How to Diagram Simple Sentences

One way to learn grammar--including parts of speech as well as the subject, verb and object of a sentence--is through the use of sentence diagramming. In sentence diagramming, you take a sentence and place it in a diagram according to its different parts. Subjects always go one place, verbs always go in another and so on. Through this demonstration, you will learn how to diagram a simple sentence. Our example sentence to diagram is: "The young girl threw the big rock."

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Pencil (do not use pen--you need to be able to erase)
• Paper

1. Your beginning diagram should look like this. Draw the lines needed to start your diagram. Draw a long horizontal line. You are going to break the line into three sections. Draw a much shorter line going through the long line at a 90-degree angle. Draw a second short line joining with the long line at a 90-degree angle. The two short lines will break the top of the longer line into three sections approximately the same length apart. The first section is for your subject, the second is for your verb and the third is for the direct object.
2. Find your subject. What or who is the entire sentence about? Who is doing the action? The "girl" is! Place "girl" in the left section as shown in the illustration.
3. Locate the verb next. What is the one word that describes what the girl is doing? If you said "threw," you are correct! Place the word "threw" in the middle section on the line.
4. Find the object of the sentence. The object is what is receiving the action. You can ask yourself, "What did the girl throw?" The answer of that is "rock". Place "rock" in right-hand section on the long line.
5. Figure out where to place the remaining words. All of the words that have not yet been used are adjectives and articles. They describe one of the words already on the above line. "The" and "young" both describe the word "girl." Draw two diagonal lines from "girl" and put the words "the" and "young" on them. Now, what about the words "the" and "big" toward the end of the sentence? They both describe "rock". Make two other diagonal lines come down from the word "rock" and place those two words on those lines. Once you are done with that, your diagram is complete.

Tips & Warnings

• Definitions:
• Noun: A word that names a person, place, thing or idea
• Verb: The action word
• Adjective: A word that describes a noun
• Subject: What the sentence is about
• Object: What or who is receiving the action