Clause Level

A clause is a group of related words containing a subject and at least one finite verb A clause can be usefully distinguished from a phrase, which is a group of related words that does not contain a subject-verb relationship, such as "in the evening" or "walking down the street" or "having grown used to this situation."​​​ ​
The grammatical importance of clauses reflects the fact that the clause most directly represents the most fundamental structure of meaning: the proposition (a description of a state of affairs whose truth may be asserted, questioned, or otherwise manipulated). For example, 
  • The weather has turned cold.     
  • I saw a movie last night that was terrible.
A proposition is the best model of a complete thought. that we have. Four reasons are presented to you about the importance of knowledge about the clause level for understanding grammar and for improved writing performance. 
First, clauses are an important punctuation unit. When a clause constitutes a whole sentence, in written English it must begin with a capital letter and end in a full stop, or its equivalent. When multiple clauses combine to constitute a sentence, the individual clauses may require special punctuation, such as separation by commas. 
Second, and relatedly, writing teachers are concerned about sentence fragments, that is, non-sentential units improperly punctuated as sentential units.Students must learn the differences between clauses and their constituent units and between clauses and sentences in order to learn to punctuate appropriately.
Third, a developed writing style means being able to employ a range of sentence types, from sentences with just a single clause through sentences with an indefinite number of clauses. A traditional technique for helping student writers expand their repertoires is sentence combining, or more accurately, clause combining. 

Fourth, an important aspect of standard English grammar is subject- verb agreement. That is, the subject and predicator (verb) of a clause must grammatically agree with each other in person and number. In order to be able to teach subject-verb agreement, teachers must know about subjects, verbs, and clauses. 
After viewing the video lecture, check you understanding with these self check quizzes  
Identifying independent clauses       &      Dependent or independent 

What is a clause ?

Independent vs dependent clause
This website contains all the video tutorials and information directly useful for the various chapters of the course textbook.