Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Natalie Wexler is an education writer focusing on literacy. When students can’t understand what they’re reading, it may be because ...

The thinking seemed to be that the more fancy words and complex sentence structures they could shoehorn into an essay, the greater their likelihood of getting an A. Much of my job consisted of ...

A dependent clause cannot stand alone, though they often contain both a subject and a verb. Where independent clauses express complete thoughts, dependent clauses do not, and left on their own, ...

A simple sentence, also known as a main clause, shows one clear idea. It has one subject (what or who) and one verb (a doing word). Scott struggles through the snow. A compound sentence joins two ...

Have you ever asked yourself why some writing feels very clear and easy to understand, while other writing feels confusing? Many people face this situation in daily life. Sometimes we have good ideas ...

A guide to writing strong, connected thesis statements and topic sentences This handout will help you understand the connection between topic sentences and thesis statements so you can use your topic ...

In English, our sentences usually operate using a similar pattern: subject, verb, then object. The nice part about this type of structure is that it lets your reader easily know who is doing the ...

When you’re writing for work, it can be tempting to rely on industry jargon or big words to puff up your ideas. But overblown language doesn’t make you sound smart, and it can be off-putting to ...

Letters represent sounds. Words are built from letters. A group of words makes a phrase. Add a subject and verb, and you have a clause. If that clause expresses a complete thought, we call it a ...