Below are explanations for the two Conjunction Samples:

Conjunctions from The Brothers Karamazov

Fyodor Pavlovitch looked both confused and upset; therefore, he did not understand what child they were talking about, so he was surprised to hear that he had a little son in the house.

As the interactive exercise instructs, the first step is to highlight any words that could be conjunctions:

Fyodor Pavlovitch looked both confused and upset; therefore, he did not understand what child they were talking about, so he was surprised to hear that he had a little son in the house.

There appear to be three conjunctions in this sentence:

1. BOTH . . . AND: correlative conjunction; coordinates two adjectivals (CONFUSED and UPSET)
2. THEREFORE: conjunctive adverb; appropriate punctuation; coordinates two independent clauses
3. SO: coordinating conjunction; appropriate punctuation; coordinates two independent clauses

Challenge Sample from Robinson Crusoe

I told my mother that my thoughts were bent upon seeing the very wide world and that I should never settle to anything with resolution enough to go through with it; consequently, my father should give me his consent rather than force me to go without it.

Again, the first step is to highlight any words that might be conjunctions:

I told my mother that my thoughts were bent upon seeing the very wide world and that I should never settle to anything with resolution enough to go through with it; consequently, my father should give me his consent rather than force me to go without it.

For this sample, there appears to be two conjunctions in this sentence:

1. AND: coordinating conjunction; coordinates two nominal that-clauses
2. CONSEQUENTLY: conjunctive adverb; appropriate punctuation; coordinates two independent clauses

Tips to Keep in Mind

The KEY MARKER for conjunctions can oftentimes be punctuation, but, as we will discuss in Section 7, and as you will discover as you perform analyses, punctuation rules are not always consistent and not always followed. In any case, the important thing to keep in mind is that conjunctions always try to join like items, at the word level, the phrase level, or the clause level.