AP® English Language and Composition review sheet from Aim for Five (aimforfive.com/lang/units/7/7-5)
Unit 7 · Topic 7.5
7.5 Arranging sentences and clauses for emphasis
Where an idea appears controls how much attention it gets. Writers arrange sentences within a paragraph, and clauses and words within a sentence, so the most important idea lands where readers notice it. Periodic and cumulative sentences are two classic patterns.
Key terms
- emphasis
- sentence arrangement
- periodic sentence
- cumulative sentence
- syntax
Arranging sentences in a paragraph
Readers pay special attention to the first and last sentences of a paragraph. Writers often put the claim first, so readers know where they're going, or build to it at the end, so it lands with force. A short sentence after several long ones also stands out, because the change in rhythm makes readers slow down.
When you revise a paragraph, ask whether each sentence is in the place that best serves the argument. Writing questions on the exam sometimes ask where a sentence should be placed, or whether a sentence should be moved, added or cut. The best placement usually follows the logic: claim, then evidence, then explanation, with each sentence connected to the one before it.
Arranging words within a sentence
In English, the end of a sentence is the natural place of emphasis. Writers use that by saving the key idea for last, or by breaking normal word order so a word stands out.
| Pattern | How it works | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Periodic sentence | Main clause held until the end, after modifiers and dependent clauses | Builds suspense; the point lands hard |
| Cumulative (loose) sentence | Main clause first, then details added one after another | Feels natural; piles up support or description |
| Inversion | Normal word order reversed | Spotlights the word moved to the front |
| Climax | Items arranged from least to most important | Builds intensity |
| Antithesis | Opposing ideas in balanced, parallel structure | Sharpens a contrast |
Patterns in public-domain speeches
Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address (1865) uses inversion: "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away." Moving "fondly" and "fervently" to the front stresses how deeply the nation longs for peace.
Franklin D. Roosevelt's First Inaugural Address (1933) uses a cumulative structure: "So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." The main claim comes early; the details added after the dash explain what kind of fear he means and why it's dangerous.
Analyzing arrangement
When you write about arrangement, don't just name the pattern. Explain what the order emphasizes and why that emphasis serves the writer's purpose. "Lincoln uses a periodic sentence" earns little credit by itself; "Lincoln delays his main clause so the audience must sit through the full cost of slavery before hearing his verdict" is analysis.
Worked examples
Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.
- Example 1
A periodic sentence in Lincoln's Second Inaugural
Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865 (public domain; text from the Project Gutenberg collection of inaugural addresses). Lincoln has just said he hopes the war will end soon. He continues: "Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'" Explain how the arrangement of this sentence supports Lincoln's purpose.
Show the solutionHide the solution
- Step 1: Find the main clause: "so still it must be said" plus the quotation from Psalm 19. It comes at the very end.
- Step 2: Look at what comes first: a long "if" clause with two parallel "until" clauses about unpaid labor ("unrequited toil") and violence ("drawn with the lash").
- Step 3: Identify the pattern: a periodic sentence, because the main idea is delayed.
- Step 4: Explain the effect: listeners must hear the full moral debt of slavery before Lincoln states his conclusion, so the war's suffering sounds like justice rather than random disaster.
- Step 5: Connect to audience: a Bible-reading nation, North and South, would recognize the psalm, which gives the verdict a religious authority beyond Lincoln's own.
Answer: Model paragraph: Lincoln arranges this sentence so that his audience must weigh the entire cost of slavery before they hear his verdict on the war. Two parallel "until" clauses describe the debt in concrete terms, "two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil" and "every drop of blood drawn with the lash," and Lincoln holds back his main clause until both are complete. Only then does he declare that "still it must be said" that "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether," quoting a psalm his listeners would know. Because the conclusion comes last, after the evidence has piled up, it feels less like Lincoln's opinion than like the only answer the facts allow, which helps him prepare a weary nation to see the war as a judgment on a shared national sin.
Common mistakes
- Naming "periodic sentence" or "inversion" without explaining what the arrangement emphasizes and why.
- Burying your own main point in the middle of a long sentence or paragraph. Put key claims at the start or the end.
- Moving a sentence in a writing question because it "sounds better" instead of checking whether it follows logically from the sentence before it.
On the exam
- Writing questions may ask where a sentence best fits in a paragraph. Look for the spot where it connects to the sentence before and sets up the sentence after.
- In the rhetorical analysis essay, one well-analyzed sentence structure, tied to purpose and audience, is worth more than a list of five devices.
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Check yourself
3 questions on 7.5 Arranging sentences and clauses for emphasis. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.
Francis Bacon, "Of Studies," from Essays (1625 edition); the opening of the essay, in a modernized-spelling text that keeps some older forms: "proyning" means pruning, "contemn" means scorn, "conference" means conversation, and "maketh" means makes.
The sentence "Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them" is arranged so that
In the sentence "Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man," the semicolons mainly serve to
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance," from Essays: First Series (1841). Bracketed ellipses mark omitted text.
The sentence "To be great is to be misunderstood" is placed at the end of paragraph 4 mainly to
0 of 3 answered