Welcome back to AP Daily.
This is Unit 7.
Explain how writers show relationships between and among ideas.
I'm Aaron Gliegg, you might remember me from Unit 3 and Unit 4.
What are we going to learn today?
We're going to focus on understanding how writers' very sentences
as a stylistic choice to achieve their purpose.
And we're going to understand how writers' arranged sentences
for a specific effect.
This part of the lesson really is going to target your writing
and how you can achieve sophistication in your essays
because we're deep in the course now.
Unit 7 is all about achieving that sophistication point,
how you improve your writing style.
So let's learn.
Throughout your schooling, I'm sure you've learned
the different parts of speech.
And these are the building blocks of meaning, language itself.
First, we understand words and the different parts of speech.
Of course, a string of words can be a phrase.
I'm not going to go over all these types of phrases that's going to bore you.
And then clauses are important to understand.
There are two types, mainly.
An independent clause is really the main sentence itself
where you can identify the verb and the noun.
And it can stand alone as its own sentence.
A dependent clause also has a noun and a verb,
but it has to be connected to the sentence
because there's a connective phrase that's associated with that clause.
We're not going to get too technical,
but you should understand that a clause has a noun and a verb.
Ultimately, there's also a variety of sentences
that you can build with these phrases, clauses and words combined,
simple sentences and to the more compound complex sentences
that we'll look at in this lesson.
Ultimately, when you're writing, you're in charge.
And the most important things to consider are the following.
First and foremost is clarity.
Are you getting your point across?
There's no need to get complicated with your sentences
if that complicated sentence structure is just getting
into a way of your actual meaning.
The second thing you should consider is the logical order
of your sentence and your sentence is within your paragraph.
Do they follow and build on one another?
That's an important consideration.
Writers should also consider the flow of their language.
When you read your sentences out loud, do you trip over them?
Do you stumble over some words?
And if you do, it's clearly an indication
that there's something wrong and you should fix it.
Rhythm.
This is where we're getting more sophisticated.
Are there changes in the cadence of your sentences in the rhythm?
Notice that when we talk, we don't talk like robots,
monotonous in simple syllables like this.
We want a variety of rhythms in order to have texture
and to have different nuances and inflections
when we do speak.
And so in writing, you should try to capture those different rhythms
as well.
Of course, sound is important.
Do your sentences emphasize certain sounds,
just like that sentence with all the S sounds?
And why?
And for what reason?
Do they enhance?
Do those sounds enhance and underscore some subtle meaning
in your writing?
Does your sentence and your essay ultimately sustain your reader's
interest or is it dull?
If it's dull, then you've got to add some possess to your writing
and vary up your sentence structure as very up the rhythms and sounds.
That's more sophisticated now.
And then finally, achieving the right tone and the right voice,
really capturing your voice on the page is a really sophisticated
level of writing.
And perhaps if you can do that, then you're truly a writer,
I would say.
Tone is important in terms of,
are you hitting the right note for the right purpose?
If you elicit laughter when you're trying to be serious,
then obviously you've not achieved the right tone
combination of words that you've written on the page.
So let's look at an example.
This is Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
And to tell you the truth,
I actually was only familiar with the opening line,
like most people are four score and seven years ago,
until I did more research looking for a great example for this lesson.
And it's worth reading.
This is Lincoln who visits Gettysburg,
where there had been a battle and it was bloodshed.
And he's there really to rally his troops to get them motivated
and to make them remember and understand what it is that they're fighting for.
So there's a clear purpose to this speech.
And there are actually different versions of this speech
because Lincoln did draft this speech before he gave this.
He did not give this extemporaneously.
And so clearly it's a carefully prepared speech.
Four score and seven years ago,
our father's brought forth upon this continent, a new nation,
conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war,
testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated
can long endure.
We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We come to dedicate a portion of it as a final arresting place
for those who died here that the nation might live.
This we may in all propriety do.
But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate,
we cannot consecrate, we cannot hollow this ground.
The brave men living in dead who struggled here have hollowed it,
far above our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note no longer remember what we say here
while it can never forget what they did here.
It is rather for us the living.
We here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us
that from these honored dead we take increased devotion
to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion
that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain.
The dead nation shall have a new birth of freedom
and that of government of the people by the people for the people
shall not perish from the earth.
Notice how that speech builds and he wants to get that crowd roaring
at the very end.
You can imagine the passion and the effect this has on the troops
that he's speaking to to commemorate the lives that have been lost
on that battlefield.
So let's first discuss the structure
and point out what Lincoln intended.
Clearly he has four moves in this speech
and he starts with the past 87 years ago.
The founding fathers created a new nation
and it's based on certain values.
Then he puts the speech into context
what is happening in the present moment.
And then he talks about the future.
What the world will remember based on the choices they make now
on that battlefield and finally the call to action at the end
that they have to fight on for that cause
so that the nation survives.
Now let's examine some sentences that Lincoln beautifully crafted
and when you order your sentences you want to land
the most important notes.
You want to make sure that your words at the very end
and at the very beginning to are really important
because you want to land on that note.
So phrasing is important.
Here clearly the sentence is very simple.
Our father's founded a nation.
But Lincoln adds to that cause he wants to get to the values
that the nation was founded upon.
Values of liberty and equality and note that he lands on that word equal.
Next sentence.
We are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation
or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.
Notice the rhythm of can long endure.
And he wants to land on that note.
And again the simple sentence is we are at war.
He wants to add more to that sentence to get to that point
that the war is basically questioning whether the nation will survive.
Will the nation survive?
And he wants to get to that point.
This last sentence, the one that's really rousing
and climaxes at the very end.
Notice the last point he wants to land on.
She'll not perish from the earth.
He wants the nation to survive.
And he wants the troops to believe in that too.
So notice the simple sentence is we must be committed to finishing this war.
That's the call to action.
But he wants to explain why.
And notice is just one complete sentence with multiple clauses.
Very long compound complex sentence.
And he adds those reasonings so that those have fallen didn't die meaningless deaths
and ultimately so that the nation survives.
Beautiful.
So when we write, we got to think about the relationship between and among our ideas
and how we convey those relationships in the language on the page.
Are we putting things in order of importance in our sentences?
Are we ordering our language in terms of degree in terms of priority,
in terms of size, in terms of scope?
Look at this sentence by Lincoln.
In a larger sense, we cannot dedicate.
We kind of consecrate.
We cannot hollow this ground.
Notice he uses three verbs.
It's a list of three.
If they were all synonymous,
clearly Lincoln would have edited and cut the other verbs out.
And he chooses to put all three verbs here.
And the question is, what order are they in?
And I would argue that they are in ascending order of importance.
They go up in degree.
He wants to land on that word, hello,
which means to make sacred.
That place where soldiers had already fallen.
Next example here, the world will little note or long remember what we say here.
Well, it can never forget what they did here.
Notice this beautifully balanced parallel sentence.
And one is more important in terms of a clause than the other.
One idea is greater than the other.
And for those of us who went to school long ago,
we would diagram sentences.
And what's great about diagramming sentences,
if you're not familiar with it,
is that it actually shows you the different levels of words or in a sentence.
Not all words are equally important in the sentence.
When you look at the diagram here,
this is basically the first clause.
And the most important words are the ones above this line.
The words that go slant down here like little,
which is an adjective or the, which is an article.
They're not that important.
The most important elements of a sentence are the subject and the verb or the noun and the verb.
And then an object if there is an object in the sentence.
Otherwise prepositional phrases, adverbs adjectives, they're not that important.
So notice the center idea of this sentence are the verbs.
Little note, remember, forget.
And again, the idea is what's more important and what's the relationship between these ideas.
And you'll see that little note and long remember are weaker verbs than never forget,
which is a very definitive sort of statement.
And then ultimately he's saying that what they did, the troops there that who will die on those on that ground.
That will be remembered more. That's what's more important than what we say this speech even.
That's to important than what we do right now, which is fight.
Interesting. So notice also what juts out here.
Is the object of the sentence.
Really interesting that when you look at sentence diagrams, they're beautiful.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that and I hope you learned something about improving your writing and learning about the different relationships between your ideas on the page and how you can structure your sentences and on the right notes.
Thank you so much and I'll see you in the next video.
