The LONG and SHORT of It

Long sentences will make me seek intoxicating substances, if long paragraphs don't do it first. Of course there are many wonderful long sentences written by successful writers.  These famous sentences enthral us and leave us holding our breath while we wait, suffocatingly wait, for a period.

But, dear students, you do not want me to suffocate.  You want me to dance joyfully through your writing.

You do not want me to get to the end of a sentence and say, "Huh?  What was that about?" and have to wander back several pages to find the beginning of the sentence.

Here's a couple of long sentences that I lifted out of student essays.  My student wrote about seeing her boyfriend with another woman and the conversation that followed:

"He answered (sounding very sincere) that she was his last girlfriend and that she came to him because she was feeling very bad because they were not together anymore and that she begged him to go for lunch at least."

This sentence is only 40 words, but here's the problem:  too many clauses.

A clause is a subject-verb pairing.  How many clauses in the above sentence?

1. He answered (sounding very sincere)
2. that she was his last girlfriend and
3. that she came to him because
4. she was feeling very bad because
5. they were not together anymore and that
6. she begged him to go for lunch at least.

So count your words and count your clauses.  Two is okay.  Stop at three.

Here's a 49-word sentence.  My student was writing about his difficulty listening to his mother:

"It might be a cultural thing that parents from my country of origin usually behave more like dictators to their kids, and I seriously think that my relationship with mother would be way better if I could listen less defensively and if she could be less like a dictator."

 What would make this more readable?

Here's some steps to more readable sentences:

1. Count your words.  If you want to have over 25 words in a sentence, you better have a very good reason.
2. Vary sentence length.  Lots of long sentences will tire your readers.
3. Read your work over aloud.  If you start to stumble, maybe your sentences are too long.

Have compassion for your readers if you want to write better (dammit).



Answer:
It might be a cultural thing that parents from my country of origin usually behave like dictators.  My relationship with my mother would be better if I could listen less defensively and if she could be less like a dictator.

Comma Coma #5: A Subject Stands by Her Verb and Will Not Let a Comma Between Them

Subjects need their verbs to create a sentence.  A good subject and verb will not allow a comma between them.
Once upon a time, students sat in classrooms parsing sentences. They were told to put one line under the entire subject and two lines under the verb.  When you are clear on which words are the subject and which words are the verb, you might be more circumspect about tossing in your commas.

Identify the subjects and verbs in these sentences and delete or add punctuation.  Here are a bunch of sentences from my recently marked essays.

1. Seeing my kids grow and blossom like spring flowers, fills me with strength.
2. Where I want wrong, was when I took his comments to heart and did not see the real emotion behind them.
3. One of the biggest problems, was the fact that we used to earn bonuses for drafting patents.
4. One of the things that I observed about you, is that you were interested in knowing me.
5. One thing I will never forget, is the great advice you gave me.

Answer:

Delete all the commas (if you want to write better, dammit).

Comma Coma #4: She said, "He said." Writing Conversations

It seems that my appetite for comma comments is large.

 In my last blog, I recommended that you be selective in your choice of insertions.  Some commas are considered more necessary than others, such as the comma that introduces a quotation.  

My student wrote:

One day my frustration came out in a question to my manager "What would you do if I resigned?"

I'd put a comma after manager.  I'd put a comma before every quotation in order to indicate a new tone of voice and to separate the quotation from the rest of the sentence.

I would also put commas and periods inside quotation marks, like this:

"The town was just too small for that to happen," Joe told me, "and we have to placate the rowdy bullies."

Punctuating quoted material requires thought.  For example, let's take a long quotation and put our "he said" in the middle:

"My teacher is obsessed with punctuation," he said, "and is force-feeding us a solid diet of commas."

1. Why is the second comma in that sentence?  Why is "and" not capitalized?
2. How would you change the quotation and punctuation if you decided to put a period after "said"?

EDIT:  My students often want to put a period after a quotation that ends in a question mark or exclamation mark.  Here is a sentence I just read:

I should have said, "Are you saying the dress code is unreasonable?  Is that it?".

There is no need for the final period.  The question mark adequately ends the sentence.

One more thing:  

Start a new paragraph with every new speaker.

From my student's essay:

"How can I be a better listener?" I asked my wife.  She replied, "Show you're listening by looking at me, nod, smile, and take out your earbuds."  "I can hear you with my earbuds in," I replied defensively.

Rewrite:
     "How can I be a better listener?" I asked my wife.  
     She replied, "Show you're listening by looking at me.  Nod, smile, and take out your earbuds."
     "I can hear you with my earbuds in," I replied defensively.

Answers

1.  "[H]e said" should be considered an interrupting phrase and is, thus, surrounded with commas.  "And" is not capitalized because it does not start a new sentence.

2.  "My teacher is obsessed with punctuation," he said.  "He is force-feeding us a solid diet of commas."