Are your sentences clear and easy to read or messy and confusing?

Creating clear sentences is essential for all writers.  Some common sentence structure problems are explained below.

Agreement means the subject (noun, doer of action) and verbs (the action) must agree in number and tense:

•      “A company is” is correct; “a company are” is incorrect.
•      “I wrote” is correct; “I written” is incorrect.

Sentences must end with a period or other punctuation.

Fused sentences are complete sentences run together without punctuation; to fix, separate sentences with a period, a conjunction (and, but etc.), or a semicolon.

• Correct: I didn’t know which job I wanted.  I was too confused to decide.
• Incorrect:  I didn’t know which job I wanted I was too confused to decide.·

Comma splices are two sentences (independent clauses)  joined by a comma; to fix, replace the comma with a period, a conjunction (and, but etc.), or a semicolon.

• Correct: I woke up late this morning.  I didn’t have time for breakfast.
• Incorrect: I woke up late this morning, I didn’t have time for breakfast.

Sentence fragments are phrases that lack a subject or verb.

•  Correct: The five days spent in the library were boring.
•  Incorrect: The five days spent in the library.

Edit your writing carefully to avoid these sentence structure errors.