Keep your sentences trim and readable

Apr 13, 2021

Overextended sentences make content less inviting, harder to process

When a person is reading something you’ve written, it can be challenging when the sentences you write are too long, too wordy, and the reader may have difficulty following along and may give up in utter, abject frustration and annoyance and stop reading altogether, even though you tried to write sound, readable content from the very beginning and communicate well to your audience.

OK, that sentence is Public Enemy No. 1. Overly long, wordy sentences gum up the reading flow. We can’t expect people to stay engaged on such a long journey through the verbiage jungle. Many won’t.

Unfortunately, people tend to write this way by nature, just as they reflexively write in passive voice. We don’t know why for sure. Maybe they worry about presenting sentences that sound clipped, overly short. Perhaps they’re afraid shorter sentences will give their writing a staccato-like cadence (even though they rarely do).

This is easy to fix once people are aware of what they’re doing.

First, when your sentence appears too long (getting well in excess of 30 to 35 words), look for the word “and.” Don’t worry if the “and” appears in a list (“Bob, Ann and Dave,” e.g.). That’s OK. Look for an “and” that connects clauses capable of standing on their own. As in this sentence:

“I got up early this morning to spend time at the new gym near my apartment and my mother called during my workout to ask if I could pick up some groceries.”

The “and” here is pointless and overextends the sentence. Delete it. Note how much better this flows:

“I got up early this morning to spend time at the new gym near my apartment. My mother called during my workout to ask if I could pick up some groceries.”

Here, your mind gets a little break at the end of the first sentence to process the material. That break helps the reader with the content flow.

Writing this way is simple but not necessarily intuitive. It’s so common for people to glue clauses together needlessly with conjunctions (e.g., “and,” “or”), crafting sentences that feel as long as a country highway. A little awareness can correct this tendency.

Another corrective is to leave out unnecessary words. Do you want superfluous parts on the engine of your car? If not, then apply this same logic to your content.

Check out this sentence:

“He walked down the street in the darkness of night and his ears heard the loud roar of a passing truck driving by.”

First, it’s probably not necessary to remind readers that it’s dark at night. Second, hearing is always a function of the ears. Third, a roar is loud by definition. Fourth, a passing truck is, of course, going to be driving by. Try this instead:

“He walked down the street at night and heard the roar of a passing truck.”

This brings us to an important tenet: Writers should observe an economy of words whenever possible. Many people hold the misconception that loading up a sentence with adjectives and adverbs makes a writer appear highly literate. But the object of writing is to convey ideas clearly and succinctly, not to position an author as a sophisticate.

So, keep modifiers to a minimum. If you can, choose powerful nouns and verbs that can stand without a modifier. For example, don’t write this:

“He turned on the radio and it made an exceptionally loud sound throughout the house.”

Instead, pick a verb that already conveys loudness. Ditch the modifier:

“He turned on the radio and it blared throughout the house.”

Develop these writing habits and watch your sentences grow trimmer. Your content will be more readable. Your readers will appreciate it.

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