dhugal tp 10

Last night I met up with Hamad at Starbucks for a tutoring session. His IELTS test is next week (I think that’s what it’s called), which is just a writing test. So Hamad asked me to go over connector words, which would improve the flow of his writing. He’s right; connector words can link independent and dependent clauses and establish a relationship between the two. These are words like however, nevertheless, moreover, on the other hand, therefore, consequently, etc. Now these are the words that connect independent clauses, and we focused on these because they are a little harder to understand than words that connect dependent clauses to the independent clause, such as when, if, because (subordinating conjunctions).

            So I started off by just giving an example of the conjunction in a sentence, to see if Hamad could intuit the meaning. For example, I presented ‘on the other hand’ like this: I like riding bikes. They are good exercise and are friendly towards the environment; on the other hand, driving is much quicker and I don’t sweat. The first clause presents one argument. The second clause presents another argument. The conjunction links the two under the same issue. Hamad then asked why he couldn’t just use however. To answer, I told him variation is good to have in your writing; furthermore, however lends more strength to the second clause than on the other hand. If I were to use however in that sentence, the reader would intuit that driving is the preferred method, whereas on the other hand presents both methods as equal.

            We managed to get through about 7 conjunctions, and I was pleased to see how Hamad instantly recognized how these words could help his writing.