Among linguists who work on syntax--of any language--tree diagrams
have been standard representations since the mid-60s.  However,
over the past 35 years, what the tree for a particular sentence
looks like has changed considerable as knowledge about syntax has
increased and as theories have changed.  What this means is that
there a lots of books on tree diagrams and very little agreement.
Almost any college-level grammar text, with the exception of Mark
Lester's, which makes extensive use of Reed-Kellogg diagrams like
you learned, will use tree diagrams and show you how to draw them.
The text I've used for several years now is Max Morenberg's Doing
Grammar (2nd Ed.), and it does a nice job of presenting trees.
However, other texts, like Richard Veit's Discovering English
Grammar, also present trees well but draw different trees.

In short, people will draw Reed-Kellogg diagrams in much more
similar ways that they will draw trees.

With all of that as caveat, it's worth adding the major
difference between trees and RK diagrams.  Trees are about
structures and categories.  RK diagrams are about function.  The
sentences

Sylvia cleaned up the carpet.
Sylvia cleaned the carpet up.

will have the same diagram because the function of "up" is both
is the same.  Their trees will be different because the syntactic
positions of "up" are different.

Morenberg's book does a nice job of bringing together structural
and functional information in a tree, so he succeeds in capturing
some of both methods.

Herb Stahlke

>>> [log in to unmask] 01/11/01 05:45AM >>>
I was taught diagramming in college--the honors program did no
grammar instruction in high school; I believe the assumption was
that we already knew it.  I find diagramming an interesting method
of allowing the logical sequential learner another means of
understanding the structure of our language.

You mention tree diagrams.  I am intrigued.  Are there books out
there on these?  What would you recommend?  I tend to think the
more tools in my belt, the more students (and different styles of
learners) I can reach.

Thanks,
Mary Ann Yedinak

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