Identifying Errors Involving Coordination, Subordination, Parallelism, Correlation, Negation, and Comparison

Logical Order in a Written Passage

In a paragraph the topic sentence states a theme which encompasses each of the other sentences. The order of these sentences needs to follow some logical sequence.

For example, a paragraph describing last year's most important events in a student's life might have its sentences sequenced by:

a. The chronological order of the dates of the events, or

b. The relative importance of the events.

A mixture of these orderings would be disconcerting to any reader and, therefore, not appropriate.

Similarly, some sentences contain more than one idea. In such sentences, correct writing requires a logical ordering of the ideas.

An example of a sentence in which the sequencing of ideas needs to be improved is:

Beethoven is a German composer, and he is best known for his nine symphonies.

The sentence could be improved by:

Beethoven, a German composer, is best known for his nine symphonies.

1) Here is another example in which the logical ordering of ideas needs to be altered. Write a sentence that improves the logical ordering of ideas and click here when you are finished.

Burning the entire second floor, the fire started at midnight.

An example of a sentence in which the logical ordering of ideas needs to be altered is:

Though we have had rain for seven days, the rainfall for August is normal.

The sentence could be improved by:

The rainfall for August is normal even though we have had rain for seven days.

2) Here is another example of an ordering that can be improved. Write a sentence that improves the logical ordering of ideas and click here when you are finished.

The boat overturned yesterday when five men drowned.