Classification Essay - Breakdown of an Essay

Classification Essay - Breakdown of an Essay

  • Submitted By: iceman333
  • Date Submitted: 12/08/2013 9:11 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 737
  • Page: 3
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Matthew Carroll
English 101-01
Classification Essay
11/25/13

What makes up an essay? You may answer “words”, but this answer would be overly simplified. What makes an essay may actually be broken down several times before you reach words. Words make up clauses, clauses make up sentences, sentences make up paragraphs, and paragraphs make up essays.
The smallest elements in an essay are the individual words. These words may be separated according to part of speech into nouns, verbs, prepositions, adverbs, adjectives, and conjunctions. Nouns are the words that may be the subject of a sentence. An example of a noun would be the word cat. Verbs are the words that represent the carrying out of an action. The word run is an example of a verb. Prepositions are words used to compare nouns. For example, under is a preposition. Adverbs are words that describe the way verbs are carried out. If something suddenly happens, then suddenly would serve as an adverb. If you’re describing a noun, then adjectives are the words you would like to use. When someone describes how sweet, beautiful, and funny that girl they like is, sweet, beautiful, and funny are the adjectives. Conjunctions are the words that may join two subjects, verbs, or clauses together. The most commonly used conjunction is the word and. However, knowing lots of words is useless if you are unable to combine them into clauses and sentences.
Everyone knows what a sentence is, but what is a clause? A clause is a subject-verb paring which also includes the adjectives and adverbs connected either the subject or verb. Clauses may be independent or dependent. An example of an independent clause would be “The cat died.”, while an example of a dependent clause would be “If the cat died”. An independent clause stands on its own as a complete sentence, but a dependent clause must include an independent clause, either after and separated by a comma, or before where no punctuation is needed. The sentence “If I could...

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