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Second language students may develop writing skills gradually, or they may learn and practice these skills through the use of sentence combining techniques. A study is reported of the consistent use of sentence combining exercises with intermediate language classes at the university level. A total of 325 students enrolled in intermediate French, German, and Spanish classes were included in the experiment. For each language, three classes served as the experimental group and three as the control group. Both control and experimental groups were taught according to a modified audiolingual method and both used the same texts. However, the experimental classes practiced sentence combining and did fewer reading selections. The results supported the claim that consistent sentence combining practice accelerates the acquisition of writing skills and enables the student to use more advanced syntactic patterns sooner than s/he would if left to develop the skill in a less systematic way. The discussion of the experiment includes suggestions for using sentence combining techniques in the classroom. A large number of examples of sentence combining exercises in French, German, and Spanish, arranged in progressive order of difficulty, concludes the volume. (AMH)