Subordinate clauses

Treat them as second-class citizens in your articles

Getting the news or key point of your article out as early as possible is essential if you want to grab your readers and hold on to them.

Using a subordinate clause to start your article is a good way of losing them quickly. Unfortunately, many journalism rookies, when they learn to write, are rarely taught this basic rule.

What’s a subordinate clause? Well, here’s an example:

“In a radical experiment that might allow women whose wombs were removed or are defective to bear children, a New York hospital is taking steps to offer the nation’s first uterus transplant.”

Thankfully, this was not how the story actually appeared in the media. Associated Press is much too professional for that and wrote it the way it should be written.

“A New York hospital is taking steps to offer the nation's first uterus transplant, a radical experiment that might allow women whose wombs were removed or are defective to bear children.”

A subordinate clause delays your key piece of information, which in the above example is the fact that a New York hospital wants to try a uterus transplant.

In the first example, the dominant clause starts after the comma while in the second version it is before the comma – where it should be.

It is easy to identify a subordinate clause. If the clause cannot exist on its own, then it is subordinate. However, if the clause stands up as a usable sentence, then it is dominant.

The following sentence is clearly lost by itself: “In a radical experiment that might allow women whose wombs were removed or are defective to bear children…”

The sentence is left hanging and unfinished.

In contrast, “A New York hospital is taking steps to offer the nation’s first uterus transplant” is strong on it owns and is easily recognizable as the dominant clause.

When writing articles other than soft articles or features, try to start with a dominant clause. This is not to say you ignore subordinate phrases completely.

You should include a sentence or paragraph that starts with a subordinate clause at various stages of the article to ease the monotony.

A good method would be to make every fourth sentence or paragraph one that starts with a subordinate clause.