importance of diagramming?

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petertohen
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Dec 28, 2017 9:15 pm

importance of diagramming?

Post by petertohen » Fri Dec 29, 2017 8:53 pm

My 13 year old asked me this and honestly, I don't have an answer. *I* love to diagram and think it's fun to break the sentence apart, but he sees no need. And for him, there probably isn't a need. He's not going into writing for a career and probably not even going to college. But if someone can give me a really good reason and purpose, I'd love to hear it. :D
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-impor ... -sentences

annaz
Posts: 833
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 12:47 pm

Re: importance of diagramming?

Post by annaz » Mon Jan 01, 2018 9:39 am

I used to ask myself this regularly until I found the true value of it in the book, The Well Trained Mind. I'm not a classical educator by any means, but it's explained well in this book, so I can only quote tidbits here that I wish I'd have known way back:

"It reveals the logic of the sentence structure" - I found to be true. We actually use it for creating good sentences and finding what is wrong with a sentence dd wrote. It if doesn't make sense, we diagram it and find where her error in structure lies - we use that tactic often.

"It's a visual of the rules" - I use it as a puzzle of the rules. Once you get to adjectives that appear to be nouns; the difficult parts of speech, it provides a great visual of understanding. I can actually read a diagram and then write the sentence. If the diagram is wrong, the sentence makes no sense and vice versa.

Simply labeling the parts of speech doesn't really teach the relationship between words and phrases. It becomes very logical when you can actually see the relationship through diagramming and makes obvious why the structure is wrong.

I find that diagramming was much more useful the further we got in grammar in context of writing better sentences. It was a way to check our errors.

HTH,
Ann
Married 1994
One DD 6/2000
One DH :)
One cat
One dog
Three horses :shock:

my3sons
Posts: 10698
Joined: Sun Aug 26, 2007 7:08 pm
Location: South Dakota

Re: importance of diagramming?

Post by my3sons » Thu Jan 04, 2018 5:16 pm

Outstanding answer, Ann! Thanks for sharing! I find it helps draw attention to writing consistently using varied sentence structures, especially as diagramming exercises often lead into correlating writing assignments. Of course, I didn't see this 'fruit' until our sons were older, and their writing was more developed. HTH!

In Christ,
Julie
Enjoyed LHTH to USII
Currently using USI
Wife to Rich for 28 years
Mother to 3 sons, ages 23, 20, and 16
Sister to Carrie

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