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Australian manual of scientific style Start communicating effectively
Avoiding long sentences ...
... that often include unnecessary words
How does this sound? (A NOAC is a novel oral anticoagulant; a kind of medicine.)
Additional research is needed to understand the safety and efficacy of the NOACs, alone or in combination, in patients with mechanical prosthetic heart valves to overcome the toxicity of this type of anticoagulation in the limited studies undertaken to date that contraindicate their use in patients who have undergone heart valve replacement with mechanical prostheses.
(Guide for authors, Journal of the American College of Cardiology)
Whoa! To deal with a long sentence:
- break it up – maybe into introduction and conclusion
- use shorter words and remove unnecessary words
- rearrange to reduce repetition.
Break it into introduction and conclusion
The limited studies undertaken to date contraindicate the use of the NOACs in patients who have undergone heart valve replacement with mechanical prostheses. The studies suggest that this type of anticoagulation is toxic in these patients. Therefore, additional research is needed to understand the safety and efficacy of the NOACs, alone or in combination, in such patients.
Breaking it up forces us to add some linking phrases, like ‘The studies suggest’. Even so, the new version is only a little longer, and leads the reader through the chain of reasoning more clearly. The sentences are shorter simply because we have broken a long sentence into several. We have not (yet) changed the vocabulary.
Use shorter words, remove unnecessary words, and rearrange
Removing unnecessary words generally requires some rearranging, so we consider these tactics together.
How about this:
The few studies done recommend against using the NOACs in patients with mechanical heart valves because this type of anticoagulation is toxic to them. More research will help us understand the safety and efficacy of the NOACs, alone or in combination, in such patients.
If done seems too plain, try reported.
The next table shows the readabilities of these 3 versions. The Flesch metric used by Microsoft Word depends on sentence length, so we get a large improvement just by breaking the sentence up. Compare your own impressions of readability with what the metric suggests.
| Version | Length (words) | Number of sentences | Words per sentence | Flesch reading ease (bigger is better) | Flesch reading grade (lower is better) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Original | 55 | 1 | 55 | 0.0 | 30+ (super expert) |
| Broken up | 57 | 3 | 19 | 31.7 | 13.5 (upper undergraduate) |
| Rearranged and rewritten | 44 | 2 | 22 | 44.1 | 12.5 (lower undergraduate) |
The sentences are longer in the third version, but it is overall considered easier to read. Does that agree with your impressions?
Activity
It can be seen that there is …
It is worth mentioning that the regulations state …
Finally, it has been noted that reading, according to most measures, is usually thought of as essential to modern life; as we have seen, this means that good reading classes are vital in early education.
We often write empty phrases out of habit, or because we keep typing while we’re thinking about what we really want to say. Strike out the useless words in the following sentences by highlighting them and clicking the strikeout button above the text (click the strikeout button again to undo). The first has been done as an example.
Generally speaking, writers can basically rely in the main on a few fundamental techniques to structure their text.
The end result was shorter in length than we had hoped, but we plan to increase the text in the future. Our writing methods and techniques enabled us to achieve our aims and objectives.
My story for the competition reached the magazine through the post one day late, so when she scored it the judge took ten points off from my assessment.
It is possible that this book is for the most part a potential bestseller.
It can be amazing how much shorter and more readable documents become when every sentence is pared down like this.
Sorry, I should say …
Documents are much more readable when every sentence is pared down.
Tip. Look for sentences that begin with It is, There are/is, and think about rephrasing them.
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| It is amazing how much more readable a document gets when every sentence is pared down. | A document gets more readable when every sentence is pared down. |
| There are many reasons to do X. These are … | Do X because … |