Compound Sentence - QuillTools

What's compound sentence?

It is a sentence where there are two clauses connected mainly by a coordinating conjunction. They are found everywhere and used in every kind of . You may find a sentence with more that two clauses, this is still a compound sentence but with more complexity and it enters then the category of complex sentence.

As a student or a beginner in writing, making a compound sentence can be challenging but you can exercise on writing a compound sentence and try to combine independent clauses. After a while you will be able to combine independent clauses from your own.

Every clause in compound sentences should be related to the other one by a meaningful logic for the compound sentence to make sens. The compound sentence subject should be also related to the main topic to make your development consistent and not fall in making compound sentences that will take you far from the main context. 

Try not to confuse compound sentence and or apposites which we explain in another article.

Where to use a compound sentence?

A compound sentence is used wherever you want to express a point to the reader. You can use a compound sentence as your introduction to explain the problematic, you can use it in the body for argumentation purposes and also in the conclusion.

Mastering compound sentences is very useful in a professional context where you have to make reports and explain things. Making simple sentences and a simple compound sentences is all what you need to send an Email, write a report, make a speech and communicating in meetings.

You can start to learn compound sentence from now, and after a short time, you will be able to improvise and make a speech very clearly. You will be able to see every clause in compound sentences and link between them using the techniques we will show in what will come next.

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What is compound sentence FANBOYS?

FANBOYS are the initials of (for, and, nor, but, or, yet and so) which are the coordinating conjunctions that are used to link between independent clause to the other clause in a compound sentence.

To join an independent clause with the other clause, you add a commas after the first clause and then start the second clause with coordinating conjunction. Let see an example:

Clause 1: I want to workout

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Clause 2: It's very cold outside

Let's add a comma to the first clause and start the second by "but":

I want to workout, but it's very cold outside.

Congratulations! You've just made your first compound sentence.

What are compound sentence examples?

Here are seven compound sentence examples, each one with a coordinating conjunction:

1. I couldn't attend the webinar, for that reason I have no updates.
2. She was very smart, and she managed to learn everything.
3. I had no time to cook at home, nor did I have experience to do it.
4. I'm happy to be outside the country, but I miss my children.
5. Should I stay here with you, or look for a hotel room?
6. I've never trained before, yet I hiked for six hours.
7. I didn't speak Chinese, so I hired a translator.

That was our seven examples each one with a compound sentence linking every clause in compound sentences by using a comma and a coordinating conjunction. If you want to master making compound sentences, you can start by making short and simple sentences like the ones in our examples. Over time, you will learn how to convert your ideas into clauses and link them into compound sentences.

When to use commas in compound sentence?

Commas and coordinating conjunction  are strictly used together to create a compound sentence. There are other ways you can use to do that, in fact two other ways, that we will check in what will come next.

As a grammar lesson from this is that every coordinating conjunction must come after a comma. This is a systematic rule that you can learn instantly and use during your writing.

Don't forget the FANBOYS word to remember the comma and coordinating conjunction and use them to increase your writing quality and be able to structure your ideas in simple compound sentences, yet very powerful. 

When to use semicolon in compound sentence?

If you don't want to use coordinating conjunction in your compound sentence, you can use semicolon like in this example: 

I'm very happy this week end; I'll invite some friends.

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Using semicolon in compound sentence is depending on your choice; sometimes you don't want to use coordinating conjunction for the sake of context or the style you are writing in. In general, semicolon is used only in writing of course; coordinating conjunctions are used both in writing and in talking but are less used in academic type of writing, or at least with very small clauses. 

How to use conjunctive adverbs in a compound sentence?

There are multiple conjunction adverbs (however, besides, therefore, meanwhile Etc.) that you can use in compound sentence with semicolon by ending the first clause with a comma and starting the second clause with a semicolon, a conjunction adverb then another comma. Let's check this compound sentence examples:

I was very tired last week; however, I couldn't take a day break.

And here's another one:

My friends were all studying; meanwhile, I was sleeping.

You can try and make compound sentences as much as you can as an exercise. Next time when you are writing or speaking, try to decompose your ideas into small sentences, and clauses that are candidates to create your compound sentence using one of the ways we've been showing you. 

We hope this small course will help you improve your understanding of the language and also your writing skills.

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You can also use our to count sentences in any type of writing and get another very useful writing metrics.

You may want to check our article about .

Explore our Counting Words In A Sentence page.

Check also our Parallel Structure page.