How to Use Extended Sentences in an Essay

Diane Kampf reports:

"Short, choppy sentences -- if used exclusively -- can make an essay or other writing project seem simplistic or even tedious. To avoid this, writers intersperse extended or complex sentences with shorter sentences. This improves the pacing of a narrative and adds an air of sophistication to an essay...One way to extend a sentence is to combine thoughts of equal significance using a coordinating conjunction, such as and, but, or, nor or yet...Subordination does not mean something is unimportant; it simply means the thought relies on the main or independent thought to make sense. 'When I mow the lawn' is a subordinating thought in that it doesn't make sense unless it is paired with another thought: 'I like to make a criss-cross pattern.' Making one of the thoughts subordinate to another is a way of extending sentences and avoiding choppy sentence structure. Consider the following two sentences: 'I never liked horror movies. They gave me nightmares.' They could be combined using subordination: 'I never liked horror movies, because they gave me nightmares.' A writer can create more stylistic variety by changing the order of subordinating thoughts: 'Because they gave me nightmares, I never liked horror movies.'"