Sentence length one of top 2 predictors of readable copy
“Anyone who finds himself putting down several commas close to one another should reflect that he is making himself disagreeable and question whether it is necessary.”
H.W. Fowler, English lexicographer
A professor of English Literature at the University of Nebraska was the first person to link sentence length to comprehension.
In the 1880s, Lucius Adelno Sherman took the first statistical look at writing when he calculated sentence length in historical literature. In his book, The Analytics of Literature (1893), he shared how sentences were growing shorter over time:
- Pre-Elizabethan times: Sentences averaged 50 words
- Elizabethan times: 45 words
- Victorian times: 29 words
- Sherman’s own time: 23 words
Today, sentences average 20 words, reports readability expert William H. DuBay in Unlocking Language (PDF).
In the 130 years since Sherman started counting words per sentence, dozens of other researchers have proven what Sherman posed: Shorter sentences make for easier reading.
Indeed, DuBay writes, sentence length and word length have been proven in the lab — again and again — to be the two strongest indicators of reading ease.
Write sentences to be read.
Bottom line? To make your copy easier to read and understand, the studies show, write sentences that are:
- Short
- Simple
- Active
- Positive
And reduce the number of:
- Prepositions
- Dependent, embedded and other clauses
- Phrases per sentence
- Conjunctions
- Words before the verb
How do you keep your sentences short and easy to understand?
Cut Through the Clutter
Measure, monitor and manage clarity with a cool (free!) tool
Would your message be twice as good if it were half as long? The research says yes: The shorter your piece, the more likely readers are to read your message, understand it and make good decisions based on it.
But most communicators (and, let’s be fair, their reviewers) ignore the research and keep piling on the paragraphs. The result? “You’re not more informed,” writes Tom Rosenstiel, former media critic for the Los Angeles Times. “You’re just numbed.”
Analyze your message for 27 readability metrics and leave with targets, tips and techniques for improving each one.
So how long is too long? What’s the right length for your piece? Your paragraphs? Your sentences? Your words? In this session, you’ll run your team members’ message through a cool (free!) tool to measure, monitor and manage readability.
At Cut Through the Clutter — our two-day hands-on clear-writing master class on June 4-5, 2019 in Minneapolis — you’ll learn how to:
- Analyze your message for 27 readability metrics — and leave with quantifiable targets, tips and techniques for improving each one.
- Increase reading, understanding and sharing with five techniques for cutting your copy significantly.
- Avoid discombobulating readers. Leave this workshop with 11 metrics for reducing sentence length and increasing comprehension.
- Stop getting skipped. Find out how long is too long — and leave with three ways to shorten paragraphs.
- Eliminate multisyllabic pileups from your copy. They’re the No. 1 predictor of poor readability.
Learn more about our
Minneapolis master class.
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