Examine the following passage on the railway strike of 1894. the numbers in brackets give the sentence numbers. (1) in 1894, workers belonging to the american railway union went on strike against the pullman railway car company. (2) the workers made frameworks for car seats, trolley roofs, and other pieces for the cars, and were paid by the piece. (3) when pullman cut salaries, the union decided to strike. (4) the union argued its case first by citing pullman's wealth. (5) pullman maintained that cutbacks were necessary in a depression year, but the union argued that pullman's profit margin over several years enabled the company to pay adequate wages. (6) the union also pointed out that workers had been forced to live in company housing and pay high rents. (7) in sum, the union argued that pullman had turned its workers into wage slaves. break this passage into two paragraphs. which sentence should begin the second paragraph? a-sentence 3 b-sentence 4 c-sentence 5 d-sentence 6 e-sentence 7

sentences vary by structure as well as by function. there are compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences.

simple sentence

i like to read.

a simple sentence has one independent clause.

compound sentence

i like to read, and i also like to write.

a compound sentence includes more than one independent clause, connected by a coordinating conjunction (and, but, for, nor, or, so, or yet).

complex sentence

i prefer to read books that are bestsellers.

a complex sentence includes one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses. (a dependent clause is one that cannot stand alone.) types of dependent clauses include relative clauses (i kicked the boy who pinched me), adverb clauses (i am going home now because i have a curfew), and noun clauses (i don't know what to do next).

compound-complex sentence

although i prefer to read current bestsellers, i do like to read old agatha christie mysteries, and i also like some 20th-century science fiction.

compound-complex sentences take a bunch of clauses (multiple independent clauses, and one or more dependent clauses) and toss them together like a salad. although these sentences take practice to write in a grammatically correct fashion, they can hold a tremendous amount of meaning, and are common in academic writing.