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How to Use Conjunctions in a Paragraph

Conjunctions in English are the words that are used to join individual words, phrases and clauses together. These words, "for," "and," "nor," "but," "or," "yet" and "so," add to the coherence of paragraph structure by guiding the reader logically from idea to idea. If you use them correctly, they also add interest to your writing style by varying sentence length and complexity to help group similar ideas together. There are a few rules to the proper use of conjunctions, and following them can improve the quality of your writing.

Things You'll Need

Paper
Pencil or pen

Instructions

- 1
  Choose the topic of your paragraph and brainstorm various thoughts and ideas related to your topic.
- 2
  Write a sentence for each contributing idea. A complete sentence, or independent clause, contains a subject--which can be a person, place or thing--and a verb that describes some sort of action.
- 3
  Group similar ideas together and place the sentence that is closest to your desired topic at the top.
- 4
  See which sentences can logically be joined using any of the coordinating conjunctions. For example: The tallest building on the street was a three-story brick house. The shortest people lived there.
- 5
  Remove the period at the end of the first clause. If the second clause is also an independent clause, insert a comma and then your chosen conjunction as follows:
  
  The tallest building on the street was a three-story brick house, yet the shortest people lived there.
  
  A comma is only necessary when joining two independent clauses together.

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