Sentence Pattern

Fixed Topic | Stress Variable Old/Familiar | New/Unfamiliar

Use sentence's beginning to refer to what you have already mentioned or to knowledge that you can assume you and your readers share. In other words, readers need familiar information at the beginning of sentences.

The huge number of wounded and dead in the Civil War exceeded all the other wars in American history. One of the reasons for the lingering animosity between North and South today is the memory of this terrible carnage.

Or? Of all wars in American History, none has exceeded the Civil War in the huge number of wounded and dead. The memory of this terrible carnage is one of the reasons for the animosity between North and South today.

Choose topics to control your reader's point of view. Creative verbs can make one or another of the characters the seeming agent of an action.

Four score and seven years ago, this continent witnessed the birth of a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition of our fathers that all men are created equal. Now this Great War that engages us is testing that nation or any so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. The War created this great battlefield. A portion of it is now to be dedicated ...

Or? Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on 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 have come to dedicate ...