Why Do Writers Use Compound Sentences?
Jeff Anderson, Whitney La Rocca · 2023
Compound sentences are made when two or more sentences are joined together with a comma and a coordinating conjunction (FANBOYS). The mnemonic FANBOYS defines the relationship between the sentences. Consider Adina Rishe Gewirtz’s compound sentence from Zebra Forest. The main nemesis standing in the way of students learning compound sentences is a compound predicate. The authors like to call them compound predators because one of the subjects was eaten. But that wasn’t enough for the compound predator: it also ate the comma. Let’s make it real simple. Birds fly. Birds chirp. Two sentences become one; however, the subject is not repeated on both sides of the conjunction and. There isn’t a comma either: Birds chirp and fly. Even though the sentence has an and as well as two verbs, there is only one subject on one side of the and. One need both a comma and an and to join two sentences.