5 March 2015

*SENTENCE COMBINATION*

Learning to combine ideas into more complex sentences is an important writing skill. There are many ways to do this. Try to combine the following three sentences.

Sentence 1: The man standing next to the theatre is Neill Blomkamp.
Sentence 2: He is the director of the movie.
Sentence 3: His film is opening tonight.

3 comments:

Olena140 said...

The man standing next to the theatre whose film is opening tonight is the director of the movie Neill Blomkamp.

I'm not sure if we're allowed to add comments here or not:

1. I didn't put commas around "whose ... tonight" because, I think this information is essential (restrictive).

2. I didn't put comma in front of "Neill Blomkamp" for the same reason. (I think it is a restrictive appositive.)

Unknown said...

Neill Blomkamp,the man standing next to the theatre, is the director of the movie, which is opening tonight.

Michael said...

Olena, I agree that the information is non-restrictive. But I think the question of comma use can be avoided with better phrasing.

Annie's response is clearer. But to reflect the non-restrictive aspect of the information, we might say:

Neill Blomkamp,the man standing next to the theatre, is the director of the movie that is opening tonight.

Here is another possibility:

The man standing next to the theatre is Neill Blomkamp, the director of the movie that is opening tonight.