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Avoiding Long And Winding Sentences
Long sentences, done well, can be grammatically correct. Even the best English writing software won’t have a problem with it. Being mistake-free, however, is not the issue. The main problem is that it’s a pain to read. No matter what your writing abilities are, long sentences aren’t that difficult to avoid. So why aren’t you staying away from it?
In a way, very long sentences are the written equivalent of someone talking with nary a pause. When you talk non-stop, your listeners can find it hard to digest and understand what you’re saying. When you construct long sentences, your readers end up having to work all that much harder just to understand what you’re writing about.
Long sentences can work in literary pieces. That’s because creative work intentionally contain words designed to paint a picture. Business writing, for the most part, deals with abstract and complex ideas. They rarely craft an image in our mind, making long sentences all that much more difficult to figure out.
When first writing you copy, it’s fine not to worry too much about long and winding sentences. For some, it’s just the easiest way to lay their thoughts down to paper. You will need to clean it up afterwards, though.
Every long sentence that expresses more than one idea can be easily split into two or more. When presented with the opportunity, always do it. Your writing will be all that much clearer as a result.
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