Once you’ve opened up your online sentence tree diagram generator, you can start to place the words in your sentence based on which part of speech they are, and how they relate to the other words in your sentence. Each part of speech has its own conventions for diagramming, but here are some of the most common rules for diagramming:

- How do you set up your basic sentence? On a horizontal line, place your subject (who is performing the action), followed by a vertical line, then your verb (the action).

- How do you diagram a sentence with a direct object? If relevant, place another vertical line, then your direct object (to whom or what the action is being done).

- What about indirect objects? Add indirect objects (people or things indirectly affected by the action) below the corresponding verb, connected by a diagonal line.

- How do you diagram complex sentences with many connective and descriptive words? Below the corresponding words, add adjectives (words that describe nouns), adverbs (words that modify verbs), articles (words that introduce nouns, whether definite—“the”—or indefinite—“a” or “an”), and possessives (words that indicate a specific relationship, such as “their,” “my,” or “our”)—on diagonal lines.

As your sentences become increasingly complex, so too do the rules you need to follow, but this is a great start.

If you’re working on a sentence with two verbs, you’ll want to incorporate another branch dedicated specifically to your second verb. In a sentence in which the subject performs two actions—for example, “The writer organized and diagrammed their sentence”—you would connect “writer” to “organized” and “diagrammed,” with the two verbs stacked vertically and connected by a dotted line labeled “and.”

So, how do you diagram a sentence with two subjects and two verbs? If you’re dealing with a sentence in which both subjects performed both actions—for example, “The writer and editor organized and diagrammed their sentence”—you would similarly stack the two subjects vertically and connect them with “and” then do the same with the verbs.

FigJam’s online sentence diagrammer tool does the heavy lifting when it comes to breaking down a sentence and identifying the different parts.

Generally, breaking down a sentence—no matter how complex or long—requires identifying each word’s part of speech, then its relationship with the other words. Start by breaking out the simplest, most obvious parts: the subject, verb, and oftentimes, direct object. Place these in your sentence diagram, then add the words that connect to these basic components, one by one: articles like “the” and “a” to the subject or object they define, adjectives and adverbs to the nouns and verbs they modify, and so on.