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| Source: Child Classics, Third Reader |
We've been taught that every sentence has at minimum one
subject, one predicate, and that it should be a complete thought expressed in
words.
However, William Minto,
author of Plain Principles of Prose, says
those guidelines are no help to a beginner.
Focus instead, he says, on keeping it simple:
The grand object in all writing for purposes of instruction is
the easy communication of your thoughts to your readers.
Then he gives us two rules:
- Don't overcrowd your sentences.
- Put your words in the right places.
More about those “right places” later.
