Adverbial Notes

Writing More Interesting Sentences: Adverbials

Adverbials are words, phrases, and clauses that answer questions like when, where, why, how, how much, and how often.

Adverbs let us expand simple sentences like The dog runs into interesting sentences like: Yesterday, the dog ran crazily into the garage to catch a rat.

Can you expand this sentence?

She ate.

Different adverbials go in different places

Verb	Manner	Place	Frequency	Time	Purpose or Reason
What . . . do	how	where	how often	when	why
Biff lifts weights	vigorously	at the gym	every day	after work	to fight stress

These adverbs can come before the verb or between the auxiliary and the main verb
Adverbs of frequency: always, often usually, sometimes, seldom, rarely hardly ever, never	I often watch television at night.
Adverbs of manner: rigorously, quickly, completely, etc.	He has rigorously avoided sweets for more than a year.
Indefinite adverbs of time: recently, typically, previously, finally, etc	He recently lost fifty pounds.

Writing Better, More Interesting Sentences

Words, Phrases, Clauses

An adverbial can be · An adverb (a single word) · A prepositional phrases (a group of words that begin with prepositions like in, on, at, etc) or · A clause: (a group of words that contain a subject and a verb)	My family often plays tennis at the elementary school near our house so we don’t have to travel far to have fun.
Clauses can be independent or dependent. · An independent clause can be a sentence by itself. · A dependent clause needs to be attached to an independent clause. It doesn’t make sense by itself.	My family often plays tennis at the elementary school near our house so we don’t have to travel far to have fun.

Rules for Adverbial Phrases:	Shorter before longer. More specific first. If there are more than two adverbial phrases, move one to the beginning!

Writing Better Longer Sentences

More Reasons to Put Adverbial Phrases at the Beginning of a Sentence

If there are several other adverbs	Once a week, he carefully washes his car in the driveway.
If the object of the verb is very long	In the suitcase, he found an extra wool sweater that had been knitted by his grandmother.
To emphasize the adverbial information	Carefully and slowly, John carried the heavy tray of fragile glasses.
To show a logical relationship between sentences.	Matt was born in 1965. In 1980, he moved to San Francisco.

Use question word order when you move negative adverbs of frequency to the front of a sentence.

Gladstone seldom loses more than a few pounds. Seldom does Gladstone lose more than a few pounds.

Position of Dependent Adverbial Clauses

When to put the dependent (adverbial) clause before independent (main) clause

To emphasize the adverbial clause	As soon as John got to the airport, he began to have second thoughts about going to France.
To establish context that applies to several sentences	Until Jeff moved to San Francisco, he had never seen the ocean. He had never been to a disco or eaten Chinese food. He had never even fallen in love.
To show sequence.	After I read the paper, I usually take a shower.
Punctuation	When the dependent adverbial clauses comes first follow it with a comma.