Sentence Diagramming
I did not learn how to diagram sentences until the end of my master’s program, in a linguistics class.
Some people hate diagramming. I found it can help writers understand the impact of correct grammar on the ability to communicate clearly. Sometimes, of course, purposeful “incorrect” grammar—such as a sudden sentence fragment or an overuse of commas—can make a piece of writing more powerful. But usually, good grammar results in clarity.
The two most important things to know when diagramming are the grammatical parts of speech and the stylistic treatment for each part. Let’s take this sentence as an example:
Tomorrow, the girl with the long hair will give her father the book.
Here are the parts of speech for that sentence:
Subject: girl
Verb (predicate): will give
Indirect object: book
Direct object: father
Prepositional phrase (preposition + noun): with hair
Adjectives and adverbs: long, her, tomorrow
Articles: the
Unfortunately, the functionality in this blog doesn’t let me draw directly in the text, so although I can provide a finished diagrammed sentence, I can’t show the individual steps. For a step-by-step example of diagramming, check out Grammarly.
Below, courtesy of Microsoft’s sentence diagramming software, is a graphic of the diagrammed sentence from above. Following that are the instructions for diagramming.
Follow this order for diagramming:
1. Diagram subject (girl) and verb (will give) first: Both go on a horizontal line, separated by a vertical line that crosses the horizontal line.
2. Add the indirect object (book): Add the indirect object on the same horizontal line, but the separating vertical line does not actually cross the horizontal line.
3. Add the direct object (father): Draw a diagonal line under the verb section and add the direct object above another horizontal line.
4. Add prepositional phrases (with hair): The preposition is attached by a diagonal line below its related word. Nouns in the phrase are written on a connected horizontal line.
5. Add adjectives and adverbs (tomorrow, her, long): These are written on diagonal lines connected to the word they modify.
6. Add articles (the): Like adjectives and adverbs, these are written on diagonal lines connected to the word they modify.
By the way, I did not source the quote in the graphic at the top because I could not find attribution. If anyone knows who said that, please put it in the comments.
Book update: I’m halfway finished Aaron’s story. I was blessed to have some wonderful developmental editing help, which will make this story so much better. (Thanks, Sahar.)
And remember, if you’ve read any of the previous books in the Vacation Friends Romance series and would like to leave Amazon and Goodreads reviews, I’d really appreciate it. The more reviews, the more likely people are to read the book. (It’s an algorithm thing.)
And tell me your own experience with sentence diagramming.