results of sentence combining exercise

This is the 2nd sentence combining exercise Chris has done using Altman's book.

Exercise Two Exam Stress

source: Sentence Combining Workbook, Second Edition by Pam Altman, Mari Caro, Lisa Metge-Egan, & Leslie Roberts ISBN 1-4310-1977-3

Sigmund, a college student, is taking an exam in his psychology class, and one of his short-essay questions reads:

What are some of the causes of problems between parents and teenagers?

Immediately Sigmund writes down some points he wants to include in his answer:

1. Rules and expectations aren’t made clear.
2. Resentment occurs when chores aren’t done.
3. Blame is placed on teenagers for anything that goes wrong in the home.
4. The way in which parents discipline is by yelling too much.
5. The complaint is that teenagers aren’t listened to.
6. There isn’t the ercognition that parents are human beings too.
7. Enough respect isn’t shown to parents.

Then Sigmund begins to write his answer:

“The causes of problems between parents and teenagers are …”

but he gets stuck before he even begins to show what he knows. Why? He has begun by focusing his first sentence on the subject causes, an abstract word, and the verb are. It looks like he is going to name all of the causes of problems in one sentence.
Help Sigmund by writing a more clearly-focused beginning sentence. Ask yourself “Who does what?” and make your answer the subject of the sentence.

Write your beginning sentence here:

Chris wrote:

Parents and teenagers have problems because

directions:

Now go back and improve the focus of six of the seven sentences in Sigmund’s notes. Ask yourself “Who does what?” in each sentence, and make your answer the sentence subject. Write your clearly-focused sentences in the spaces provided. Sigmund’s original sentences appear in parentheses below the spaces.

EXAMPLE 1: (Rules and expectations aren’t made clear.)

SOLUTION: Parents don’t make their rules and expectations clear.

Chris wrote (this is his original spelling & punctuation):

2. When teenagers don’t do their chores parents show resentment. [comma error]

3. Parents blame teenagers for anything that goes wrong in the home.

4. Parents yell too much when they dixxxxxxx (indecipherable) thier children. [2 spelling errors]

5. Teenagers feel their parents do not listen to them.

6. Teenagers don’t see their parents as human.

7. Teenagers don’t show enough respect to their parents.

directions:

Now write three well-focused sentences in which you state what you think are the causes of conflict between teenagers and parents:

Chris wrote (his original spelling & punctuation):

1. Parents make their children do work during the summer and weekends.

2. They let other siblings have television in their rooms.

3. They constantly threaten to take away rights from their children.


I'm sold.

Sentence combining is a brilliant technique. I gather there's a fair amount of evidence that sentence combining works; see here and here. But as far as I'm concerned, the proof's in the pudding. These sentences, which Chris wrote on his own, are far more sophisticated than anything he's written before; they have fewer errors to boot.

We're doing the whole book.


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