Are These Rules?
Are These Rules?
This week’s post is about writing and the things your teachers might have or did not tell you.
First off, props to teachers everywhere! I am not bashing anyone here—I am exploring certain topics teachers tell us as young writers or literature students that are meant to train us. These teaching techniques are for teaching only, to ensure students learn what they need to. Outside the classroom, these rules no longer apply—but that doesn’t mean your teacher lied—they prepared you to understand.
There is a certain goal when teaching to younger writers from high school and down. That goal is to make sure they understand each concept and will be able to build off those concepts. Giving a restricting structure to certain types of writing allows them to focus on and master a specific skill set.
I have three of my favorite rules to tell you all about. These three rules you might have heard while in school and question them to this day since they don’t seem to be real. But they have a very good reason to be in the school system.
Starting a sentence with “And”
Don’t Use Contractions
3The 5-paragraph Essay
Starting a Sentence with “And”
Goal: To teach students to write in full sentences.
Reality: You can have a full sentence/ independent clause that starts with “and.”
The rule of not starting a sentence with “and” exists to avoid writing sentences like these:
And she lied.
And the tree.
And when it hurt.
Those are not full sentences. Those are dependent clauses. A dependent clause is a sentence fragment that cannot stand on its own. Simply, it does not have a subject and a verb. In reverse, an independent clause is a full sentence that can stand on its own. Independent clauses have a verb and a subject.
My belief is that at a young age, independent clauses and dependent clauses are too difficult to explain to students who are learning to write in elementary school. I learned how to write in first grade. I didn’t learn about the terms “independent clause” or “dependent clause” until I was in middle school and boy, was that confusing!
Because the clauses cannot be taught at such an early age, to avoid fragmented sentences caused by “and,” it became a rule to avoid creating bad habits and writing incomplete sentences at all. You are probably thinking, how do I know that my sentence is an independent clause?
An independent clause needs to have both a subject and a verb to stand alone. Here are some examples of independent clauses starting with “and:”
After dinner, the children sat up in their beds all night, wondering if the storm would end or if the rain would go on forever. And when morning finally arrived, Ben and his brothers sat up to see sunshine out their window.
When I create a sentence that starts with “and,” I usually put it in an introductory phrase such as my “And when.” Also, you could remove the “and” and start the sentence with “When morning…” to avoid wordiness—but I digress…
Here are a few necessary ingredients to talk about this topic further:
Conjunctive Adverbs:
These are fancy yet sometimes stuffy words if used in the wrong tone.
Nevertheless
Moreover
Thus
However
Furthermore
Coordinating Conjunctions:
“FANBOYS” These words spell out the easy to remember acronym FANBOYS and are a more casual connector than the conjunctive adverbs listed above.
For
And
Nor
But
Or
Yet
So
Remembering the new terms above, a good trick to know when it is appropriate to start a sentence with “and” or other FANBOYS, is to see if that sentence would start with a conjunctive adverb such as “however”. For some reason, it’s easier to imagine an independent clause with the fancy conjunctive adverbs. Using words like “however” or “nevertheless” sounds super formal and might not be the right tone of voice for your particular paper or story. Instead, you can replace them with simpler coordinating conjunctions (FANBOYS) to make it sound more casual or not as haughty! For example, instead of saying “however” say “but.”
Here is one more example:
Conjunctive Adverb:
I wanted to go to school today until I realized I left my shoes at work. However, I think I have an extra pair in my car I can use instead.
Coordinating Conjunctions (FANBOYS):
I wanted to go to school today until I realized I left my shoes at work. But I think I have an extra pair in my car I can use instead.
Semi Colon:
Here is fun fact #1. A semi-colon is like a super-comma. It can connect two related independent clauses.
I wanted to go to school today until I realized I left my shoes at work; I think I have an extra pair in my car I can use instead.
Comma and Coordinating Conjunction:
Fun Fact #2. A comma can join two related independent clauses only if it is joined by a coordinating conjunction.
I wanted to go to school today until I realized I left my shoes at work, but I think I have an extra pair in my car I can use instead.
All four ways are correct! This is up to you. It all depends on what style you want, what sentence length, structure you would like, and more!
Don’t Use Contractions
Goal: To promote formal writing.
Reality: It is not a rule for formal or professional writing unless specified by who you are writing for. Otherwise, you can use this as you want!
I believe this rule was to avoid lazy writing and the use of not so real words like “ain’t” and such. Sometimes when you are older you might get that teacher or professor who has a deep-seated hatred of contractions. Don’t argue it, just follow along to not loose silly points on your essay!
For younger ages, I think it might be to embed what contractions really mean. “Can’t” is not a word unto itself, it is actually “cannot.” As a child, if you write only “can’t” over the years and don’t think about “cannot” your language might slowly create it into one word, dissolving the two that used to exist. (Fun fact #3—all languages do this. Words combine and break apart depending on the ever-evolving current uses and what goes out of style.)
In conclusion, there is not a grammar rule saying contractions are not allowed in a proper essay. It is a way to help early writers in their childhood and it’s a good way to practice following instructions, I guess.
Fun Fact #4: As a kid, I never noticed that the apostrophe in the contraction literally replaces the deleted letters. Until this was pointed out to me, I constantly misspelled contractions such as “ca’nt” and “would’nt!”
The 5-paragraph Essay
Goal: To promote structure and a guide for learning how to write a cohesive essay.
Reality: It’s a learning tool!
First off, not every school practiced the 5-paragraph essay. I can only speak of my experience and the shared experiences of students around the country who have told me they too learned this way. The 5- paragraph essay is one of the many ways to learn how to write an essay.
A quick note on essays and school:
School assignments often have certain essay structures, word counts, paragraph counts, page counts, and more. I hear many people say, “I can do what I want with my essay and make it as long as I want!” and don’t follow the directions. First off, you might not get the grade you want but it is important to learn how to write with such constrictions because that is what real work as a writer is like. As a professional writer, you will need to know how to write about and convey the same idea whether it be in one sentence, 1 page long, or up to 30 pages—you need to know how to cover and build works of different lengths.
The 5-paragraph essay strengthens how to build a simple essay. I’ll break it down for those who might have never heard of this.
Introduction Paragraph
Body Paragraph #1
Body Paragraph #2
Body Paragraph #3
Conclusion Paragraph
The introduction contains your thesis. A thesis is what your paper is about. Each body paragraph brings up one argument where it is introduced, the evidence and research is provided, and it is concluded on how it applies to your thesis and paper as a whole. Those three steps are completed for each body paragraph each with their own argument and idea. Last, the conclusion sums everything up in a conclusive statement. Remember, never state any new information that has not been previously mentioned in the essay—that is not a conclusion.
This format is to help students and learners stay on task and focused on their writing. As you advance, your papers lengthen and you might have 5 body paragraphs or more, and so on.
The point of this practice is to help students write strong essays as they are still learning how to write an essay in the first place. I know us creative people often reject such rules but listen! When students do not write in this structure, or refuse to, they often end up writing a paper where their points might be out of order, there is no flow, the thesis is missing, and they forgot a conclusion. Trust me, I’m not just saying this out of nowhere, I’ve read 100s of student’s papers and I’ve seen this happen time and again when the format is ditched or hasn’t been learned yet.
In college, there is a moment when you, the 5-paragraph essay writer, panics because a professor throws that technique out the window. My professors told us how it is a writing technique to train young writers. I personally think it is a good one. But, once you have the necessary skills you have learned from doing so, it’s time to fly on your own and write your own essays however you want, within the constraints of your specific project (and as always, all essays need an intro, conclusion, and a logical flow! That flow can be broken into parts, one by one, or even braided, but make sure you have your transitions ready at each moment.)
Conclusion
For each point, this is a mix of what I have experienced, what I infer, and more. I’m sure many who are teachers, or who have different schooling experience than I, might have a totally different take on this— and I’d love to know what you think!
As with any trade, learn the tools and techniques to strengthen your future endeavors and experiments.