Sentence Beginnings








Example #1

The dog barked with great ferocity.

With great ferocity, the dog barked.


Example #2

The car’s engine made a loud boom from around the corner.



Example #3




Example #4

Briana danced the night away.


Laughing at her own silliness, Briana danced the night away.


Example #5




We can also try this with an adverb.


Or, an appositive.


Example 6








PaperRater’s FREE Plagiariam and Grammar Checker



  1. Good job. Please provide some examples in the context of a scientific paper.

    1. I was wondering the same! In scientific writing we always try to make sentences as simple, clear an direct as possible. However, you can tell the difference between articles that are hard to read and others than are easily followed. I'd like to know where are the limits of altering the noun-verb structure in that case. Thanks!

    2. I'm still wondering the same, as my research paper scored a 12.2% on PaperRater for this area.

    3. Typically, research papers are less about style and more about content. I think you'll find that variety in your sentence beginnings is still applicable, but don't be concerned that your score in this area is not as high as when you are writing an essay or article.

  2. Mind adding a few examples for a self-biography?

  3. It's easy to get stuck into a rut with sentence beginnings. I have to come back here on occasion to review things. Here are a few more to help anyone else that comes in here.

    She acted interested. At Least he thought so, either that or he had tried too hard?

    A twig snapped behind him breaking the quiet of the forest.

    Turning around, he stared riveted at a tall, young, elfin woman.

    Running full tilt she sprang at him, as she neared he could see the fear on her face as death it self were behind her.

    The left one turned it's torso and he could see it's gentle eyes sticking out from under the fur in the middle.

    A moment later he waved to a barmaid near by.

    Early the next morning the sunlight filled the room with a golden hue.

    The crowd standing before the pavilion clapped and whistled at her.

  4. thank you that helped me a lot

    See how this paragraph keeps our attention? Varied sentence beginnings..."
    Yes, I can see how the paragraph stands to attention by using weird, twisted sentence structure and always starting with an adverb. I don't see how this can be called varied sentence beginning. "Around the corner came the car" and "Up the giant oak tree they climbed" have the exact same structure and seem to be artificially put together.

    1. The general idea is that people favor variety, and we want to apply this to our sentence beginnings. In the paragraph that you referenced, you'll see that there are a mix of beginnings -- noun phrase, prepositional phrase, adverb, etc.

  6. What if you are writing a personal essay in first person. How do you avoid over using my and I

    1. First person narratives should not be any different than other written works. Example: Instead of "I looked at John nervously...", the sentence could begin with "Nervously, I looked at John...". Please remember that variety is the key, as beginning a sentence with a noun phrase is not better or worse than beginning with an adverb, preposition, etc.

  7. Is this applicable to essays or only stories?

    1. All writings benefit from variety of sentence beginnings, but some lend themselves better to this than others. For example, a lab report's value and emphasis lies primarily in conveying information rather than having an appealing style.

  8. Examples and comments helped. Thanks.

  9. Okay, starting today I will vary my beginnings and look for different ways to start them

