"UNDERSTANDING SIMPLE, COMPOUND, COMPLEX, & COMPOUND COMPLEX"

Simple
Definition: A sentence with only one independent clause (also known as a main clause).

The simple sentence is one of the four basic sentence structures. The other structures are the compound sentence, the complex sentence, and the compound-complex sentence.
Examples:
(1) "Children are all foreigners."
(2) "Mother died today."
(3) "Of course, no man is entirely in his right mind at any time."
(4) "Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead."
(5) "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph."






CompoundDefinition: A sentence that contains at least two independent clauses.

Compound sentences can be formed in three ways:
(1) using coordinating conjunctions;
(2) using the semicolon, either with or without conjunctive adverbs;
(3) on occasion, using the colon.
Examples: 
(1) "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.."
(2) "The drought had lasted now for ten million years, and the reign of the terrible lizards had long since ended."
(3) "A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on."
(4) "Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one."
(5) "Tell the truth, work hard, and come to dinner on time."




ComplexDefinition: A sentence that contains an independent clause and at least one dependent clause.

"[D]ependent clauses cannot be sentences on their own. They depend on an independent clause to support them. The independent clause in a complex sentence carries the main meaning, but either clause may come first. When the dependent clause comes first, it is always followed by a comma."
"Complex sentences can offer dramatic development, extending a metaphor, as Melville's Captain Ahab reminds us: 'The path to my fixed purpose is laid on iron rails, on which my soul is grooved to run.'"
Examples:
(1) "Although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it by being a slave himself."
(2) "When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained."
(3) "I think we ought to have as great a regard for religion as we can, so as to keep it out of as many things as possible."
(4) "Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others."
(5) "Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything."



Compound Complex
Definition: A sentence with two or more independent clauses and at least one dependent clause.

The compound-complex sentence is one of the four basic sentence structures. The other structures are the simple sentence, the compound sentence, and the complex sentence.
Examples:
(1) "In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards."
(2) "I believe entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot."
(3) "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
(4) "We operate under a jury system in this country, and as much as we complain about it, we have to admit that we know of no better system, except possibly flipping a coin."
(5) "For in the end, freedom is a personal and lonely battle; and one faces down fears of today so that those of tomorrow might be engaged."