Lesson 12 — Activity 3:

Sentence Structure


A complete sentence expresses a complete idea and has a subject and predicate.

You know that you can do many things to make your sentences more interesting for your reader, so in this activity, you will look at the types of sentences you can write to add variety to your work.

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There are four types of sentences. Click on the tabs below to learn more about each of them.


  • A simple sentence expresses one idea. Most of the examples of complete sentences in the previous activity were simple sentences. A simple sentence is not necessarily short, but it does express only one idea. Consider the following example of a simple sentence that expresses one idea.

The children were playing outside in the rain.

  • A compound sentence combines two (or more) simple sentences by using a conjunction (and, but, or, nor). Compound sentences can make your writing flow more smoothly because they can combine simple sentences. Consider the following example of a compound sentence that joins two ideas.

    The children were playing outside in the rain, but they were not wearing rubber boots.

  • A complex sentence combines one complete sentence with a dependent clause. Although a dependent clause has a noun and a verb, it is not a sentence on its own because it depends on the complete sentence to express an idea. Consider the following example of a complex sentence (the dependent clause is in italics). 

    • Although the children were playing outside in the rain, they were not wearing rubber boots.

  • The two parts of the compound sentence are of equal importance. In a complex sentence, the dependent clause is not as important as the main idea of the sentence. Again, this type of sentence makes your writing more interesting than using a series of simple sentences.
  • A compound-complex sentence, as you probably guessed, combines compound sentences and complex sentences. A compound-complex sentence, then, joins at least two complete ideas along with at least one dependent clause. Consider the following example of a compound-complex sentence (the dependent clause is in italics).
Although the children were playing outside in the rain, they were not wearing rubber boots and they were not wearing raincoats.



While knowing the names of different types of sentences can be helpful when you are editing your writing, the main point is that you can use various sentence structures to make your writing interesting.

Click here to watch a short video from the Learn Alberta website on identifying sentence types.

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