The Dutch Influence and Control Over Indonesia | Indonesia Fascination

The Dutch East India Company (see East India Company: Dutch East India Company), founded in 1602, competed with the Portuguese and the English for the archipelago’s trade. The Dutch governor-general Jan Pieterszoon Coen arrived on Java in the early 17th century and established Batavia (now Jakarta) as the Dutch headquarters. Through direct force and alliances with native leaders, Coen tried to stop the interisland network of traders from engaging in international trade. In 1629 the Dutch clashed briefly with Mataram, then settled into a period of coexistence. The Dutch captured Malacca in 1641, but Malacca no longer had complete control of the spice trade to Europe. To gain a trade monopoly, the company allowed cloves to be grown only on the island of Ambon and nutmeg and mace to be grown only in the Banda Islands. The company destroyed the spice trees in other places. In 1678 Mataram was forced to cede the Priangan region of western Java to the Dutch company.


During the 18th century the Dutch East India Company introduced coffee and other new crops to Java. It also started a system of forced deliveries of crops that relied heavily on cooperation from agreeable Javanese aristocrats and from leaders of the growing local Chinese population, whose immigration the Dutch promoted. Dutch interference in Mataram’s affairs led to the kingdom’s division, in 1755, into the principalities of Surakarta and Yogyakarta. In the Moluccas, the Dutch extended their trading rights into political control. Elsewhere in the eastern islands, most local rulers retained their internal autonomy but were drawn into special relationships with the Dutch. Financial mismanagement and a decline in trade brought the East India Company to bankruptcy, however, and in 1799 it was dissolved. The Dutch government then assumed control of the company’s Indonesian possessions.

The Consolidation of Dutch Control
Britain occupied Java briefly (1811-1816) during the Napoleonic Wars. Both the British and later the Dutch tried to centralize and reform Java’s administration. The Dutch wavered between opening the area to individual enterprise and reverting to a monopoly system. From 1825 to 1830 the Javanese prince Diponegoro led a guerrilla revolt against the Dutch. The wars, which left as many as 200,000 dead, cost the Dutch huge sums of money and they ultimately decided for a government monopoly. The Dutch annexed large areas of central Java and in 1830 introduced the Culture System, under which peasants had to devote part of their land (officially one-fifth, but usually far more) to cultivating government-designated export crops instead of rice. Extremely profitable for the Dutch, the system was blamed for widespread famine in parts of Java in the 1840s and 1850s.

In the mid-19th century Dutch liberals campaigned against the Culture System, and by the 1870s some of the system’s harshest aspects were removed. The new Liberal Policy gave farmers more freedom to grow crops they wanted. Oil, tin, and rubber later began to replace coffee, sugar, and tobacco as the main exports to Europe. These products came largely from outside Java, and the Dutch took control of the islands where they were produced. In the late 19th century the Dutch were engaged in a 30-year war with Aceh and Bali, which ended in 1908 in the former and 1909 in the latter. By this time, Sulawesi, the Moluccas, the Lesser Sunda Islands, and most of Borneo had also been brought under firmer Dutch control.

Indonesia History

Introduction

Indonesia is an archipelagic country of 17,508 islands (6,000 inhabited) stretching along the equator in South East Asia. The country's strategic sea-lane position fostered inter-island and international trade; trade has since fundamentally shaped Indonesian history. The area of Indonesia is populated by peoples of various migrations, creating a diversity of cultures, ethnicities, and languages. The archipelago's landforms and climate significantly influenced agriculture and trade, and the formation of states.

Fossilised remains of Homo erectus, popularly known as the "Java Man", suggest the Indonesian archipelago was inhabited two million to 500,000 years ago. Austronesian people, who form the majority of the modern population, were originally from Taiwan and arrived in Indonesia around 2000 BCE. From the 7th century CE, the powerful Srivijaya naval kingdom flourished bringing Hindu and Buddhist influences with it. The agricultural Buddhist Sailendra and Hindu Mataram dynasties subsequently thrived and declined in inland Java. The last significant non-Muslim kingdom, the Hindu Majapahit kingdom, flourished from the late 13th century, and its influence stretched over much of Indonesia. The earliest evidence of Islamised populations in Indonesia dates to the 13th century in northern Sumatra; other Indonesian areas gradually adopted Islam which became the dominant religion in Java and Sumatra by the end of the 16th century. For the most part, Islam overlaid and mixed with existing cultural and religious influences.

Europeans arrived in Indonesia from the 16th century seeking to monopolise the sources of valuable nutmeg, cloves, and cubeb pepper in Maluku. In 1602 the Dutch established the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and became the dominant European power. Following bankruptcy, the VOC was formally dissolved in 1800, and the government of the Netherlands established the Dutch East Indies as a nationalised colony. By the early 20th century Dutch dominance extended to what was to become Indonesia's current boundaries. The Japanese invasion and subsequent occupation during WWII ended Dutch rule, and encouraged the previously suppressed Indonesian independence movement. Two days after the surrender of Japan in August 1945, nationalist leader, Sukarno, declared independence and was appointed president. The Netherlands tried to reestablish their rule, but a bitter armed and diplomatic struggle ended in December 1949, when in the face of international pressure, the Dutch formally recognised Indonesian independence.

An attempted coup in 1965 led to a violent army-led anti-communist purge in which over half a million people were killed. General Suharto politically out-manoeuvred President Sukarno, and was formally appointed president in March 1968. His New Order administration garnered the favour of the West whose investment in Indonesia was a major factor in the subsequent three decades of substantial economic growth. In the late 1990s, however, Indonesia was the country hardest hit by the East Asian Financial Crisis which led to popular protests and Suharto's resignation on 21 May 1998. The Reformasi era following Suharto's resignation, has led to a strengthening of democratic processes, including a regional autonomy program, the secession of East Timor, and the first direct presidential election in 2004. Political and economic instability, social unrest, corruption, natural disasters, and terrorism have slowed progress. Although relations among different religious and ethnic groups are largely harmonious, acute sectarian discontent and violence remain problems in some areas.

Prehistory

The replica of Java man skull, originally discovered in Sangiran, Central Java.

Geologically the area of modern Indonesia appeared sometime around the Pleistocene period, when it was still linked with the Asian mainland. The archipelago formed during the thaw after the latest ice age. Fossilised remains of Homo erectus, popularly known as the "Java Man", suggest the Indonesian archipelago was inhabited two million to 500,000 years ago. Homo sapiens reached the region by around 45,000 years ago. Recent discoveries on the island of Flores were dubbed "Flores Man" (Homo floresiensis), a miniature hominoid that grew only three feet tall, although whether this constitutes a separate species is still in dispute. Flores Man seems to have shared some islands with Java Man until only 10,000 years ago, when they became extinct.

Austronesian people form the majority of the modern population. They may have arrived in Indonesia around 2000 BCE. Dong Son culture spread to Indonesia bringing with it techniques of wet-field rice cultivation, ritual buffalo sacrifice, bronze casting, megalithic practises, and ikat weaving methods. Some of these practices remain in areas including the Batak areas of Sumatra, Toraja in Sulawesi, and several islands in Nusa Tenggara. Early Indonesians were animists who honoured the spirits of the dead as their souls or life force could still help the living.

Ideal agricultural conditions, and the mastering of wet-field rice cultivation as early as the 8th century BCE, allowed villages, towns, and small kingdoms to flourish by the 1st century CE. These kingdoms (little more than collections of villages subservient to petty chieftains) evolved with their own ethnic and tribal religions. Java's hot and even temperature, abundant rain and volcanic soil, was perfect for wet rice cultivation. Such agriculture required a well organised society in contrast to dry-field rice is a much simpler form of cultivation that doesn't require an elaborate social structure to support it.

Hindu-Buddiest Civilization
Early Kingdom

References to the Dvipantara or Jawa Dwipa Hindu kingdom in Java and Sumatra appear in Sanskrit writings from 200 BC. The earliest archeological relic discovered in Indonesia is from the Ujung Kulon National Park, West Java, where an early Hindu statue of Ganesha from the 1st century AD was found on the summit of Mount Raksa in Panaitan Island. There is also archeological evidence of a kingdom in Sunda territory in West Java dating from the 2nd century, and according to Dr Tony Djubiantono, the head of Bandung Archeology Agency, Jiwa Temple in Batujaya, Karawang, West Java was also built around this time

A number of Hindu and Buddhist states flourished and then declined across Indonesia. By the time of the European Renaissance, Java and Sumatra had already seen over a millennium of civilization and two major empires. One such early kingdom was Tarumanagara, which flourished between 358 and 669 AD. Located in West Java close to modern-day Jakarta, its fifth-century king, Purnawarman, established the earliest known inscriptions in Java, the Ciaruteun inscription located near Bogor. On this monument, King Purnavarman inscribed his name and made an imprint of his footprints, as well as his elephant's footprints. The accompanying inscription reads, "Here are the footprints of King Purnavarman, the heroic conqueror of the world". This inscription is in Sanskrit and is still clear after 1500 years. Purnawarman apparently built a canal that changed the course of the Cakung River, and drained a coastal area for agriculture and settlement. In his stone inscriptions, Purnawarman associated himself with Vishnu, and Brahmins ritually secured the hydraulic project.

Three rough plinths dating from the beginning of the 4th century are found in Kutai, East Kalimantan, near Mahakam River. The plinths bear an inscription in the Pallava script of India reading "A gift to the Brahmin priests".

The political history of Indonesian archipelago during the seventh to 11th century was dominated by Srivijaya based in Sumatra, also Sailendra that dominated central Java and constructed Borobudur, the largest Buddhist monument in the world. In fourteenth and fifteen centuries the history is not well known due to scarcity of evidence. Two major states dominated this period; Majapahit in East Java, the greatest of the pre-Islamic Indonesian states, and Malacca on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula, arguably the greatest of the Muslim trading empires.

Medang Kingdom
Prambanan in Java; built during the Sanjaya dynasty of Mataram, it is one of the largest Hindu temple complexes in south-east Asia.

Medang or previously known as Mataram was an Indianized kingdom based in Central Java around modern-day Yogyakarta between the 8th and 10th centuries. The centre of the kingdom was moved from Central Java to East Java by Mpu Sindok. The move may have been caused by an eruption of the volcano Mount Merapi, or a power struggle.

The first king of Mataram was Sri Sanjaya and left inscriptions in stone. The monumental Hindu temple of Prambanan in the vicinity of Yogyakarta was built by Daksa. Dharmawangsa ordered the translation of the Mahabharata into Old Javanese in 996.

The kingdom collapsed into chaos at the end of Dharmawangsa's reign under military pressure from Srivijaya. One of the last major kings of Mataram was Airlangga who reigned from 1016 until 1049. Airlangga was a son of Udayana of Bali and a relative of Dharmawangsa re-established the kingdom including Bali under the name of Kahuripan.

Srivijaya
The empire of Srivijaya in Southeast Asia

Srivijaya was a ethnic Malay kingdom on Sumatra which influenced much of the Maritime Southeast Asia. From the 7th century CE, the powerful Srivijaya naval kingdom flourished as a result of trade and the influences of Hinduism and Buddhism that were imported with it. As early as the first century CE Indonesian vessels made trade voyages as far as Africa.

Picture: a ship carved on Borobudur, circa 800 CE.

Srivijaya was centred in the coastal trading centre of present day Palembang. Srivijaya was not a "state" in the modern sense with defined boundaries and a centralized government to which the citizens own allegiance.Rather Srivijaya was a confederacy form of society centered on a royal heartland. It was a thalassocracy and did not extend its influence far beyond the coastal areas of the islands of Southeast Asia. Trade was the driving force of Srivijaya just as it is for most societies throughout history.

The Srivijayan navy controlled the trade that made its way through the Strait of Malacca.

By the 7th century, the harbors of various vassal states of Srivijaya lined both coasts of the Straits of Melaka. Around this time, Srivijaya had established suzerainty over large areas of Sumatra, western Java, and much of the Malay Peninsula. Dominating the Malacca and Sunda straits, the empire controlled both the Spice Route traffic and local trade. It remained a formidable sea power until the 13th century. This spread the ethnic Malay culture throughout Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, and western Borneo. A stronghold of Vajrayana Buddhism, Srivijaya attracted pilgrims and scholars from other parts of Asia.

A series of Chola raids in the 11th century weakened the Srivijayan hegemony and enabled the formation of regional kingdoms based, like Kediri, on intensive agriculture rather than coastal and long distance trade. Srivijayan influence waned by the 11th century. The island was in frequent conflict with the Javanese kingdoms, first Singhasari and then Majapahit. Islam eventually made its way to the Aceh region of Sumatra, spreading its influence through contacts with Arabs and Indian traders. By the late 13th century, the kingdom of Pasai in northern Sumatra converted to Islam. At that time Srivijaya was briefly a tributary of the Khmer empire and later the Sukhothai kingdom. The last inscription dates to 1374, where a crown prince, Ananggavarman, is mentioned. Srivijaya ceased to exist by 1414, when Parameswara, the kingdom's last prince, converted to Islam and founded the Sultanate of Malacca on the Malay peninsula.

Singhasari and Majapahit

Wringin Lawang, the split gate shows the red brick construction, and strong geometric lines of Majapahit architecture. Located at Jatipasar, Trowulan, East Java.

Despite a lack of historical evidence, it is known that Majapahit was the most dominant of Indonesia's pre-Islamic states.The Hindu Majapahit kingdom was founded in eastern Java in the late 13th century, and under Gajah Mada it experienced what is often referred to as a "Golden Age" in Indonesian history,when its influence extended to much of southern Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Sumatra, and Bali from about 1293 to around 1500.

The founder of the Majapahit Empire, Kertarajasa, was the son-in-law of the ruler of the Singhasari kingdom, also based in Java. After Singhasari drove Srivijaya out of Java in 1290, the rising power of Singhasari came to the attention of Kublai Khan in China and he sent emissaries demanding tribute. Kertanagara, ruler of the Singhasari kingdom, refused to pay tribute and the Khan sent a punitive expedition which arrived off the coast of Java in 1293. By that time, a rebel from Kediri, Jayakatwang, had killed Kertanagara. The Majapahit founder allied himself with the Mongols against Jayakatwang and, once the Singhasari kingdom was destroyed, turned and forced his Mongol allies to withdraw in confusion.

Gajah Mada, an ambitious Majapahit prime minister and regent from 1331 to 1364, extended the empire's rule to the surrounding islands. A few years after Gajah Madah's death, the Majapahit navy captured Palembang, putting an end to the Srivijayan kingdom. Although the Majapahit rulers extended their power over other islands and destroyed neighbouring kingdoms, their focus seems to have been on controlling and gaining a larger share of the commercial trade that passed through the archipelago. About the time Majapahit was founded, Muslim traders and proselytisers began entering the area. After its peak in the 14th century, Majapahit power began to decline and was unable to control the rising power of the Sultanate of Malacca. Dates for the end of the Majapahit Empire range from 1478 to 1520. A large number of courtiers, artisans, priests, and members of the royal family moved east to the island of Bali at the end of Majapahit power.

The age of Islamic states

The spread of Islam in Indonesia

Although Muslim traders first traveled through South East Asia early in the Islamic era, the earliest evidence of Islamized populations in Indonesia dates to the 13th century in northern Sumatra. Although it is known that the spread of Islam began in the west of the archipelago, the fragmentary evidence does not suggest a rolling wave of conversion through adjacent areas; rather, it suggests the process was complicated and slow.The spread of Islam was driven by increasing trade links outside of the archipelago; in general, traders and the royalty of major kingdoms were the first to adopt the new religion.

Other Indonesian areas gradually adopted Islam, making it the dominant religion in Java and Sumatra by the end of the 16th century. For the most part, Islam overlaid and mixed with existing cultural and religious influences, which shaped the predominant form of Islam in Indonesia, particularly in Java.Only Bali retained a Hindu majority. In the eastern archipelago, both Christian and Islamic missionaries were active in the 16th and 17th centuries, and, currently, there are large communities of both religions on these islands.

Sultanate of Mataram
The cemetery compound of Mataram Sultans in Kota Gede, Yogyakarta.

The Sultanate of Mataram was the third Sultanate in Java, after the Sultanate of Demak Bintoro and the Sultanate of Pajang.

According to Javanese records, Kyai Gedhe Pamanahan became the ruler of the Mataram area in the 1570s with the support of the kingdom of Pajang to the east, near the current site of Surakarta (Solo). Pamanahan was often referred to as Kyai Gedhe Mataram after his ascension.

Pamanahan's son, Panembahan Senapati Ingalaga, replaced his father on the throne around 1584. Under Senapati the kingdom grew substantially through regular military campaigns against Mataram's neighbors. Shortly after his accession, for example, he conquered his father's patrons in Pajang.

The reign of Panembahan Seda ing Krapyak (c. 1601-1613), the son of Senapati, was dominated by further warfare, especially against powerful Surabaya, already a major center in East Java. The first contact between Mataram and the Dutch East India Company (VOC) occurred under Krapyak. Dutch activities at the time were limited to trading from limited coastal settlements, so their interactions with the inland Mataram kingdom were limited, although they did form an alliance against Surabaya in 1613. Krapyak died that year.

Krapyak was succeeded by his son, who is known simply as Sultan Agung ("Great Sultan") in Javanese records. Agung was responsible for the great expansion and lasting historical legacy of Mataram due to the extensive military conquests of his long reign from 1613 to 1646.

After years of war Agung finally conquered Surabaya. The city surrounded by land and sea and starved it into submission. With Surabaya brought into the empire, the Mataram kingdom encompassed all of central and eastern Java, and Madura; only in the west did Banten and the Dutch settlement in Batavia remain outside Agung's control. He tried repeatedly in the 1620s and 1630s to drive the Dutch from Batavia, but his armies had met their match, and he was forced to share control over Java.

In 1645 he began building Imogiri, his burial place, about fifteen kilometers south of Yogyakarta. Imogiri remains the resting place of most of the royalty of Yogyakarta and Surakarta to this day. Agung died in the spring of 1646, with his image of royal invincibility shattered by his losses to the Dutch, but he did leave behind an empire that covered most of Java and its neighboring islands.

Upon taking the throne, Agung's son Susuhunan Amangkurat I tried to bring long-term stability to Mataram's realm, murdering local leaders that were insufficiently deferential to him, and closing ports so he alone had control over trade with the Dutch.

By the mid-1670s dissatisfaction with the king fanned into open revolt. Raden Trunajaya, a prince from Madura, lead a revolt fortified by itinerant mercenaries from Makassar that captured the king's court at Mataram in mid-1677. The king escaped to the north coast with his eldest son, the future king Amangkurat II, leaving his younger son Pangeran Puger in Mataram. Apparently more interested in profit and revenge than in running a struggling empire, the rebel Trunajaya looted the court and withdrew to his stronghold in East Java leaving Puger in control of a weak court.

Amangkurat I died just after his expulsion, making Amangkurat II king in 1677. He too was nearly helpless, though, having fled without an army or treasury to build one. In an attempt to regain his kingdom, he made substantial concessions to the Dutch, who then went to war to reinstate him. For the Dutch, a stable Mataram empire that was deeply indebted to them would help ensure continued trade on favorable terms. They were willing to lend their military might to keep the kingdom together. Dutch forces first captured Trunajaya, then forced Puger to recognize the sovereignty of his elder brother Amangkurat II.

The Sultanate of Banten

In 1524-25, Sunan Gunung Jati from Cirebon, together with the armies of Demak Sultanate, seized the port of Banten from the Sunda kingdom, and established The Sultanate of Banten. This was accompanied by Muslim preachers and the adoption of Islam amongst the local population. At its peak in the first half of the 17th century, the Sultanate lasted from 1526 to 1813 AD. The Sultanate left many archaeological remains and historical records.

Indonesia Literature

English Sintax

Syntax - English sentence structure

Introduction: This page contains some basic information about sentence structure (syntax) and sentence types. It also includes examples of common sentence problems in written English. ESL students who understand the information on this page and follow the advice have a better chance of writing well.

Definition: Linguists have problems in agreeing how to define the word sentence. For this web page, sentence will be taken to mean: 'a sequence of words whose first word starts with a capital letter and whose last word is followed by an end punctuation mark (period/full stop or question mark or exclamamtion mark)'. On the basis of this definition, some of the sentences written by ESL students (indeed by all writers) will be correct, and other sentences will be problematic. Good readers (teachers, for example!) can quickly see the difference between a correct and a problematic sentence.
   

Subject/predicate: All sentences are about something or someone. The something or someone that the sentence is about is called the subject of the sentence. In the following sentences the subjects are shown in red. Note how the subject is often, but not always, the first thing in the sentence.

    * John often comes late to class.
      My friend and I both have a dog named Spot.
    * Many parts of the Asian coastline were destroyed by a tsunami in 2004.
    * The old hotel at the end of the street is going to be knocked down to make way for a new supermarket.
    * Sitting in a tree at the bottom of the garden was a huge black bird with long blue tail feathers.
    * The grade 7 Korean boy who has just started at FIS speaks excellent English.
    * On Saturdays I never get up before 9 o'clock.
    * Before giving a test the teacher should make sure that the students are well-prepared.
    * Lying on the sofa watching old films is my favourite hobby.

The predicate contains information about the someone or something that is the subject. The example sentences above are shown again, this time with the predicate marked in green.

    * John often comes late to class.
      My friend and I both have a dog named Spot.
    * Many parts of the Asian coastline were destroyed by a tsunami in 2004.
    * The old hotel at the end of the street is going to be knocked down to make way for a new supermarket.
    * Sitting in a tree at the bottom of the garden was a huge black bird with long blue tail feathers.
    * The grade 7 Korean boy who has just started at FIS speaks excellent English.
    * On Saturdays I never get up before 9 o'clock.
    * Before giving a test the teacher should make sure that the students are well-prepared.
    * Lying on the sofa watching old films is my favourite hobby.

Do a quiz on the subject and predicate.

Simple subject/predicate: As you can see from the example sentences above both the subject and the predicate can consist of many words. The simple subject is the main word in the subject, and the simple predicate is the main word in the predicate. The simple subject is always a noun/pronoun and the simple predicate is always a verb.

In the following sentences the simple subject is shown in red and the simple predicate is shown in green.

    * My ESL teacher speaks a little Russian.
    * The young girl with the long black hair fell from her bike yesterday in heavy rain.
    * At the back of the line in the cafeteria yesterday was a large brown dog with a yellow collar around its neck!
    * My friend and I are going on holiday together this year.
    * Your mother or your father must come to the meeting.
    * Sitting in a tree at the bottom of the garden was a huge black bird with long blue tail feathers.

From the last three examples sentences above you will notice that the simple subjects and simple predicates can be more than one word

Advice: To write strong, clear sentences you must know who or what you are writing about (subject) and what you want to say about them or it (predicate). Your writing will be more interesting if the subject is not the first thing in every sentence you write.

Do a quiz to identify simple subjects and predicates.

Sentence types: One way to categorize sentences is by the clauses they contain. (A clause is a part of a sentence containing a subject and a predicate.) Here are the 4 sentence types:

    * Simple: Contains a single, independent clause.
          o I don't like dogs.
          o Our school basketball team lost their last game of the season 75-68.
          o The old hotel opposite the bus station in the center of the town is probably going to be knocked down at the end of next year.

    * Compound: Contains two independent clauses that are joined by a coordinating conjunction. The most common coordinating conjunctions are: and, or, but, so.)
          o I don't like dogs, and my sister doesn't like cats.
          o You can write on paper, or you can use a computer.
          o A tree fell onto the school roof in a storm, but none of the students was injured.


    * Complex: Contains an independent clause plus one dependent clause. (A dependent clause starts with a subordinating conjunction. Examples: that, because, although, where, which, since.)
          o I don't like dogs that bark at me when I go past.
          o You can write on paper, although a computer is better.
          o None of the students were injured when the tree fell through the school roof.
      Note: A dependent clause standing alone without an independent clause is called a fragment sentence - see below.

    * Compound-complex: Contains 3 or more clauses (of which at least two are independent and one is dependent).
          o I don't like dogs, and my sister doesn't like cats because they make her sneeze.
          o You can write on paper, but using a computer is better as you can easily correct your mistakes.
          o A tree fell onto the school roof in a storm, but none of the students was injured although many of them were in classrooms at the top of the building.

Advice: Writing that contains mostly short, simple sentences can be uninteresting or even irritating to read. Writing that consists of mostly long, complex sentences is usually difficult to read. Good writers, therefore, use a variety of sentence types. They also occasionally start complex (or compound-complex) sentences with the dependent clause and not the independent clause. In the following examples the dependent clause is shown in red:

    * Although it was raining, we decided to go fishing.
    * If it doesn't rain soon, the river will dry out.
    * Because the road was icy and the driver was going too fast, he was unable to brake in time when a fox ran into the road in front of him.

Note: Sentences can also be categorized according to their function.
Note: Independent clauses are also called main clauses. Dependent clauses are also called subordinate clauses.

Do a quiz to identify clause types.   Do a quiz to identify sentence types.

Problematic 'sentences': To write a correct sentence, you need to have a good understanding of what a sentence is. Students who don't have this understanding, or don't take care, often include problem sentences in their writing. Native English speakers are just as likely to write problem sentences as ESL students. There are three main types of problem sentence:

    * Run-on sentences: These are two sentences that the writer has not separated with an end punctuation mark, or has not joined with a conjunction. (Click the following run-ons to see where they should be separated into two sentences.)
          o I went to Paris in the vacation it is the most beautiful place I have ever visited.
          o It's never too late to learn to swim you never know when you may fall from a boat.
          o If you're going to the shops can you buy me some eggs and flour I want to make a cake.
          o I like our new math teacher, she always explains the work very clearly.
          o He was late to school again, his bus got caught in heavy traffic.

      Advice: It is helpful to read your written work aloud. When you speak, you will make natural pauses to mark the end of your sentences or clauses. If there is no corresponding end punctuation mark in your writing, you can be almost certain that you have written a run-on sentence.

    * Sentence fragments: Fragment sentences are unfinished sentences, i.e. they don't contain a complete idea. A common fragment sentence in student writing is a dependent clause standing alone without an independent clause. In the each of the following examples the fragment is the second 'sentence', shown in red:
          o I don't think I'm going to get a good grade. Because I didn't study.
          o She got angry and shouted at the teacher. Which wasn't a very good idea.
          o He watched TV for an hour and then went to bed. After falling asleep on the sofa.
          o She got up and ran out of the library. Slamming the door behind her.
          o I have to write a report on Albert Einstein. The famous scientist who left Europe to live in the USA.
          o After riding my bike without problems for over a year, the chain broke. 40 kilometers from my house!

      Advice: If your 'sentence' is a dependent clause, or it doesn't contain both a subject and a predicate, then it is not a proper sentence. You can often detect fragments if you read your writing backwards sentence by sentence, i.e. from the last sentence to the first one. You can usually correct a fragment by connecting it to the sentence before or after it.

      Good writers, who have a full understanding of the sentence, occasionally choose to write a sentence fragment. So you may see sentence fragments in the fiction or even some of the non-fiction you read. As an ESL student, however, you should avoid fragments (except when writing your own creative stories).

    * Rambling sentences: A rambling sentence is a sentence made up of many clauses, often connected by a coordinating conjunction such as and, or, so.
          o John usually gets up before 7 o'clock, but yesterday his alarm clock did not ring, so he was still asleep when his boss called him at 10.30 to ask where he was and tell him that he would lose his job if he was late again.
          o Although the blue whale has been protected for over 30 years and its numbers are increasing, especially in the North Pacific, where whale hunting has been banned, it is still at risk of extinction as its habitat is being polluted by waste from oil tankers and its main food, the plankton, is being killed off by harmful rays from the sun, which can penetrate the earth's atmosphere because there is a huge hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica.

      Advice: A rambling sentence is quite easy to spot. You have almost certainly written one if your sentence contains more than 3 or 4 conjunctions. If you read the sentence aloud and run out of breath before reaching the end of it, you have written a rambling sentence. If your sentence stretches over many lines of writing, you have certainly written a rambling sentence and most probably a run-on sentence too.

      Unlike run-ons or fragments, rambling sentences are not wrong, but they are tiresome for the reader and one of the signs of a poor writer. You should avoid them.

Do a quiz to identify problematic sentences.

General advice: If you are not sure whether you have written a good, correct sentence, ask your teacher! And remember: The more you read in English, the better a writer you will become. This is because reading good writing provides you with models of English sentence structure that will have a positive influence on your own written work.

Note: Good writing consists not only of a string of varied, correctly-structured sentences. The sentences must also lead from one to the next so that the text is cohesive and the writer's ideas are coherent. For information on these two important concepts, go to the Language words for non-language teachers page and click on Cohesion.