Entry 004: Thoughts on Clauses

Before learning about clauses in this course, I was familiar only with two types of clauses:  independent clauses, which could stand on their own as sentences; and dependent clauses, which I understood to mean phrases that could not stand on their own as sentences, but which had to either introduce, or alter, or clarify information in an independent clause.

I enjoyed learning more about the elements of independent (or main) clauses and dependent (or subordinate) clauses, and about adjective/relative clauses and noun clauses, both of which were new to me.  I know that in my own writing, I use all types of these clauses, though I have never had the language or understanding to analyze or think about which specific clauses I use.

It was also interesting to analyze the types of sentences that I use in my writing.  I found, for the most part, that I use complex sentences (one independent clause and multiple dependent clauses), and set them off using occasional simple sentences.  Both of these exercises have given me the opportunity to reflect on my sentence construction and writing tendencies in general.