your name?
• Do you know that Niagara Falls is in Canada?
• Did you do your tasks for the day?
• Can you tell me the address to Taksim Square?
• Do you know that excessive carbohydrates are one of the main reasons for a heart attack?
• Why is the sky blue?
• Where is your new dog?
• To whom shall I give the test results?
• Have you watched the movie?
• Can I borrow your chemistry book for a day?

Exclamatory Sentence 

These sentences express strong emotions and end with an exclamation mark. Ever felt like shouting? 

This is the kind of sentence that you want to use to express this strong emotion.

• What a huge dog you have!
• Such an overwhelming experience!
• What a great movie!
• He is going to hit his head!
• The sun is so bright today!
• I got concert tickets!
• What a cute puppy!
• That birthday cake was so good!
• He is such a kind soul!
• You are such a liar!

Imperative Sentence 

Wondering what is an imperative sentence? 

An imperative sentence gives a command or is a request. An interesting thing about this type of sentence is that it could end with a full stop, a period, and an exclamation point.

• Shut the door now!
• Please do not make noise.
• Stop shouting!
• Please have a seat.
• Don’t try to be rude to me.
• Bring me a glass of water.
• Don't stay out at night.
• Please grant me a loan.
• Pass the salt.
• Please be quiet.

 4 Types Of Sentences According To Structures

There are four main types of sentence structures in English:

Simple Sentences

A simple sentence is the most basic type of sentence structure. It consists of a single independent clause that expresses a complete thought. 

An independent clause contains a subject (the person or thing the sentence is about) and a verb (the action or state of being). 

Simple sentences are often used to convey straightforward information or make simple statements.

• "I love to read."
• "She sings beautifully."
• "The sun sets in the west."
• "He plays soccer every weekend."

Compound Sentences

A compound sentence is formed by combining two or more independent clauses. These independent clauses are joined together using coordinating conjunctions (such as "and," "but," "or," "so," "for," etc.) or semicolons. 

Each independent clause can stand alone as a separate sentence. Compound sentences are used to connect related thoughts or ideas and show a relationship between them.

• "I love to read, and she enjoys writing."
• "She sings beautifully, but he dances gracefully."
• "The sun sets in the west; the moon rises in the east."
• "He plays soccer every weekend, or he goes for a swim."

Complex Sentences

A complex sentence contains one independent clause and at least one dependent clause. The independent clause can stand alone as a sentence, but the dependent clause cannot. 

The dependent clause is introduced by subordinating conjunctions (such as "because," "although," "if," "when," "since," etc.) and provides additional information or adds a condition to the independent clause. 

Complex sentences are used to express complex relationships, cause, and effect, or provide context.

• "I love to read because it broadens my horizons."
• "She sings beautifully when she's happy."
• "The sun sets in the west although some people think otherwise."
• "He plays soccer every weekend if the weather permits."

Compound-Complex Sentences

A compound-complex sentence combines elements of both compound and complex sentences. It contains two or more independent clauses and at least one dependent clause. 

These clauses are joined together using coordinating conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions.

Compound-complex sentences are used to express more intricate relationships and present a combination of ideas in a single sentence.

• "I love to read because it broadens my horizons, and she enjoys writing."
• "She sings beautifully when she's happy, but he dances gracefully when he's sad."
• "The sun sets in the west although some people think otherwise, and the moon rises in the east."
• "He plays soccer every weekend if the weather permits, or he goes for a swim if it's too hot."

Using Different Sentence Types in Your Writing

Though declarative sentences are commonly used in writing, relying solely on this sentence type can result in monotonous and unengaging text. Consider the following paragraph:

All four sentences are declarative, leading to a lack of variety and impact. Now, let's explore how incorporating different sentence types can enhance the paragraph:

In the revised paragraph, various sentence types were introduced to create a more engaging and vibrant piece. 

The interrogative sentence grabs the reader's attention, the exclamatory sentence adds enthusiasm, and the descriptive sentences paint a vivid picture. 

By using a mix of sentence types, the paragraph becomes more dynamic and captivating, drawing the reader in.

In conclusion, 

understanding the different types of sentences is essential for enhancing your writing skills and creating engaging content. 

By incorporating a variety of sentence structures, you can add depth to your writing and capture your readers' attention.

To further enhance your writing skills and achieve exceptional results, seek professional assistance from 5staressays.com. 

Our team of experienced writers is dedicated to providing top-notch academic and professional writing services. 

Visit 5staressays.com today and take your writing to the next level! Just say " write my essay " and leave the rest to us!

Law, Marketing

As a Digital Content Strategist, Nova Allison has eight years of experience in writing both technical and scientific content. With a focus on developing online content plans that engage audiences, Nova strives to write pieces that are not only informative but captivating as well.

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Types Of Sentences

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Do your sentences feel boring and repetitive? Are you struggling to make an impact with your writing? You're not alone. Many writers face the challenge of using the same types of sentences over and over again, which can leave readers uninterested.

But don't worry, there's a solution! By learning different types of sentences, you can make your writing more interesting and captivating. 

In this blog, we'll explore various types of sentences that can transform your writing from boring to brilliant. Get ready to level up your writing and create sentences that leave a lasting impression. 

Let's dive in!

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What Is a Sentence?

A sentence is a fundamental unit of written and spoken language. It is a group of words that expresses a complete thought or idea. 

Understanding the structure and components of a sentence is essential for effective writing. In this section, we will explore the key aspects of a sentence, including its definition, components, and types.

Components of a Sentence

Here is a breakdown of all components of a sentence: 

The subject is the main noun or pronoun that the sentence is about. It represents the person, place, thing, or idea that performs the action or is being described. Example: "John" in the sentence, "John plays the guitar."

The predicate is the part of the sentence that provides information about the subject. It includes the verb and any additional words that describe or modify the subject. Example: "plays the guitar" in the sentence, "John plays the guitar."

The verb is the action word or state of being that indicates what the subject is doing or experiencing. It is a crucial component of a sentence as it expresses the main action or state. Example: "plays" in the sentence, "John plays the guitar."

An object is a noun or pronoun that receives the action of the verb or is affected by it. It provides more information about the action in the sentence. Example: "the guitar" in the sentence, "John plays the guitar."

Why Does Sentence Type Matter? 

Why should you care about sentence types? The better you understand grammar and sentence structure, the stronger your writing will be. Your ability to communicate effectively in English depends on your mastery of grammar and syntax. 

Strong sentence skills are essential if you're looking for a job, writing a paper, or just chatting with friends.

If you want to improve your writing, it is important to learn different types of sentences and practice using them. 

This will make your writing more interesting and help you communicate clearly, whether you are writing an email or a term paper.

What are the 5 Types of Sentences According to Function?

To express your ideas effectively, you need to choose the right sentence type. There are five types of sentences categorized by purpose: declarative, interrogatory, imperative, exclamatory, and conditional. 

The table below provides a short overview of all the different types of sentences, including their key characteristics:

What Is a Declarative Sentence? 

A declarative sentence is a sentence that makes a statement or expresses an opinion. It can make a declaration that is either true or false depending on the situation, and it should always end with a period. 

Declarative Sentence Examples

• He is studying English. 
• She owns a cat. 
• This is my favorite book. 
• He was born on June 12, 1990. 
• He is watching a movie. 

What Is an Imperative Sentence? 

The imperative sentence is a request or command that should be taken seriously. It should end with an exclamation mark or a period. 

Imperative Sentence Examples 

• Close the door.  
• Do your homework. 
• Do not stop!
• Give him tea. 

What Is an Interrogative Sentence? 

Interrogative sentences ask questions. Punctuated with a question mark, they're direct questions that require an answer from the listener.

Interrogative sentences usually start with pronouns or auxiliary verbs.

Interrogative Sentence Examples 

• Where is the key?
• What is your favorite book?
• Whose cat is that?
• Are you hungry?
• What happened? 

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What Is an Exclamatory Sentence? 

Exclamatory sentences express strong emotions, such as surprise or excitement. It ends with an exclamation point. 

Exclamatory Sentence Examples 

• How she lied!
• How good she sings!
• I love this book!
• I can’t believe he lost!
• Happy anniversary!

What Is a Conditional Sentence?

A conditional sentence is a sentence that shows action and its consequence by following an if-then structure.

Conditional Sentence Examples 

• I will answer if she calls me.
• If you will clean, I will cook. 
• If you sleep, you dream.
• If you are happy, I am happy.
• If it is raining, we don’t drive. 

You can mix all these types of sentences to make your writing more interesting and dynamic. This kind of sentence variety can improve the overall quality of your writing. 

Types of Sentences According to Structure

If we categorize the sentences according to their function, there are four types of sentences. These include simple, complex, compound, and compound-complex. 

What Is a Simple Sentence?

A simple sentence is the most basic kind of sentence in the English language. It consists only of a subject and verb, with nothing else to cloud its meaning or intent. 

Simple Sentence Examples

• Christian waited for the bus. 
• The bus was late. 
• He opened the door. 
• I don’t like coffee. 
• Alex talks very fast.

What Is a Complex Sentence?

A complex sentence has at least one independent clause and one dependent clause . The two clauses are different in that the first can be its own sentence, but the second cannot because it relies on context from other sentences to make sense. 

Complex Sentence Examples

• Because it started raining, the football match was canceled.
• I was hungry, so I ordered food. 
• The cat jumped on his lap while she was having breakfast. 
• He returned the laptop after he noticed it was not working. 
• I want to eat something before I watch a movie. 

What Is a Compound Sentence?

A compound sentence is a type of sentence based on at least two independent clauses. It is generally separated by a comma, semicolon, or coordinating conjunction. 

Compound Sentence Examples 

• Alex made the sugar cookies; Jessica decorated them.
• She said she was not there yesterday; many people saw her there.
• It was getting dark, and we weren't near the home yet.
• I like my job. I really enjoy going to work every day. 
• He didn't want to go to the doctor, yet he went anyway. 

What Is a Compound-Complex Sentence? 

A compound-complex sentence is a sentence in which there are two or more clauses and at least one dependent clause. 

Compound-Complex Sentence Examples

• Micheal doesn’t like action movies because they are loud, so he doesn’t watch them.
• He likes to sleep in, but he can get up early if he has work to complete. 
• The cat sat down on top of the remote control.
• Sarah cried when her dog got sick, but he soon got better.
• Why did my professor yell at me? I got angry, so I quit. 

Extra Tips on Sentence Variety

What is the key to writing well? Some people might say it has a good vocabulary. Others might say it includes a lot of details in your writing. But if you put all those things together, variety is the real key to writing well.

Our best writing tip is to add more variety. It may seem difficult at first, but once you understand the different types of sentences and feel more comfortable with them, you can start experimenting.

Below are some tips that will help you use different types of sentences that benefit your writing.  

• The introduction should be interesting and make the reader want to continue reading.
• Using the right tone and commands in your writing can strongly influence your readers and engage their interest.
• You can sometimes make your text look and sound better by changing the order of the words.
• You can use interrogative sentences to create a summary of your ideas. This will help your readers understand what you discuss without reading the entire paragraph. 
• Keeping your writing simple is often a good idea. However, adding variety every now and then can help keep your readers engaged. This is because it makes the text more readable - people find it harder and more tiring to read the same sentence types.

Hopefully, this short guide helps you understand the different types of sentences and how to identify them. You can also turn to our essay writer AI for more help. 

But if you're seeking expert assistance in crafting exceptional essays, look no further than CollegeEssay.org. 

With our professional essay writing service, you'll receive top-notch support to elevate your writing to new heights. Don't miss out on this opportunity to excel. Place your " write an essay for me " order today!

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Types Of Sentences

4 Types of Sentences - Definition & Examples

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Have you ever wondered how to make your writing more interesting?

Dull sentences can make your essays, stories, and assignments less appealing to readers. 

Don't worry; we're here to help! 

In this blog, we'll explore the types of sentences according to functions and structure. Understanding these will enhance your writing, making you better at expressing your ideas.   Let’s get started!

• 1. What Is A Sentence? 
• 2. 4 Types of Sentences According to Function 
• 3. 4 Types of Sentences According to Structure 
• 4. Tips for Using Different Types of Sentences 
• 5. Types of Sentences Quiz

What Is A Sentence? 

A sentence is a group of words that come together to express a complete idea. It is the main unit of any language.

It always starts with a capital letter and ends with a period (.), exclamation point (!), or question mark (?).

A meaningful sentence contains two important things:

• A subject: who or what the sentence is about.
• A predicate: what's happening or being said about the subject.

A sentence must contain at least a subject and a verb. 

4 Types of Sentences According to Function 

In writing and speaking, we use different sentences to express our thoughts. Here we will discuss the following 4 types of sentences with examples categorized on the basis of their purpose. 

• Declarative Sentences
• Interrogative Sentences
• Imperative Sentences
• Exclamatory Sentences

Declarative Sentences 

Declarative sentences make statements or express opinions. They provide information and end with a period. 

Purpose: The most common sentence type, declarative sentences are used to make a statement or express an opinion and always end with a period. They serve the primary function of making statements or providing information in a straightforward manner.

Declarative Sentence Examples 

These declarative sentences present a fact, giving us information about the direction of the sun's rise.

Interrogative Sentences 

Interrogative sentences ask questions and seek information. They end with a question mark.

Purpose: Interrogative sentences ask questions or are used to interrogate. These sentences often begin with question words like who, what, where, when, why, or how.

Interrogative Sentence Examples 

In these interrogative sentences, the question words initiate a query, seeking a response or information about the completion of homework.

Imperative Sentences 

Imperative sentences give commands, make requests, or offer invitations. They usually end with a period but can also end with an exclamation mark for emphasis. 

Purpose: Imperative sentences issue directives, commands, or requests, aiming to prompt action or compliance.

Imperative Sentence Examples 

These imperative sentences politely request action, demonstrating the power of language in influencing behavior.

Exclamatory Sentences 

Exclamatory sentences express strong emotions or feelings, such as surprise, excitement, or anger. These sentences are characterized by their enthusiastic tone and always end with an exclamation mark.

Purpose: Exclamatory sentences are used to express express enthusiasm, surprise, or strong feelings. These sentences always end with an exclamation mark.

Exclamatory Sentence Examples 

These exclamatory sentences reflect the speaker's genuine admiration and excitement, adding an emotional dimension to the communication.

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4 Types of Sentences According to Structure 

When it comes to crafting engaging and effective writing, sentence structure plays a crucial role. It's like the framework of a building, providing the necessary support for your ideas to stand tall.

According to sentence structure, there are four main types:

Simple Sentences

Compound sentences, complex sentences, compound-complex sentences.

Definition: Simple sentences are concise and to the point. They consist of one independent clause that expresses a complete thought.

Format: 

[Subject] + [Predicate]

Examples: 

• The cat sleeps.
• He studies diligently.
• They play soccer.
• The sun shines brightly.

Definition: Compound sentences combine two independent clauses with a coordinating conjunction (like 'and,' 'but,' 'or,' etc.) to create a sentence with multiple related ideas.

[Independent Clause] + [Coordinating Conjunction] + [Independent Clause] 

[Independent Clause] +  ;  + [Independent Clause]

• She sings, and he dances.
• The cat sleeps, but the dog barks.
• He studies diligently, so he excels in school.
• They play soccer, and they love it.
• The sun shines brightly, yet the sky is cloudy.

Definition: Complex sentences involve an independent clause and one or more dependent clauses. Dependent clauses cannot stand alone as sentences and rely on the independent clause for context.

[Independent Clause] + [Subordinating Conjunction] + [Dependent Clause] 

[Subordinating Conjunction] + [Dependent Clause] + , + [Independent Clause]

• Although it's raining, she decided to go for a walk.
• Because he studied hard, he passed the exam.
• After the movie ended, they went out for dinner.
• Since she was tired, she took a nap.
• While I was cooking, the phone rang.

Definition: Compound-complex sentences combine elements of compound and complex sentences. They consist of two or more independent clauses and at least one dependent clause.

[Independent Clause] + [Coordinating Conjunction] + [Independent Clause] + [Subordinating Conjunction] + [Dependent Clause] 

[Dependent Clause] + , + [Independent Clause] + [Coordinating Conjunction] + [Independent Clause]

• She sings, and he dances, while the crowd cheers.
• The cat sleeps, but the dog barks whenever someone approaches the door.
• He studies diligently, so he excels in school, and he also helps his friends with their homework.
• They play soccer, and they love it, but sometimes they switch to basketball when the weather is bad.
• The sun shines brightly, yet the sky is cloudy, as people gather for the outdoor concert

Tips for Using Different Types of Sentences 

Incorporating various sentence types into your essay writing can add depth to your work. Here are some practical tips for effectively using different types of sentences in your writing:

• Make Clear Statements

Tip: Use declarative sentences to convey straightforward information or facts.

Example : "The sun rises in the east."

• Ask Engaging Questions

Tip: Employ interrogative sentences to prompt curiosity and engage your readers.

Example : "Have you ever wondered about the mysteries of the universe?"

• Give Direct Commands

Tip: Use imperative sentences when you want to issue a command or request.

Example: "Please pass the salt."

• Express Strong Emotions

Tip: Utilize exclamatory sentences to convey excitement or strong emotions.

Example: "What an incredible performance!"

Types of Sentences Quiz

Now that you've learned about the different types of sentences according to function and structure, let's put your knowledge to the test! Here are some types of sentence exercises to help you practice identifying and creating various types of sentences:

In summary, whether you're crafting an essay, telling a story, or sending a message, the choice of sentence can make all the difference. Each sentence structure engages your readers in different ways. 

Also, if you're looking for assistance in your academic writing tasks, consider our online essay writing service . Our team of experienced writers is here to help you craft compelling essays that stand out. 

Frequently Asked Questions

How to identify different sentence types.

• Declarative: Makes a statement. Example: "The sky is blue."
• Interrogative: Asks a question. Example: "What time is it?"
• Imperative: Gives a command or request. Example: "Please close the door."
• Exclamatory: Expresses strong emotion. Example: "What a beautiful day!"

What are the different types of sentences according to their functions?

• Declarative: States facts or opinions. Example: "I enjoy reading books."
• Interrogative: Asks questions. Example: "Where is the library?"
• Imperative: Gives commands or requests. Example: "Turn off the lights."
• Exclamatory: Shows strong feelings. Example: "That's amazing!"

What are the different types of sentences according to structure?

• Simple: One independent clause. Example: "She sings."
• Compound: Two independent clauses joined by a conjunction or semicolon. Example: "I wanted to go for a walk, but it started to rain."
• Complex: One independent clause and at least one dependent clause. Example: "Although it was raining, we decided to go for a walk."
• Compound-Complex: At least two independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses. Example: "I wanted to go for a walk, but it started to rain, which was disappointing."

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Nova Allison is a Digital Content Strategist with over eight years of experience. Nova has also worked as a technical and scientific writer. She is majorly involved in developing and reviewing online content plans that engage and resonate with audiences. Nova has a passion for writing that engages and informs her readers.

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Understanding the 4 Types of Sentences

General Education

If you’re worrying about learning the different types of sentences, you may be relieved to hear that there are only four main types of sentences you need to know. Plus, once you know the rules behind them, they’re pretty easy to tell apart. This guide gives you all the info you need on the 4 types of sentences, along with plenty of examples and a quiz for you to test your knowledge.

The 4 Types of Sentences

There are four types of sentences: declarative, imperative, interrogative, and exclamatory. We go over each of the different types of sentences in this section, explaining what the purpose of the sentence type is, how to use it, and what examples of it look like.

Declarative Sentence

Declarative sentences are the most common of the four types of sentences. They’re used when you want to make a statement (which can be a fact or an opinion). These sentences end with a period. Many pieces of writing contain numerous declarative sentences in a row (or are made up nearly entirely of declarative sentences) since they’re the best sentence type for laying out a story in a clear and understandable way.

• Ella was late to the dance.
• Songbird populations have decreased dramatically in the past decade.
• I would rather have vanilla ice cream than chocolate ice cream.
• Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775.

Imperative Sentence

Imperative sentences give a command or an instruction. They can range from a single verb to a much longer sentence, and they typically end with a period . However, imperative sentences can sometimes end with an exclamation mark if the order is given with a lot of feeling. As long as the sentence is a command, it’s an imperative sentence, not an exclamatory sentence (see below), even if it ends with an exclamation mark.

• Shut the door!
• Don’t eat the cake until it has cooled.
• Please pass the gravy.
• Be there by 3:00.

Interrogative Sentence

All interrogative sentences ask a question and therefore end with a question mark (which makes them easy to identify!). This sentence type often begins with words such as “do” “how” “who” “what” “where” “when” and “why”. The question may be a yes/no question or one that is more open ended.

• Are you still hungry?
• Why do you think Arthur is mad at me?
• Did Taylor remember to let the dog out?
• Was Abraham Lincoln the 16th president?

Exclamatory Sentence

Exclamatory sentences are used to express especially strong emotions such as anger, happiness, disbelief, etc. They all end with an exclamation point, however; if the sentence gives a command and ends with an exclamation mark, then it is an imperative, not exclamatory, sentence. This sentence type is only rarely used in professional writing (such as in newspapers or academic journals) where it is important for the author to remain objective and stick to the facts, rather than emotions.

However, for other types of writing, exclamatory sentences can be an effective way to show emotion in your writing and/or evoke a strong emotion in your readers. They can help readers understand when a character is feeling particularly strongly about something, or when something comes as a surprise in the story.

• I can’t believe we lost!
• My sister just won the lottery!
• Happy birthday!
• That man just robbed a bank!

4 Types of Sentences Quiz

Ready to test your knowledge on the four types of sentences? Then try out our quiz! Decide which sentence type each of the ten sentences below is, then check your answers against the answer key beneath the quiz.

• How was school today?
• I’m so worried about this science test.
• The fireworks lasted over an hour!
• I told you to sit down.
• Agnes won the spelling bee!
• Turn to page 152 in your textbook.
• Wait for me!
• It’s impossible for kangaroos to jump backwards.
• Do rose plants need to be watered often?
• Please hand me the smallest scalpel. 
• Interrogative
• Declarative
• Exclamatory

How to Use Sentence Variety in Writing

Mixing the four types of sentences can be a great way to make your writing more dynamic and interesting to read. Compare these two pieces of writing:

Kaila ran down the street. As she turned a corner, a man suddenly appeared. She ran into him and tumbled to the ground. The man helped her up and asked why she was running. He told her to be more careful next time. Kaila nodded and went on her way, this time at a slower pace.

“Why are you running?” the man asked as he helped her up. “Please be more careful next time.”

Kaila nodded and went on her way, this time at a slower pace.

The first example isn’t that interesting, right? It’s made only of declarative sentences, which explain what happened but in a pretty boring way. The second example includes all four sentence types and is more interesting to read. It shows how sentence variety can improve the quality of your writing. However, you don’t want to overdo it. 

Any piece of writing whose main purpose is to deliver facts (such as a research paper or newspaper article) should be written almost exclusively with declarative sentences. Declarative sentences will be the most common sentence type you use for almost any piece of writing, but for these fact-based pieces, you may not even use the other types of sentences. This is because declarative sentences are what deliver facts most objectively and move writing along most coherently. 

In other pieces of writing, such as fiction or opinion pieces, you’ll likely use different types of sentences more often. Dialogue can be a great place to use the other sentence types, as characters ask each other questions, make exclamations, or give commands.

One thing to always be aware of is to use exclamatory sentences sparingly. Including an exclamation point every once in a while can add drama and excitement to your writing, but if you use them too often, they’ll lose their effectiveness, and your writing may appear overly dramatic and unprofessional.

What's Next?

Compound sentences are another importance sentence type to know. Read our guide on compound sentences for everything you need to know about compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences.

Need ideas for a research paper topic? Our guide to research paper topics has over 100 topics in ten categories so you can be sure to find the perfect topic for you.

Thinking about taking an AP English class? Read our guide on AP English classes to learn whether you should take AP English Language or AP English Literature (or both!)

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Sentence Types Based on Grammatical Classification and Functionality

Sentences can be categorized based on their grammar but also by their functionality. This blog post will help you become a better writer by thoroughly reviewing the different sentence types, so you can properly use them in your writing.

Sentence Types: Quick Summary

Grammatically , sentences can be categorized according to their syntactic structure :

• Compound-complex

Pragmatically , sentences are also classified based on their function :

• Declarative
• Interrogative
• Exclamatory

Why Understanding the Different Types of Sentences is Important

Having a thorough understanding of the different types of sentences is vital for clear communication and effective writing for many reasons.

• Knowing the different types of sentences, what purposes they serve, and when and how to use them facilitates clarity. In simpler terms, it makes your writing easier to understand.
• Using different types of sentences enhances the variety of your writing while adding rhythm and flow, which keep your readers engaged.
• Employing a variety of sentence types in your writing gives you more control as a writer—you get to decide the flow and emphasis.

Think of it this way: If you’ve ever sat through a boring lecture or presentation, chances are the speaker was talking in a monotonous tone and using the same types of sentences over and over again.

On the contrary, if you’ve ever been to a lecture or presentation that kept you engaged and interested, then that speaker most likely used long and short sentences , asked questions, and made exclamations.

So, if you want to compose effective writing and keep your audience engaged, then it’s a good idea to learn about the different types of sentences.

Let’s get started!

The Four Types of Sentences Based on Grammatical Classification

Grammatical classifications of sentences focus on their structure and the arrangement of clauses within them.

Simple Sentence

A simple sentence is made up of one independent clause and no dependent clause.

Remember, an independent clause contains a subject and a predicate and expresses a complete thought. On the other hand, a dependent clause contains a subject and verb but does not express a complete thought and therefore cannot stand alone.

Here are a few examples of simple sentences:

She sings beautifully.

The cat is taking a nap.

He ran to catch the bus.

Compound Sentence

A compound sentence contains two or more independent clauses. A comma and a coordinating conjunction ( and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet ) or semicolon join the clauses. There are no dependent clauses in a compound sentence.

I enjoy hiking, but my twin sister prefers swimming.

The sun was shining brightly, so we decided to have a family beach day.

My younger brother loves football; he practices every day as much as he can.

Complex Sentence

A complex sentence comprises one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.

If the dependent clause precedes the independent clause, then a comma is needed to connect them. But if the independent clause is first, then the clauses are joined with subordinating conjunctions.

After I finished the project, I went outside for a walk.

Due to her determination and grit, she won first place in the swimming competition.

We didn’t attend the ceremony because we all came down with the flu.

Compound-Complex Sentence

A compound-complex sentence contains two or more independent clauses and at least one dependent clause.

We tried our best, but we still didn’t win first place, and we were disappointed with the result.

Lucy went to the store, and while she was there, she ran into an old friend who she hadn’t seen in years, so they decided to grab a cup of coffee and catch up.

Johan finished his homework early, so we decided to go for a walk, but when it started raining, we had to return home.

Now that we’ve covered the grammatical classifications, let’s review sentences based on their functions.

The Four Types of Sentences Based on Functionality

Based on their function, sentences can be classified into four categories.

Declarative Sentence

A declarative sentence makes a statement or provides information. They usually end with a period .

I live next to the school.

We were deciding whether to attend the event.

My birthday is next Monday.

Interrogative Sentence

An interrogative sentence is used to ask questions and seek information. It often begins with a question pronoun ( who, what, where, when, why, how, etc. ), and always ends with a question mark.

Why did you leave that there?

Where did you go on vacation?

How are you doing?

Imperative Sentence

Imperative sentences give commands, instructions, or requests. Imperative sentences usually do not have a subject explicitly stated. Instead, the subject is implied.

Please pass me the salt.

Don’t forget to buy some milk on your way home from work.

Close the door!

Exclamatory Sentence

Exclamatory sentences express strong emotions, like excitement or surprise. They are used to express joy, anger, astonishment, or any other intense feeling. Exclamatory sentences typically end with an exclamation mark.

Wow, what a beautiful sunset!

That rollercoaster was scary but so much fun!

What a remarkable performance!

Enhance Your Writing With Flawless Sentences

Now that you understand all the different types of sentences, here’s a tip: Make sure your sentences are free of grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.

You can use all the right sentences at the right time, but if they contain mistakes, their messages won’t be as strong, and your audience will be put off. Avoid this by using LanguageTool, a multilingual writing assistant that ensures perfection in your writing.

Not only does it check for various types of errors, but it can also rephrase your sentences and more.

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Scholarly Voice: Varying Sentence Structure

Sentence structure refers to the physical nature of a sentence and how the elements of that sentence are presented. Just like word choice, writers should strive to vary their sentence structure to create rhythmic prose and keep their reader interested. Sentences that require a variation often repeat subjects, lengths, or types.

Related information about varying sentence structures can be found through these links:

• Sentence Structure and Types of Sentences
• Run-On Sentences and Sentence Fragments
• Parallel Construction
• Relative, Restrictive, and Nonrestrictive Clauses
• Conjunctions

Varying Subject or Word Choice

One of the easiest ways to spot text that requires variety is by noting how each sentence opens. Writers can often overuse the same word, like an author’s name, or a subject, like pronouns to refer to an author, when beginning sentences. This lack of subject variety can be distracting to a reader. Review the following paragraph’s sentence variety:

My philosophy of education is derived from my personal experiences. I have been an educator for 4 years, and I have learned a lot from more experienced teachers in my district. I also work mainly with students from a low socioeconomic background; my background was quite different. I will discuss how all of these elements, along with scholarly texts, have impacted my educational philosophy.

Notice how the writer of this paragraph starts each sentence and clause with a personal pronoun. Although the writer does alternate between “I” and “my”, both pronouns refer to the same subject. This repetition of personal pronouns is most common when writing a Personal Development Plan (PDP) or other personal papers. To avoid this type of repetition, try adjusting the placement of prepositional phrases or dependent clauses so the subject does not open each sentence:

My philosophy of education is derived from my personal experiences. Having been an educator for 4 years, I have learned a lot from more experienced teachers in my district. I also work mainly with students from a low socioeconomic background that is quite different from mine. In this paper, I will discuss how all of these elements, along with scholarly texts, have impacted my educational philosophy.

Varying Sentence Length

Another way to spot needed sentence variety is through the length of each sentence. Repeating longer sentences can inundate a reader and overshadow arguments, while frequently relying on shorter sentences can make an argument feel rushed or stunted.

Overusing Long Sentences

The company reported that yearly profit growth, which had steadily increased by more than 7% since 1989, had stabilized in 2009 with a 0% comp, and in 2010, the year they launched the OWN project, actually decreased from the previous year by 2%. This announcement stunned Wall Street analysts, but with the overall decrease in similar company profit growth worldwide, as reported by Author (Year) in his article detailing the company’s history, the company’s announcement aligns with industry trends and future industry predictions.

Notice how this paragraph is comprised of just two sentences. While each clause does provide relevant information, the reader may have difficulty identifying the subject and purpose of the whole paragraph.

Overusing Short Sentences

In 2010, the company’s yearly profit growth decreased from the previous year by 2%. This was the year they launched the OWN project. The profit growth had steadily increased by more than 7% since 1989. (They stabilized in 2009.) This announcement stunned Wall Street analysts. However, it aligns with the decrease in similar company profit growth worldwide. It also supports future predictions for the industry (Author, Year).

Notice how this paragraph uses the same information as the previous one but breaks it into seven sentences. While the information is more digestible through these shorter sentences, the reader may not know what information is the most pertinent to the paragraph’s purpose.

Alternating Sentence Length

Alternating between lengths allows writers to use sentences strategically, emphasizing important points through short sentences and telling stories with longer ones:

The company reported that profit growth stabilized in 2009, though it had steadily increased by more than 7% since 1989. In 2010, the year they launched the OWN project, company profit growth decreased from the previous year. This announcement stunned Wall Street analysts. According to Author (Year), however, this decrease was an example of a trend across similar company profit growth worldwide; it also supports future predictions for the industry.

Varying Sentence Type

One of the trickiest patterns to spot is that of repetitive sentence type. Just like subject and length, overusing a sentence type can hinder a reader’s engagement with a text. There are four types of sentences: simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex. Each sentence is defined by the use of independent and dependent clauses, conjunctions, and subordinators.

• Simple sentences: A simple sentence is an independent clause with no conjunction or dependent clause.
• Compound sentences: A compound sentence is two independent clauses joined by a conjunction (e.g., and, but, or, for, nor, yet, so).
• Complex sentences: A complex sentence contains one independent clause and at least one dependent clause. The clauses in a complex sentence are combined with conjunctions and subordinators, terms that help the dependent clauses relate to the independent clause. Subordinators can refer to the subject (who, which), the sequence/time (since, while), or the causal elements (because, if) of the independent clause.
• Compound-complex sentences: A compound-complex sentence contains multiple independent clauses and at least one dependent clause. These sentences will contain both conjunctions and subordinators.

Understanding sentence type will help writers note areas that should be varied through the use of clauses, conjunctions, and subordinators.

In her article, Author (Year) noted that the participants did not see a change in symptoms after the treatment. Even during the treatment, Author observed no change in the statements from the participants regarding their symptoms. Based on these findings, I will not use this article for my final project. Because my project will rely on articles that note symptom improvement, Author’s work is not applicable.

Notice how the writer relies solely on complex sentences in this paragraph, even placing dependent clauses at the beginning of each sentence. Here is an example of merely adjusting the placement of these dependent clauses but not the sentence type:

In her article, Author (Year) noted that the participants did not see a change in symptoms after the treatment. Author observed, even during treatment, no change in the statements from the participants regarding their symptoms. I will not use this article for my final project based on these findings. Because my project will rely on articles that note symptom improvement, Author’s work is not applicable.

While this change in the placement of dependent clauses does avoid a repetitive rhythm to the paragraph, try combining sentences or using conjunctions to create compound or compound-complex sentences to vary sentence type:

In her article, Author (Year) noted that the participants did not see a change in symptoms after the treatment. Author observed, even during treatment, no change in the statements from the participants regarding their symptoms, and based on these findings, I will not use this article for my final project. Because my project will rely on articles that note symptom improvement, Author’s work is not applicable.

Making these slight adjustments to sentence type helps the reader engage with the narrative rather than focus on the structure of the text. Adjusting your sentence type during a final revision is a great way to create effective prose for any scholarly document.

Varying Sentence Structure Video Playlist

Note that these videos were created while APA 6 was the style guide edition in use. There may be some examples of writing that have not been updated to APA 7 guidelines.

• Engaging Writing: Overview of Tools for Engaging Readers (video transcript)
• Engaging Writing: Tool 1—Syntax (video transcript)
• Engaging Writing: Tool 2—Sentence Structure (video transcript)
• Engaging Writing: Tool 3—Punctuation (video transcript)
• Structuring Sentences: Simple Sentences (video transcript)
• Structuring Sentences: Compound Sentences (video transcript)
• Structuring Sentences: Complex Sentences (video transcript)
• Structuring Sentences: Combining Sentences (video transcript)

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Sentence Types

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Structurally, English sentences can be classified four different ways, though there are endless constructions of each. The classifications are based on the number of independent and dependent clauses a sentence contains. An independent clause forms a complete sentence on its own, while a dependent clause needs another clause to make a complete sentence. By learning these types, writers can add complexity and variation to their sentences.

Simple sentence: A sentence with one independent clause and no dependent clauses.

• My aunt enjoyed taking the hayride with you.
• China's Han Dynasty marked an official recognition of Confucianism.

Compound Sentence: A sentence with multiple independent clauses but no dependent clauses.

• The clown frightened the little girl, and she ran off screaming.
• The Freedom Riders departed on May 4, 1961, and they were determined to travel through many southern states.

Complex Sentence: A sentence with one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.

• After Mary added up all the sales, she discovered that the lemonade stand was 32 cents short.
• While all of his paintings are fascinating, Hieronymus Bosch's triptychs, full of mayhem and madness, are the real highlight of his art.

Complex-Compound Sentence: A sentence with multiple independent clauses and at least one dependent clause.

• Catch-22 is widely regarded as Joseph Heller's best novel, and because Heller served in World War II, which the novel satirizes, the zany but savage wit of the novel packs an extra punch.

Every Type of Sentence, Explained

Every sentence is unique. That’s a declarative sentence. 

But what makes every sentence unique? That’s an interrogative sentence. 

When you understand each unique type of sentence, you’ll become a stronger writer. That’s a conditional sentence. 

Understanding the different sentence types and how they function together in your writing is more than just recognizing them. Read on to learn more about how the different sentence types operate, how to structure them, and how to make sure you’re using them correctly. 

That last one was an imperative sentence. 

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Types of sentence based on function 

Sentences can be classified in two ways: based on their function and based on their structure. When you describe a sentence based on its function, you’re describing it based on what it does. 

Declarative sentences

A declarative sentence is a sentence that:

• Makes a statement
• Provides an explanation
• Conveys one or more facts

Declarative sentences are among the most common sentences in the English language. You use them every day. They end with periods.

Here are a few examples of declarative sentences: 

• I forgot to wear a hat today.
• Your pizza is doughy because you didn’t cook it long enough.
• Spiders and crabs are both members of the arthropod family.

Interrogative sentences

An interrogative sentence is a sentence that asks a question, like:

• How many pet iguanas do you have?
• May I sit here?
• Aren’t there enough umbrellas to go around?

One hallmark of interrogative sentences is that they usually begin with pronouns or auxiliary verbs. When this kind of sentence does start with the subject, it’s usually in colloquial speech. For example:

• He went there again?
• Rats can’t swim, right?

Exclamatory sentences

Much like an interrogative question ends with a question mark, an exclamatory sentence ends with an exclamation mark. These sentences communicate heightened emotion and are often used as greetings, warnings, or rallying cries. Examples include:

• High voltage! Do not touch!
• This is Sparta!

The only difference between a declarative sentence and an exclamatory one is the punctuation at the end. But that punctuation makes a big difference in how the reader or listener interprets the sentence. Consider the difference between these:

• It’s snowing.
• It’s snowing!

Imperative sentences

An imperative sentence is a sentence that gives the reader advice, instructions, a command or makes a request. 

An imperative sentence can end in either a period or an exclamation point, depending on the urgency of the sentiment being expressed. Imperative sentences include:

• Get off my lawn!
• After the timer dings, take the cookies out of the oven. 
• Always pack an extra pair of socks.

With an imperative sentence, the subject is generally omitted because the reader understands they’re the one being addressed. 

Conditional sentences

Conditional sentences are sentences that discuss factors and their consequences in an if-then structure. Their structure is:

Conditional clause (typically known as the if-clause) + consequence of that clause. 

A basic example of a conditional sentence is: 

• When you eat ice cream too fast, you get brain freeze.

Getting more specific, that sentence is an example of a zero conditional sentence. There are actually four types of conditional sentences, which we cover in detail (and explain which tense to use with each) in our  post on conditional sentences . 

Types of sentence based on structure

The other way to categorize sentences is to classify them based on their structure . Each of the types of sentences discussed above also fits into the categories discussed below. 

Simple sentences

A simple sentence is the most basic type of sentence. This kind of sentence consists of just one independent  clause , which means it communicates a complete thought and contains a subject and a verb.

A few examples of simple sentences include:

• How are you?
• She built a garden.
• We found some sea glass.

A simple sentence is the smallest possible grammatically correct sentence. Anything less is known as a  sentence fragment . 

Complex sentences

In contrast to a simple sentence, a complex sentence contains one independent clause and at least one dependent clause. While an independent clause can be its own sentence, a dependent clause can’t. Dependent clauses rely on the independent clauses in their sentences to provide context.

Dependent clauses appear after a conjunction or marker word or before a comma. Marker words are words like whenever, although, since, while, and before. These words illustrate relationships between clauses. 

The following are complex sentences:

• Before you enter my house, take off your shoes. 
• Matt plays six different instruments, yet never performs in public. 

Compound sentences

Compound sentences are sentences that contain two or more independent clauses. In a compound sentence, the clauses are generally separated by either a comma paired with a  coordinating conjunction or a  semicolon . In some cases, they can be separated by a colon. 

Examples of compound sentences include:

• I was thirsty, so I drank water.
• She searched through her entire closet; she could not find her denim jacket.

How can you tell if you have a compound sentence? Swap out your semicolon, colon, or coordinating conjunction for a period. If you now have two distinct, complete sentences, you’ve got a compound sentence. 

Compound-complex sentences

When a sentence has two or more independent clauses and at least one dependent clause, that sentence is a compound-complex sentence. These are long sentences that communicate a significant amount of information. The clauses don’t need to be in any specific order; as long as you’ve got at least two independent clauses and at least one dependent clause, you’ve got a compound-complex sentence. 

Here are a few examples of compound-complex sentences:

• I needed a new computer, so I got a laptop because they’re portable.
• The students were excited; they could go home early because of the power outage. 

Make every one of your sentences stronger

All sentences are not created equally. And that means some types of sentences are a little bit harder to get just right. Before you send that next email or submit your next paper, have  Grammarly give your writing a once-over and suggest ways to make every one of your sentences as strong as it can be . 

The Shapes of Grief

Witnessing the unbearable.

Joumana Medlej, Still from WAKE . Via X

. . . but how, what would the world be with us fully in it . . .

— dionne brand , The Blue Clerk

On May 14, 2022, Roberta A. Drury, Margus D. Morrison, Andre Mackniel, Aaron Salter Jr., Geraldine Talley, Celestine Chaney, Heyward Patterson, Katherine “Kat” Massey, Pearl Young, and Ruth Whitfield were murdered at a Tops Friendly Market in the East Side of Buffalo, New York.

Before and After Again , an exhibition currently on view at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, presents those women, men, mothers, fathers, grandmothers, friends, children, aunts, cousins, uncles, daughters, sons, a deacon, a community activist, gardeners, people working, meeting, out buying groceries, and those who survive them, as people in their lives. Before and After Again shows people in relation and in community. Living. People loved and mourned. The artists and writers who curated the exhibition—Julia Bottoms, Tiffany Gaines, and Jillian Hanesworth—say that part of their chal­lenge in presenting it was to “celebrate the vibrancy of extraordi­nary lives in the presence of a wound that will never heal.” The curators are clear that this exhibition is meant to function as a gath­ering place and not as a memorial.

At the annual literary festival NGC Bocas Lit Fest in April 2024 in Port of Spain, Trinidad, the writer Edwidge Danticat is in conver­sation with Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw. Someone in the audience asks a question about grief, which is really a question about life and more specifically a question about a writing life during grief.

In Danticat’s memoir, Brother, I’m Dying (2007), which is about the deaths and lives of her father and her uncle while she was preg­nant with her first child, she reflects,

I write these things now, some as I witnessed them and today remember them, others from official documents as well as the borrowed recollections of family members. But the gist of them was told to me over the years, in part by my uncle Joseph, in part by my father. Some were told offhand, quickly. Others, in greater detail. What I learned from my father and uncle, I learned out of sequence and in fragments. This is an attempt at cohesiveness, and at re-creating a few wondrous and terrible months when their lives and mine intersected in startling ways, forcing me to look forward and back at the same time.

“I am writing this,” she continues, “only because they can’t.”

Danticat writes with such precision and clarity about death and grief. The work is moving, and it is scrubbed of the sentimental and the maudlin.

I am always rereading Brother, I’m Dying when I’m on an airplane.

There is something about the plane, its untethering space, between times and places, that allows me to meet so readily the many gifts of the book—among them language and memory.

In the exhibition materials for Before and After Again, Jillian Hanesworth says, “Once we stop thinking about art as something that we’re infusing into the situation to help us and instead we think about art as a living, breathing part of us, we understand that we’re just being given this water, this air.”

Danticat writes in her New Yorker essay “ The Haiti that Still Dreams ,” “Art is how we dream.”

It is my sighs that give it away to myself. When I catch myself sigh­ing, I remember that after my mother died, I sighed for years—it was a part of mourning that I had not known to anticipate. What I am experiencing now, what I think many of us are experiencing, is a kind of distributed mourning. R. calls it ambient genocide.

I know that some call this feeling around climate catastrophe “climate grief.” Kate Zambreno writes about grief as ecological, as “concerning both the individual and the collective, the human and the nonhuman.”

Craft tells us to modu­late our words. Craft tells us that if “we” do it well enough, “they” will listen. Craft tells us to be silent about genocide.

When the climate is everything and the catastrophe everywhere and also somewhere(s) very specific, there is also climate rage.

At Bocas, Danticat tells us that when she was writing Brother, I’m Dying , she looked forward to returning to it each day because in the pages of that book she got to visit with her father and her uncle. To spend time with them.

I know that grief is a vessel, a conduit for relation, but I am nevertheless startled into a new understanding when I hear that. Danticat expands what I understand grief to be and to make. She enlarges its shapes. Names it as connective tissue.

I feel, now, that I know differently the pain but also the possible joys of staying in the company of a loved and missed one through the work of remembering on the page, in the mind, in the world.

Language is one way we make and sustain relation. Words are one way we begin the work of unmaking and changing the shape of the world.

“Words are to be taken seriously,” Toni Cade Bambara insists. “Words set things in motion.”

That is the power of the iterative.

In December, Protean published “ Notes on Craft: Writing in the Hour of Genocide ” by the Palestinian American writer Fargo Nissim Tbakhi. Tbakhi names “Craft” as “the network of sani­tizing influences exerted on writing in the English language” by the professional contexts through which it circulates and acquires prestige, including universities and publishing houses: “the influ­ences of neoliberalism, of complicit institutions, and of the linguis­tic priorities of the state and of empire.” He continues:

Above all, Craft is the result of market forces; it is therefore the result of imperial forces, as the two are so inextricably bound up together as to be one and the same. The Craft which is taught in Western institutions, taken up and reproduced by Western publishers, literary institutions, and awards bodies, is a set of regulatory ideas which curtail forms of speech that might enact real danger to the constellation of economic and social values which are, as I write this, facilitating genocide in Palestine and elsewhere across the globe. If, as Audre Lorde taught us, the master’s tools cannot dismantle the master’s house, then Craft is the process by which our own real liberatory tools are dulled, confiscated, and replaced.

Craft tells us that the market matters. Craft tells us to modu­late our words. Craft tells us that if “we” do it well enough, “they” will listen. Craft tells us to be silent about genocide. To be silent about genocides, about antiblackness and white supremacy. “Craft,” Tbakhi continues, “is a machine for regulation, estrangement, sanitization.”

But Tbakhi also notes, “Anticolonial writers in the U.S. and across the globe have long modeled alternative crafts which reject these priorities and continue to do so in this present moment.” Instead of Craft, I think about work. The work that we, writers, are doing now as we try to attend to the violent world and also to what might be in excess of it.

What are the words and the forms with which to do and say and make what we need to live in, now? Not only in some future time but now. What is our work to be? isn’t a grand question. It is a simple question. The question at the base of our writing.

Writers who try to do this work are told that our words don’t mat­ter. When we demand a ceasefire and an end to occupation, we are told that those words are meaningless, that they do not prompt action, and that they cause tremendous injury (as in, to demand a ceasefire or to demand that the genocide in Gaza end is to cause injury and not to demand the cessation of injury). To name a per­son, institution, state, or a set of acts as racist or anti-Palestinian or antiblack is to cause injury. It is not the racism that injures, it is not the bullets and bombs that injure, it is the words that seek to name the injury—that name a murderous structure like apartheid or settler colonialism—that cause injury.

Meaning is in crisis. And we are embroiled, everywhere, in contests over meaning—which are also contests of power, contests over living. And dying.

When Anne Boyer resigned as poetry editor of The New York Times Magazine in November 2023, she wrote on her Substack,

Because our status quo is self-expression, sometimes the most effective mode of protest for artists is to refuse.

I can’t write about poetry amidst the “reasonable” tones of those who aim to acclimatize us to this unreasonable suffering. No more ghoulish euphemisms. No more verbally sanitized hellscapes. No more warmongering lies.

If this resignation leaves a hole in the news the size of poetry, then that is the true shape of the present.

This past academic year, as I prepared for class, I kept wondering how we were supposed to do our work and what that work should be. I wondered how the students in the class were supposed to do their work, even when the work that we were doing was relevant to what we are living through and trying to witness and to interrupt. We adjusted. We talked. We held space. We read. They were pres­ent. They showed up, and together we did our work.

In a three-hour seminar that I led at another university, I asked a group of students and faculty to read Steffani Jemison’s “ On the Stroke, the Glyph, and the Mark .” It’s a piece of writing that I both like and admire—her objects of inquiry, her sense making, and how she builds the essay through thinking and wondering.

Jemison’s first sentence is: “I have made a mark, and I do not know whether I am drawing or writing.”

Jemison is not talking about Craft.

She is talking about work. She is writing about writing/drawing/thinking/escape.

What is the work of composition, of mark making? What should our marks mark? Hold? Move toward?

What I'm working on…🧵 •WAKE• Indigo on washi. 25x??cm With 31,500 killed you-know-where so far, I was struggling with number blindness. When numbers become so large they lose all meaning, how do you remain awake to the scale of the slaughter & the personhood of the victims? pic.twitter.com/qwgN9PxQ58 — Joumana Medlej 🦋 (@joumajnouna) March 17, 2024

The artist Joumana Medlej likewise moves between writing and drawing, perhaps also thinking of escape. She is making a mark in lieu of a name, in lieu of many proper names. She is making a mark for every murdered Palestinian. On March 17, 2024, she posted on X: “With 31,500 killed you-know-where so far, I was struggling with number blindness. When numbers become so large they lose all meaning, how do you remain awake to the scale of the slaughter & the personhood of the victims?”

From the artist Torkwase Dyson, I have learned (again and again) that the practice of mark making is a practice of navigation.

We should rid our writing of the domestication of atrocity, rid our writing of the tense that insists on the innocence of its perpetrators, the exonerative tense of phrases like “lives were lost” and “a stray bullet found its way into the van” and “children died.” We should rid our writing of this dreadful innocence. We should refuse the logic that produces a phrase like “human animals” and a “four-year-old young lady.”

Driving through the neighborhood where we are staying in Salvador in the state of Bahia in Brazil, we keep encountering a particularly long and steep hill. Our friend tells us that it is called Ladeira da Preguiça —the Steep Hill of Laziness.

Slave owners, those who claimed to own other people, named it that. This hill that they did not walk and that they made enslaved people walk up and down carrying heavy goods that they them­selves would not carry.

The slaveowners in Brazil, like everywhere black (and black­ened) people were enslaved (in Brazil that was until 1888), main­tained that the people they literally worked to death were lazy.

And that steep hill that they were forced to ascend and descend, hour after hour and day after day, was named Lazy Hill. They were named lazy. This is devastating language, brutal language.

This is language that undoes.

The descriptions of a prison in El Salvador. The description of a small boat that drifted across the Atlantic to Tobago. The plans to recolonize Haiti. The warnings that twenty-five million people in Sudan are at imminent risk of famine. The descriptions of massa­cres that Israel has carried out against Palestinians. The wide-open, shocked eyes of the Palestinian man abducted by the IDF. The descriptions of the Greek coast guard throwing people into the sea.

What must we, as writers, animate and set into motion in place of such language?

In “The Sentence as a Space for Living: Prose Architecture,” Renee Gladman writes,

For all my writing life I have been fascinated with notions of origin and passage, though rarely in terms of ancestry—since I don’t know where I’m from. I don’t know the languages or landscapes that preceded the incursion of English and what is now the United States into my lineage. Yet, the violence of that erasure—all the inheritances interrupted—is as foundational to my relationship to language and subjectivity as is grammar. . . . I open my mouth in my own life and I want to distort, rearrange, mispronounce the available vocabulary.

Mispronouncing can rearrange language and open it up; distor­tion might be a way-making tool that undoes available vocabularies.

And a sentence can also be a space for living through an occupa­tion or preoccupation with the line, with grammars and imagination.

“Encampments are not only zones of demands & refusals, but also processes of communing, making decisions together, enacting sol­idarity as a verb, embodying autonomous & collective liberation. They are themselves zones of imagination, of connection, of pre­figuring life & new worlds.”

This is Harsha Walia writing about the student encampments on campuses in the United States and Canada and France and the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

This is a vocabulary and a practice of our possible living.

As I write this, the university where I teach has sent in riot police to disband an encampment that has been established for less than twenty-four hours. All the universities calling in riot police think that they know the future. They don’t really know what they are making. They know what they want, but they do not know what they are incubating.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs’s “ In the Middle of Fighting for Freedom We Found Ourselves Free ” is a preface to June Jordan’s remem­brance of Audre Lorde, her sister in struggle. Gumbs is channeling Jordan’s clarity about her and our perilous times. She writes, “The students are teaching us that, though we cannot undo the incalcu­lable loss of genocidal violence, it is not too late. It is exactly the time to be braver together in service of a livable future. It is time for what June Jordan calls . . . ‘words that death cannot spell or delete.’”

After the Israeli bombing of Rafah on May 26, 2024, the hundredth or thousandth massacre in Palestine in seventy-six years, Jennine K writes on X, “The flour massacre, the tents massacre, the hospital massacre, the refugee camp massacre, the ‘safe corridor’ massacre, the endless massacres, in homes, on the streets, in tents, on foot—eight months of massacre after massacre after massacre.” The poet Ladan Osman writes , “Who or what will cool the eyes of those who witnessed and recorded this carnage, saying: People of the world, look at this?”

Terrible acts. Unbearable. Who is called on to be a continual witness to the unbearable, to survive and carry it?

What survives of those who survive this, eight months and counting of constant terror?

Each time I write that the genocide being carried out by Israel against Palestinians is unbearable, I name a position or positions. I name distance, because the Palestinians who are living this, those who are somehow surviving this, are bearing the unbearable, are being made to bear the unbearable over and over and over again. Their witnessing is a refusal to be silent in the face of genocide. More than that—they are necessary utterances in the midst of devastation.

In April 2024, I read that since October 2023, Israel has dropped over seventy thousand tons of bombs on Gaza.

Who can survive this? What survives of those who survive this, eight months and counting of constant terror? Those who move to what they are told is a “safe zone,” only for that zone to be bombed?

Thousands of people, likely tens of thousands of people bur­ied, alive and dead, under the rubble. I read in The Guardian that people report walking though the destroyed streets and having to bear hearing people calling for help and being unable to help them.

Selma Dabbagh writes in the London Review of Book s, “According to the UN, it could take up to three years to remove the bodies from the 37 million tonnes of rubble in Gaza, which is also contam­inated by unexploded ordnance, up to ten per cent of which, they estimate, ‘doesn’t function as designed.’”

Unbearable.

Unbearable, and entire populations are being forced to bear it anyway.

At the end of May 2024, as we are on our way to the airport in Salvador, L. tells us that there are more than three million people living in the favelas of Salvador. He says that a majority of the black people in Salvador live in one of the many favelas and that it is less expensive to live there than in other neighborhoods or in social housing.

L. also tells us that 260,000 people disappeared during the most intense period of Covid. L. does not know where they went.

How do more than a quarter of a million people go missing?

These are economies of scale. Economies of value.

During the same trip to Salvador and on our drive from Salvador to Cachoeira, another friend, G., an architect and professor, tells us that the government moved many people to social housing, but they did so with little thought to how people were assigned to a place. They gave little consideration to the distances that people were being moved or to the infrastructure or lack of it. G. tells us that these moves broke up communities and families. She also tells us that, except for the people on the ground floor, no one in social housing had access to back gardens.

No possibility of extending space horizontally or vertically. That possibility to move up or out is one of the infrastructures of life in Brazil.

G. tells us about the laje, “a flat concrete roof.” These kinds of roofs are considered by some to be incomplete. In the vocabulary of city officials, these structures are unfinished, an eyesore. But in another vocabulary of those who live in them, the laje is the space of the possible.

They are not incomplete; they are a future promise. It is an architecture that reaches upwards, that gestures toward plans. It is an architecture against the foreclosure of possibility.

On June 5, 2024, Omar Hamad, a pharmacist, writer, and film critic from Gaza, writes the following on X: “Describing last night as a harsh night is inaccurate. Out of sheer fear, our hearts reached our throats, as if we wanted to vomit them out. The bombing didn’t cease for a single moment. I don’t know how the sun rose upon us again.”

Not harsh. Something else. Some other word. Some other force of terror.

Each day I come to know even more clearly and urgently that we must commit to the fight for meaning. Not to concede the words, concepts, terms that we need to think and imagine and make livable lives.

This is some of what is required of our writing, some of what our writing can do, some of what our writing is for, in the face of all of this.

Writing in Pictures

Garth greenwell, louise glück’s late style, you might also like, palestinian solidarity, then and now, fady joudah, new perspectives, enduring writing.

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Sentence Types Punctuation English Grammar Workbook

Subject: English

Age range: 7-11

Resource type: Worksheet/Activity

Last updated

12 September 2024

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Are your students needing a little help with remembering and understanding the sentence types? This workbook will support them in a scaffolded way to become confident when writing sentence (and maybe…just maybe…they will stop missing their end marks!).

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• How to write an argumentative essay | Examples & tips

How to Write an Argumentative Essay | Examples & Tips

Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An argumentative essay expresses an extended argument for a particular thesis statement . The author takes a clearly defined stance on their subject and builds up an evidence-based case for it.

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Table of contents

When do you write an argumentative essay, approaches to argumentative essays, introducing your argument, the body: developing your argument, concluding your argument, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about argumentative essays.

You might be assigned an argumentative essay as a writing exercise in high school or in a composition class. The prompt will often ask you to argue for one of two positions, and may include terms like “argue” or “argument.” It will frequently take the form of a question.

The prompt may also be more open-ended in terms of the possible arguments you could make.

Argumentative writing at college level

At university, the vast majority of essays or papers you write will involve some form of argumentation. For example, both rhetorical analysis and literary analysis essays involve making arguments about texts.

In this context, you won’t necessarily be told to write an argumentative essay—but making an evidence-based argument is an essential goal of most academic writing, and this should be your default approach unless you’re told otherwise.

Examples of argumentative essay prompts

At a university level, all the prompts below imply an argumentative essay as the appropriate response.

Your research should lead you to develop a specific position on the topic. The essay then argues for that position and aims to convince the reader by presenting your evidence, evaluation and analysis.

• Don’t just list all the effects you can think of.
• Do develop a focused argument about the overall effect and why it matters, backed up by evidence from sources.
• Don’t just provide a selection of data on the measures’ effectiveness.
• Do build up your own argument about which kinds of measures have been most or least effective, and why.
• Don’t just analyze a random selection of doppelgänger characters.
• Do form an argument about specific texts, comparing and contrasting how they express their thematic concerns through doppelgänger characters.

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An argumentative essay should be objective in its approach; your arguments should rely on logic and evidence, not on exaggeration or appeals to emotion.

There are many possible approaches to argumentative essays, but there are two common models that can help you start outlining your arguments: The Toulmin model and the Rogerian model.

Toulmin arguments

The Toulmin model consists of four steps, which may be repeated as many times as necessary for the argument:

• Make a claim
• Provide the grounds (evidence) for the claim
• Explain the warrant (how the grounds support the claim)
• Discuss possible rebuttals to the claim, identifying the limits of the argument and showing that you have considered alternative perspectives

The Toulmin model is a common approach in academic essays. You don’t have to use these specific terms (grounds, warrants, rebuttals), but establishing a clear connection between your claims and the evidence supporting them is crucial in an argumentative essay.

Say you’re making an argument about the effectiveness of workplace anti-discrimination measures. You might:

• Claim that unconscious bias training does not have the desired results, and resources would be better spent on other approaches
• Cite data to support your claim
• Explain how the data indicates that the method is ineffective
• Anticipate objections to your claim based on other data, indicating whether these objections are valid, and if not, why not.

Rogerian arguments

The Rogerian model also consists of four steps you might repeat throughout your essay:

• Discuss what the opposing position gets right and why people might hold this position
• Highlight the problems with this position
• Present your own position , showing how it addresses these problems
• Suggest a possible compromise —what elements of your position would proponents of the opposing position benefit from adopting?

This model builds up a clear picture of both sides of an argument and seeks a compromise. It is particularly useful when people tend to disagree strongly on the issue discussed, allowing you to approach opposing arguments in good faith.

Say you want to argue that the internet has had a positive impact on education. You might:

• Acknowledge that students rely too much on websites like Wikipedia
• Argue that teachers view Wikipedia as more unreliable than it really is
• Suggest that Wikipedia’s system of citations can actually teach students about referencing
• Suggest critical engagement with Wikipedia as a possible assignment for teachers who are skeptical of its usefulness.

You don’t necessarily have to pick one of these models—you may even use elements of both in different parts of your essay—but it’s worth considering them if you struggle to structure your arguments.

Regardless of which approach you take, your essay should always be structured using an introduction , a body , and a conclusion .

Like other academic essays, an argumentative essay begins with an introduction . The introduction serves to capture the reader’s interest, provide background information, present your thesis statement , and (in longer essays) to summarize the structure of the body.

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how a typical introduction works.

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts is on the rise, and its role in learning is hotly debated. For many teachers who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its critical benefits for students and educators—as a uniquely comprehensive and accessible information source; a means of exposure to and engagement with different perspectives; and a highly flexible learning environment.

The body of an argumentative essay is where you develop your arguments in detail. Here you’ll present evidence, analysis, and reasoning to convince the reader that your thesis statement is true.

In the standard five-paragraph format for short essays, the body takes up three of your five paragraphs. In longer essays, it will be more paragraphs, and might be divided into sections with headings.

Each paragraph covers its own topic, introduced with a topic sentence . Each of these topics must contribute to your overall argument; don’t include irrelevant information.

This example paragraph takes a Rogerian approach: It first acknowledges the merits of the opposing position and then highlights problems with that position.

Hover over different parts of the example to see how a body paragraph is constructed.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

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An argumentative essay ends with a conclusion that summarizes and reflects on the arguments made in the body.

No new arguments or evidence appear here, but in longer essays you may discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your argument and suggest topics for future research. In all conclusions, you should stress the relevance and importance of your argument.

Hover over the following example to see the typical elements of a conclusion.

The internet has had a major positive impact on the world of education; occasional pitfalls aside, its value is evident in numerous applications. The future of teaching lies in the possibilities the internet opens up for communication, research, and interactivity. As the popularity of distance learning shows, students value the flexibility and accessibility offered by digital education, and educators should fully embrace these advantages. The internet’s dangers, real and imaginary, have been documented exhaustively by skeptics, but the internet is here to stay; it is time to focus seriously on its potential for good.

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An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

The majority of the essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Unless otherwise specified, you can assume that the goal of any essay you’re asked to write is argumentative: To convince the reader of your position using evidence and reasoning.

In composition classes you might be given assignments that specifically test your ability to write an argumentative essay. Look out for prompts including instructions like “argue,” “assess,” or “discuss” to see if this is the goal.

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