Shorten the Long Sentences - Part 1

Articles In This Section:

· Shorten the Long Sentences - Part 1

· Shorten the Long Sentences - Part 2

· Shorten the Long Sentences - Part 3

· Shorten the Long Sentences - Part 4

· Shorten the Long Sentences - Part 5

· Shorten the Long Sentences - Part 6

· Shorten the Long Sentences - Part 7

For the next check, consider the long sentences. Let's count the words between the periods and see what we can do about lessening the number. Why? Well, short sentences are easier to say. They allow you to put the emphasis where you want it. Here is an example.

"It is new, unique, ingenious, and different." If I want to emphasize each of those four points, I could say: "It is new. It is unique. It is ingenious. It is different." Bang, bang, bang, bang—I can hit each word just as hard as I choose. It might be even more effective if I used a contraction of "it is," changing it to "it's." Then it would read: "It's new. It's unique. It's ingenious. It's different." The example is an exaggeration, but it explains the point. When you talk in long sentences it is easy to get tangled up in something like this:

"These mounting, stormy tirades against American free enterprise during the last decade, far from wearing themselves out, have prospered and won new converts, because American management people have failed to provide the true story of the glorious achievements of American free industry."

Why is this true? Perhaps it is because too many management people speak in the language of this sentence. I'll bet the speaker who spoke that sentence was an orator. And that those inarticulate management people he mentions applauded his remark.

Some of this addiction to the long sentence may come from the newspaper reporter. He is taught to get enough into the first sentence so that a reader, caught by the headline, keeps on reading until he knows what the story is about. Here is an example:

"Dedication of the new Wurlitzer electric organ purchased recently by the Grace Gospel Church will be held Sunday at 3 p.m., with Harold Byers, organist, presenting the program."

There are a number of ideas in that sentence. The church has a new organ. It is a Wurlitzer. It is electric. It will be dedicated Sunday at 3 p.m. Harold Byers, the organist, will present the program.

Suppose you were a member of the Men's Club of that church, and it was your job to tell the other members that the dedication was scheduled for Sunday and you wanted them all to attend. How would you say it? Surely not in the words of that lead sentence in the newspaper account. In speaking you do not have to get it all into the first sentence. Your audience is sitting there in front of you. They will continue sitting, and listening, you hope, while you say a number of sentences.

There are many reasons why the long sentence may get you into trouble. Here are a few:

1. You stumble over the wording.

2. You have a tendency to use meaningless phrases.

3. You lose a portion of the idea.

4. You make yourself more difficult to understand.

5. You so load the sentence with ideas that you lose emphasis on any one of them.

6. You ask the audience to make too much effort to understand you.