This is a picture of Jimmy Carter, a former President from Georgia.
Can you reduce these two sentences? Is there any way to do that?
Jimmy Carter is one of the most well-known presidents of all time. He is from my home state of Georgia and is most known for his work after he became a president.
In this lesson, we will look at a structure close to adverb clauses. We will look at reducing two sentences. We’ll identify the rules and apply them.
The good news is that the rules are very simple. They are the first two rules for reducing adverb clauses.
Before we go to those two rules, let’s explain reducing two sentences in how they are different from reducing adverb clauses. You can typically can reduce either the first or the second sentence.
Sometimes we prefer to reduce one over the over and once you get how to reduce two sentences, in other lessons I will explain when we prefer one over the other. For now though, you can reduce either the first or the second sentence.
As far as punctuation, you need to add a comma where the period is.
Now to what is similar, you have the same first two rules for reducing adverb clauses and the good news is that you don’t have to worry about rule 3.
Rule 1. The two sentences must have the same subjects.
Do these two sentences have the same subject?
Jimmy Carter is one of the most well-known presidents of all time. He is from my home state of Georgia and is most known for his work after he became a president.
Yes, they do. The subject of the first sentence is Jimmy Carter and the subject of the second sentence is he.
Rule 2. Do you remember rule 2 from reducing adverb clauses?
To be vs. not to be.
Let’s reduce the first sentence. Is the verb to be or not to be? Remember to be means any of these words “am/is/are/was/were.”
Yes, it’s to be because you have “is.” You need to reduce the verb and the subject.
Jimmy Carter is one of the most well-known presidents of all time. He is from my home state of Georgia and is most known for his work after he became a president.
So now we have this for our answer: One of the most well-known presidents of all time. He is from my home state of Georgia and is most known for his work after he became a president.
We have two things left to do.
1) We need to add a comma where the period is. One of the most well-known presidents of all time, he is from my home state of Georgia and is most known for his work after he became a president.
2) Then if we deleted the most specific subject, we need to add it back. We deleted it “Jimmy Carter” so we need to add that back.
One of the most well-known presidents of all time, Jimmy Carter is from my home state of Georgia and is most known for his work after he became a president.
That’s our final answer.
The rules are simple.
Look for same subjects.
Then delete one of the sentences using the rules to be or not to be.
Then add a comma where the period is and make sure you have the most sophisticated subject in the sentence.
Let’s apply the rules with some practice. For this practice, we’ll look at some famous Americans.
1.Let’s reduce the 2nd sentence here:
Michelle Obama went to Princeton University. She graduated with a degree in sociology.
Let’s go through the rules.
Do you have the same subjects? Yes.
What is the verb for the second sentence? Is it to be or not to be? It is not to be and since it is a simple tense, we change the verb to the ing form. We delete the subject.
We now have the following: Michelle Obama went to Princeton University. graduating with a degree in sociology.
What else do we need to do? Add a comma where the period is and this is our answer. Michelle Obama went to Princeton University, graduating with a degree in sociology.
Let’s look at a few more examples.
2. Let’s reduce the second sentence again.
Michelle Obama initially refused to date Obama. She thought that working together would cause problems in their work relationship.
Do you have the same subjects? Yes.
What is the verb in the sentence we are reducing? Thought. Is that to be or not to be? It’s not to be and since it is a simple tense, change the verb to its ing form. The ing form of thought is thinking. We delete the subject, too.
We now have this so far: Michelle Obama initially refused to date Obama. Thinking that working together would cause problems in their work relationship.
What else do we need to do? Put a comma where the period is.
Michelle Obama initially refused to date Obama, thinking that working together would cause problems in their work relationship.
3.Okay, let’s do one more example and talk about another famous woman.
Aretha Franklin is one of the most famous singers of all time. She recently sang at the Kennedy Center Honors. (If you would like to watch the video of her singing, you can listen at this link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RIgeu-6Jcs)
Do you have the same subjects? Yes. Let’s reduce the first sentence.
Is the verb in the first sentence to be or not to be? It’s to be. So we will delete “is” and the subject.
We have this so far. one of the most famous singers of all time. She recently sang at the Kennedy Center Honors.
What else do we need to do? We need to put a comma where the period is and since we delete the most specific subject, we need to add it back.
one of the most famous singers of all time. She recently sang at the Kennedy Center Honors.
We add the comma and have the following:
One of the most famous singers of all time, she recently sang at the Kennedy Center Honors.
Then add the specific subject back and our answer is this:
One of the most famous singers of all time, Aretha Franklin recently sang at the Kennedy Center Honors.
Let’s quickly review the rules. Do you remember them?
Look to make sure you have the same subjects.
Delete one of the sentences using to be or not to be.
Then add a comma where the period is and make sure you have the most sophisticated subject in the sentence.
In this lesson, we looked at a sophisticated structure related to adverb clauses, reducing two sentences. We identified the rules and applied them to some examples.