Placement of subordinate clauses for sentence clarity in journalism
Pete Pozner MSc
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We are going to consider how you should avoid starting sentences with long subordinate clauses to maintain clarity in your writing. First, I’m going to explain what clauses are as well as the difference between a main clause and a subordinate clause. Then I’m going to explain why long clauses at the beginning of sentences do not aid reading comprehension and how to better place these clauses.
?A clause consists of a subject (a thing or person) followed by a predicate (a verb and the rest of the clause), which says something about the subject. Consider the following example.
Tom (subject) ate a good breakfast this morning (predicate). In this example, the predicate tells us what Tom (the subject) did.
This example is also a main clause because it is a complete thought; in other words, it’s independent.
The following are some more examples of main clauses.
1.??????Mike (subject) went to bed with stomachache (predicate).
2.??????Sarah (subject) will go on holiday next summer (predicate).
3.??????Salisbury (subject) is popular with tourists (predicate).
1-3 are all complete sentences unlike the following, which is a subordinate clause. …before he (subject) got the bus at 8pm to go to work (predicate).
It is introduced by a subordinate conjunction (before). Some other subordinate conjunctions are because, if, and although. All subordinate conjunctions introduce subordinate clauses. In the example, I have added three dots to show you that this is an incomplete thought; that is, we don’t know what happened before he got the bus at 8pm to go to work.
The following are some more examples of subordinate clauses.
A.?????…because (subordinate conjunction) he (subject) ate too much of a three-course meal at a friend’s birthday party (predicate).
B.?????…if (subordinate conjunction) she (subject) defends her thesis successfully in her final exam next month (predicate).
C.?????…although (subordinate conjunction) it (subject) is a small city with a population of only around 40,000 (predicate).
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The subordinate clause depends on the main clause to become a complete thought, as in Tom ate a good breakfast this morning before he got the bus at 8pm to go to work.
This is now a complete sentence with a main clause (Tom ate a good breakfast this morning) followed by the subordinate conjunction before, which introduces a subordinate clause (he got the bus at 8pm to go to work).
In the same way, we only make subordinate clauses A-C complete thoughts by linking them to their respective main clauses 1-3, as follows.
1.??????Mike went to bed with stomachache (main clause) because (conjunction) he ate too much of a three-course meal at a friend’s birthday party (subordinate clause).
2.??????Sarah will go on holiday next summer (main clause) if (conjunction) she defends her thesis successfully in her final exam next month (subordinate clause).
3.??????Salisbury is popular with tourists (main clause) although (conjunction) it is a small city with a population of only around 40,000 (subordinate clause).
?So far we have said that a main clause can stand alone as a complete thought and sentence, but a subordinate clause cannot.
It is also possible to start the sentence with the subordinate conjunction and clause, followed by a comma and the main clause: Before he got the bus at 8pm to go to work, Tom ate a good breakfast. But the problem is that the reader has to process a lot of less important contextual information in the long subordinate clause before arriving at the most important information in the main clause. Here we are more interested in Tom’s breakfast, so we can help our reader by putting this first in the sentence.
Likewise, sentences 1-3 would generally be more difficult to read if we changed the order of the clauses:
Because (subordinate conjunction) he ate too much of a three-course meal at a friends’ birthday party (subordinate clause), Mike went to bed with stomachache (main clause).
If (conjunction) she defends her thesis successfully in her final exam next month (subordinate clause), Sarah will go on holiday next summer (main clause).
Although (conjunction) it is a small city with a population of only around 40,000 (subordinate clause), Salisbury is popular with tourists (main clause).
The original order in 1-3 maintains clarity for the reader assuming that the most important information relates to Mike’s stomachache, Sarah’s holiday and Salisbury as a tourist destination.?
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Texter / Journalist / Corporate Publisher
3 年Sure!
Texter / Journalist / Corporate Publisher
3 年Well, I am not a professional English writer (yet?), so correct me if I'm wrong: I would think one should consider each sentence within its context to decide which clause comes first. (Like that:) What should be considered namely is the theme–rheme structure (topic and comment) of a sentence. In German good writers do that all the time, mostly unconsciously. Moderate writers rely on the main subordinate order. And unskilled writers mix them up as they come to their minds. Sure, German is has a more flexible syntax than English, but still ... What do you think?