The SAT Essay: Rules of Engagement - Elaboration

1. The SAT Essay: Rules of Engagement - Elaboration Writing a Killer SAT Essay Clements, Tom. HOW TO WRITE A KILLER SAT ESSAY. Moraga: TC Tutoring, 2011. Print.

2. Rules of Engagement: • Subordination • Good prose style is characterized by heavy use of subordination. • Subordination lends variety to your writing style by replacing short, choppy, subject-verb-object sentences with longer, more elegant sentences, incorporating dependent clauses. • Let’s look at some examples….

3. Rules of Engagement: Subordination – examples: • Without Subordination: • Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus. She inspired the Civil Rights movement. • With Opening Element: • After refusing to give up her seat on the bus, Rosa Parks inspired the Civil Rights movement. • With Interrupting Element • Rosa Parks, an inspiration to the Civil Rights movement, refused to give up her seat in the back of the bus. • With Closing Element: • Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in the back of the bus, inspiring the Civil Rights movement.

4. Rules of Engagement: Subordination Three ways to add subordination: • THE IDENTIFIER (Appositive) • A noun, noun phrase, or series of nouns placed next to another word or phrase to identify or rename it. • Nonrestrictive appositives are usually set off bycommas, parentheses, or dashes. • An appositive may be introduced by a word or phrase such as namely, for example, or that is.

5. Rules of Engagement: Subordination Three ways to add subordination: • THE IDENTIFIER (Appositive) • Names of persons, places, objects, and other kinds of names readers might not understand unless the writer identifies them. • Without identifiers: • I came to philosophy as a last resort. • Ned came in and let the boarders out. • The dictionary had a picture of an aardvark. • With identifiers: • A professional football player, print and television journalist, academic English teacher and world traveler, I came to philosophy as a last resort. (John McMurtry, “Kill ‘Em! Crush ‘Em! Eat ‘Em Raw!”) • Ned, the lanky high-school student who cleaned the cages and fed the animals morning and evening, came in and let the boarders out. (Sue Miller, While I Was Gone) • The dictionary had a picture of an aardvark, a long-tailed, long-eared, burrowing African mammal living off termites caught by sticking out its tongue as an anteater does for ants. • (Malcomlm X and Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X)

6. Rules of Engagement: Subordination 2. THE ELABORATOR (Absolute) • Elaborating is a way of telling your readers more information and details so they understand clearly and completely what you are writing about. • A group of words that modifies an independent clause as a whole. • An absolute is made up of a noun and its modifiers (which frequently, but not always, include a participle or participial phrase).

7. 2. THE ELABORATOR (Absolute) • An absolute may precede, follow, or interrupt the main clause: • Their slender bodies sleek and black against the orange sky, the storks circled high above us. • The storks circled high above us, their slender bodies sleek and black against the orange sky. • The storks, their slender bodies sleek and black against the orange sky, circled high above us.

8. 3. The Describer: Participle • A participle phrase will begin with a present or past participle. • If the participle is present, it will dependably end in -ing. • Likewise, a regular past participle will end in a consistent -ed. • Irregular past participles, unfortunately, conclude in all kinds of ways [althoughthis listwill help].

9. The Describer: Participle • Since all phrases require two or more words, a participle phrase will often include objects and/or modifiers that complete the thought. Here are some examples: • Crunching caramel corn for the entire movie • Washed with soap and water • Stuck in the back of the closet behind the obsolete computer

10. The Describer: Participle • Participle phrases always function as adjectives, adding description to the sentence. Read these examples: • The horse trotting up to the fence hopes that you have an apple or carrot. • Trotting up to the fence modifies the nounhorse. • The water drained slowly in the pipe clogged with dog hair. • Clogged with dog hair modifies the noun pipe. • Eaten by mosquitoes, we wished that we had made hotel, not campsite, reservations. • Eaten by mosquitoes modifies the pronounwe.

11. Don't mistake a present participle phrase for a gerund phrase. • Gerund and present participle phrases are easy to confuse because they both begin with an ing word. The difference is the function that they provide in the sentence. A gerund phrase will always behave as a noun while a present participle phrase will act as an adjective. Check out these examples:

12. Don't mistake a present participle phrase for a gerund phrase. • Walking on the beach, Delores dodged jellyfish that had washed ashore. • Walking on the beach = present participle phrase describing the noun Delores. • Walking on the beach is painful if jellyfish have washed ashore. • Walking on the beach = gerund phrase, the subject of the verbis. • Waking to the buzz of the alarm clock, Freddie cursed the arrival of another Monday. • Waking to the buzz of the alarm clock = present participle phrase describing the noun Freddie. • Freddie hates waking to the buzz of the alarm clock. • Waking to the buzz of the alarm clock = gerund phrase, the direct object of the verb hates.

13. Don't misplace or dangle your participle phrases. • Participle phrases are the most common modifier to misplace or dangle. In clear, logical sentences, you will find modifiers right next to the words they describe. • Shouting with happiness, William celebrated his chance to interview at SunTrust. • Notice that the participle phrase sits right in front of William, the one doing the shouting. • If too much distance separates a modifier and its target, the modifier is misplaced. • Draped neatly on a hanger, William borrowed Grandpa's old suit to wear to the interview. • The suit, not William, is on the hanger! The modifier must come closer to the word it is meant to describe: • For the interview, William borrowed Grandpa's old suit, which was draped neatly on a hanger.

14. The Infinitive Phrase • Recognize an infinitive phrase when you see one. • An infinitive phrase will begin with an infinitive [to + simple form of the verb]. It will include objects and/or modifiers. Here are some examples: • To smash a spider • To kick the ball past the dazed goalie • To lick the grease from his shiny fingers despite the disapproving glances of his girlfriend Gloria

15. The Infinitive Phrase • Infinitive phrases can function as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs. Look at these examples: • To finish her shift without spilling another pizza into a customer's lap is Michelle's only goal tonight. • To finish her shift without spilling another pizza into a customer's lap functions as a noun because it is the subject of the sentence. • Lakesha hopes to win the approval of her mother by switching her major from fine arts to pre-med. • To win the approval of her mother functions as a noun because it is the direct object for the verbhopes. • The best way to survive Dr. Peterson's boring history lectures is a sharp pencil to stab in your thigh if you catch yourself drifting off. • To survive Dr. Peterson's boring history lectures functions as an adjective because it modifies way. • Kelvin, an aspiring comic book artist, is taking Anatomy and Physiology this semester to understand the interplay of muscle and bone in the human body. • To understand the interplay of muscle and bone in the human body functions as an adverb because it explains why Kelvin is taking the class.

16. Punctuate an infinitive phrase correctly. • When an infinitive phrase introduces a main clause, separate the two sentence components with a comma. The pattern looks like this: • infinitIniivehrase + , + main clause. • Read this example: • To avoid burning another bag of popcorn, Brendan pressed his nose against the microwave door, sniffing suspiciously. • When an infinitive phrase breaks the flow of a main clause, use a comma both before and after the interrupter. The pattern looks like this: • start of main clause + , + interrupter + , + end of main clause. • Here is an example: • Those basketball shoes, to be perfectly honest, do not complement the suit you are planning to wear to the interview. • When an infinitive phrase concludes a main clause, you need no punctuation to connect the two sentence parts. The pattern looks like this: • main clause + Ø + infinitive phrase. • Check out this example: • Janice and her friends went to the mall to flirt with the cute guys who congregate at the food court.

17. Rules of Engagement: Subordination Practice • Opening Element: • ▲, I reeled around to face Boo Radley and his bloody fangs. My shoulders were up. • Combined: My shoulders up, I reeled around to face Boo Radley and his bloody fangs. • Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

18. Rules of Engagement: Subordination Practice Interrupting Element • A wild-eyed horse, ▲, trotted frantically through the mounds of men, tossing its head, whinnying in panic. Its bridle was torn and dangling. • Combined: A wild-eyed horse, its bridle torn and dangling, trotted frantically through the mounds of men, tossing its head, whinnying in panic. • Lois Lowry, The Giver

19. Rules of Engagement: Subordination Practice Closing Element • The baby slept, ▲. Its cheek was sideways against her shoulder. • Combined: The baby slept, its cheek sideways against her shoulder. • John Steinbeck, The Pearl

20. Works Cited • Killgallon, Don, and Jenny Killgallon. Paragraphs for High School: A Sentence-composing Approach: A Student Worktext. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2012. Print. • Simmons, Robin L. "ENTER." Grammar Bytes! Grammar Instruction with Attitude. N.p., 2014. Web. 27 May 2014.