25 Coordination, Subordination, and Emphasis
Coordination and subordination are ways of joining ideas in sentences that show relationships between ideas and emphasize more important ideas. In speech, people tend to use and and so as all-purpose connectors.
I’m leaving now, and I’ll see you later.
The meaning of this sentence may be perfectly clear in speech, which provides clues with voice, facial expressions, and gestures. But in writing, the sentence could have multiple meanings, including these:
Although I’m leaving now, I’ll see you later.
I’m leaving now because I’ll see you later.
A coordinating conjunction such as and gives ideas equal emphasis, and a subordinating conjunction such as although or because emphasizes one idea more than another. Choosing appropriate conjunctions also allows a writer to specify how the ideas are related.
Editing for Coordination, Subordination, and Emphasis
AT A GLANCE
How do your ideas flow from one sentence to another? Do they connect smoothly and clearly? Are the more important ideas given more emphasis than less important ones?
- Look for strings of short sentences that might be combined to join related ideas. (25a)
- If you use and excessively, decide whether all the ideas are equally important. If they are not equal, edit to subordinate the less important ones. (25b)
- Make sure that the most important ideas appear in independent clauses that can stand alone as complete sentences. (25b)
- Identify the word or words you want to receive special emphasis. If those words are buried in the middle of a sentence, edit the sentence to change their position. The end and the beginning are generally the most emphatic. (25c)
- If a sentence includes a series of three or more words, phrases, or clauses, try to arrange the items in the series in climactic order, with the most important item last. (25c)