How to Make a Complex Sentence

Knowing how to make a complex sentence can be very important when you are to write an academic paper. This does not necessarily mean that knowing how to make a complex sentence is not useful for other people; it is useful to everyone. When your writing only contains simple sentences, the quality of what you are presenting can sometimes come down. This is because the writings that have coherent complex sentences are appreciated more, especially in academic writings. However, that does not mean writing simple sentences is not accepted. A good piece of writing will contain both. So, in this article, we will see how we can make a complex sentence.

Definition of Complex Sentence

A complex sentence has one independent clause and at least one dependent clause. There can be more than one dependent clause. Conjunctions bring these clauses together to make a complete sentence. This is different from a simple sentence as a simple sentence only contains one independent clause. A clause is a group of sentences that contain a subject and a verb. Let us first see what a simple sentence looks like.

“She found the basket.”

“The basket was hidden behind the bush.”

Here, one main idea is given in each sentence, and this idea is complete. Basic elements of a simple sentence are subject, verb and a completed thought. These two examples contain all these elements.

Let us now see an example of a complex sentence.

“She found the basket that was hidden behind the bush.”

In the above sentence, the main clause or the independent clause is ‘she found the basket.’ This gives a complete idea, and you do not need another part to find the full meaning. Then, we have ‘was hidden behind the bush’ in the dependent clause. Without the independent clause, this clause does not carry any meaning. That is why it is known as a dependent clause. The conjunction ‘that’ joins this dependent clause and the independent clause together to make a meaningful, complex sentence.

‘She found the basket that was hidden behind the bush.’

Making a Complex Sentence

To make a complex sentence, you should first have a main idea about what you want to write. Let us say that we want to write a sentence about writing something. The main clause or the independent clause will be as follows.

“She began to write the letter.”

This sentence brings complete sense because we are describing what someone did. Someone began the action of writing the letter. Then, to make this sentence a complex sentence, we need to add some other parts that will enhance the meaning of the sentence. What type of information should we add? We can say something about the reason she is writing. Let us say she had forgotten to write it earlier. To add this part to the sentence, we need to have a conjunction. Since this is a reason, we can use the conjunction because.

“She began to write the letter because she had forgotten to write it earlier.”

If we break this sentence, it stands in the following manner.

She began to write the letter + because + she had forgotten to write it earlier.

We can add another dependent clause to this sentence. We can add a clause that speaks about the time she began to write the letter.

“While watching the match, she began to write the letter because she had forgotten to write it earlier.”

Now the sentence stands in the following manner if we break it down.

While + watching the match + she began to write the letter + because + she had forgotten to write it earlier.

The newest clause is added using the conjunction while. Now, if you look closely, you can see that ‘watching the match’ and ‘she had forgotten to write it earlier’ does not have a complete sense on their own. They need the assistance of the independent clause ‘she began to write the letter.’

‘While watching the match, she began to write the letter because she had forgotten to write it earlier.’

In this way, you can also make complex sentences to add more value and variety to your writing.

Summary:

A simple sentence only contains one independent clause. A complex sentence has one independent clause and at least one dependent clause. Conjunctions bring these clauses together to make a complex sentence. To make a complex sentence, first you have to find a main idea that you can turn to a main clause which is independent. Then you can add additional information using dependent clauses. Conjunctions will help you to join these dependent clauses to your independent clause.

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