Writing is often burdened with sentences that are too long. The more words and relationships in a sentence, the more confused your readers may become. As writers, we need to remember that our brains process information better when it’s presented in small chunks.
A long sentence leads to a frustrated reader, which is why sentence length does matter. A good guideline is to keep the maximum length of a sentence to 2.5 lines typed in a size 12 font.
One Main Idea
If a sentence is over 2.5 lines, there is probably more than one idea being presented to readers. Sometimes a sentence with only one idea might end up being longer than 2.5 typed lines, or much shorter. That’s fine, because having different sentence lengths adds variety to your writing.
Controlling sentence length is a matter of selecting information units and making separate sentences for each unit. In other words, a sentence should only cover one main thought or idea. When you change ideas, start a new sentence.
Watch Words and Phrases
Using shorter words and removing bulky phrases is another way to reduce sentence length.
You can also prevent your sentences from becoming overly long by avoiding the overuse of linking words such as and, but, or, so, because, also, and however. All of these words are useful to help you link ideas, but if you overdo it, you may create a run-on sentence.
Let’s look at an example of a run-on sentence that can be divided into shorter ideas.
Before
Our job is to stay between the stacker and the tie machine to see if the newspapers jam, in which case we pull the bundles off and stack them on a skid because otherwise they would back up in the stacker and the press would have to be turned off.
After
Our job is to stay between the stacker and the tie machine to see if the newspapers jam. If they do, we pull the bundles off and stack them on a skid. Otherwise, they would back up in the stacker, and the press would have to be turned off.
We’ve taken one sentence and turned it into three. By separating the three ideas into three chunks of information, we’ve made this text easier to read and understand.
Shorter is Stronger
Note that in our example, the original run-on sentence is harder to follow. Most of us will feel compelled to read it over a couple times to glean the message, which is frustrating. When that run-on sentence is broken down into three separate sentences, the message is strengthened. It is much easier to understand what the job is, what to do, and why it matters. Your readers will appreciate writing that is easy to read and to understand.
