Conjunctions are the words that join sentences and phrases, and connect or coordinate other words together. They are difficult to define abstractly, so we will turn quickly to worked examples of four important categories of conjunctions: coordinating conjunctions, adverbial conjunctions, correlative conjunctions, and subordinating conjunctions. As students of INTD 106 and of college writing more generally, you’ll want to feel competent using conjunctions because they often give shape to the transitional logic that links your ideas into a coherent thesis. The idea of connection – of joining – is at the heart of the term conjunction, so these are the building blocks of controlled complexity in your writing.

Coordinating Conjunctions

The most common conjunctions are and, or, and but. These are all coordinating conjunctions. Coordinating conjunctions are conjunctions that join, or coordinate, two or more equivalent items (such as words, phrases, or sentences). The mnemonic acronym FANBOYS stands for the most common coordinating conjunctions: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so.

• For presents a reason (“They do not gamble or smoke, for they are ascetics.”)
• And presents non-contrasting items or ideas (“They gamble, and they smoke.”)
• Nor presents a non-contrasting negative idea (“They do not gamble, nor do they smoke.”)
• But presents a contrast or exception (“They gamble, but they don’t smoke.”)
• Or presents an alternative item or idea (“Every day they gamble, or they smoke.”)
• Yet presents a contrast or exception (“They gamble, yet they don’t smoke.”)
• So presents a consequence (“He gambled well last night, so he smoked a cigar to celebrate.”)

Here are some examples of these coordinating conjunctions used in sentences:

• Nuclear-powered artificial hearts proved to be complicated, bulky, and expensive.
• In the 1960s, artificial heart devices did not fit well and tended to obstruct the flow of venous blood into the right atrium.
• The blood vessels leading to the device tended to kink, obstructing the filling of the chambers and resulting in inadequate output.
• Any external injury or internal injury put patients at risk of uncontrolled bleeding because the small clots that formed throughout the circulatory system used up so much of the clotting factor.
• The current from the storage batteries can power lights, but the current for appliances must be modified within an inverter.

Coordinating conjunctions might seem simple, but, in fact, many undergraduate writers use them imprecisely. They write, “Any external injury and internal injury put patients at risk of uncontrolled bleeding…” or, “The current from the storage batteries can power lights, and the current for appliances must be modified within an inverter.” Presumably, this default to “and” as the coordinating conjunction of choice stems from students’ recognition that they want to join related ideas together, but “and” often blurs the precise relationship. If you pile ideas together with “and” and don’t differentiate logical relationships between items and hierarchies, and still expect readers to follow your train of thought, you’re expecting too much: your sentence sounds as if it is gasping for breath and it reads like a list (like this sentence just did). Indeed, a grocery list works fine with “and:” “we need canned tomatoes and pasta and apples and granola bars.” You probably don’t care whether you pick up the apples first, or the pasta, and the items aren’t even ingredients for the same recipe (presumably!). But you really should have a less arbitrary plan for linking ideas together if you want someone to read 5-10 pages of your thoughts about biodiversity or the arts of Oceania. Here’s that sentence again with some more precise conjunctions: “If you pile ideas together with “and” but don’t differentiate logical relationships between items or hierarchies, yet still expect readers to follow your train of thought, you’re expecting too much: your sentence sounds as if it is gasping for breath and it reads like a list.”

At the bottom of this page, after the discussions of the other categories of conjunctions, is a table of conjunctions divided into the logical categories they serve. It’s very useful!

As you can see from the examples above, a comma only appears before these conjunctions sometimes. So how can you tell if you need a comma or not? There are three general rules to help you decide.

Rule 1: Joining Two Complete Ideas

Let’s look back at one of our example sentences:

The current from the storage batteries can power lights, but the current for appliances must be modified within an inverter.

There are two complete ideas in this sentence. A complete idea has both a subject (a noun or pronoun) and a verb. The subjects have been italicized, and the verbs bolded:

• the current from the storage batteries can power lights
• the current for appliances must be modified within an inverter.

Because each of these ideas could stand alone as a sentence, the coordinating conjunction that joins them must be preceded by a comma. Otherwise you’ll have a run-on sentence.

Rule 2: Joining Two Similar Items

What if there’s only one complete idea, but two subjects or two verbs?

• Any external injury or internal injury put patients at risk of uncontrolled bleeding because the small clots that formed throughout the circulatory system used up so much of the clotting factor.
  • The first part of this sentence has two subjects: external injury and internal injury. They are joined with the conjunction or; we don’t need any additional punctuation here.
• In the 1960s, artificial heart devices did not fit well and tended to obstruct the flow of venous blood into the right atrium.
  • This sentence has two verbs: did not fit well and tended to obstruct. They are joined with the conjunction and; we don’t need any additional punctuation here.

Rule 3: Joining Three or More Similar Items

What do you do if there are three or more items?

• Anna loves to color-code due dates, Luz loves to get ahead of schedule, and David loves the buzz of an adrenaline-fueled all-nighter.
• Fishing, hunting, and gathering were once the only ways for people to get food.
• Emanuel has a very careful schedule planned for tomorrow. He needs to work, study for his Arabic exam, exercise, eat something substantial, and clean his car.

As you can see in the examples above, there is a comma after each item, including the item just prior to the conjunction. There is a little bit of contention about this, but overall, most styles prefer to keep the additional comma (also called the serial comma). We discuss the serial comma in more depth in Commas.

Adverbial Conjunctions

Adverbial conjunctions link two separate thoughts or sentences. When used to separate thoughts, as in the example below, a comma is required on either side of the conjunction.

The first artificial hearts were made of smooth silicone rubber, which apparently caused excessive clotting and, therefore, uncontrolled bleeding.

When used to separate sentences, as in the examples below, a semicolon is required before the conjunction and a comma after.

• The Kedeco produces 1200 watts in 17 mph winds using a 16-foot rotor; on the other hand, the Dunlite produces 2000 watts in 25 mph winds.
• For short periods, the fibers were beneficial; however, the eventual buildup of fibrin on the inner surface of the device would impair its function.
• The atria of the heart contribute a negligible amount of energy; in fact, the total power output of the heart is only about 2.5 watts.

Adverbial conjunctions include the following words that you probably use in most argument-based college writing; however, it is important to note that this is by no means a complete list.

Correlative Conjunctions

Correlative conjunctions are word pairs that work together to join words and groups of words of equal weight in a sentence. This video will define this type of conjunction before it goes through five of the most common correlative conjunctions:

The table below shows some examples of correlative conjunctions being used in a sentence:

Subordinating Conjunctions

Subordinating conjunctions are conjunctions that join an independent clause and a dependent clause. Here are some examples of subordinating conjunctions:

• The heart undergoes two cardiac cycle periods: diastole, when blood enters the ventricles, and systole, when the ventricles contract and blood is pumped out of the heart.
• Whenever an electron acquires enough energy to leave its orbit, the atom is positively charged.
• If the wire is broken, electrons will cease to flow and current is zero.
• I’ll be here as long as it takes for you to finish.
• She did the favor so that he would owe her one.

Let’s take a moment to look back at the previous examples. Can you see the pattern in comma usage? The commas aren’t dependent on the presence of subordinating conjunctions—they’re dependent on the placement of clauses they’re in. Let’s revisit a couple of examples:

• The heart undergoes two cardiac cycle periods: diastole, when blood enters the ventricles, and systole, when the ventricles contract and blood is pumped out of the heart.
  • These clauses are both extra information: information that is good to know, but not necessary for the meaning of the sentence. This means they need commas on either side.
• Whenever an electron acquires enough energy to leave its orbit, the atom is positively charged.
  • In this sentence, the dependent clause comes before an independent clause. This means it should be followed by a comma.
• She did the favor so that he would owe her one.
  • In this sentence, the independent clause comes before an dependent clause. This means no comma is required.

The most common subordinating conjunctions in the English language are shown in the table below: