Shape

Follow these rules, and your sentence will not be shapeless:

• Place the point near the beginning
• Get to the verb in the main clause quickly
• Do not tack on phrases and subordinate clauses after the verb
• Do not interrupt the flow too often

Starting with your point

Begin with a short, concrete subject directly followed by a verb that states a specific action. The beginning should be short and direct, and it should frame the more complex information at the end of the sentence. This is true both grammatically and logically—the beginning is the point (short and direct), and what follows is the supporting information (complex).

How to revise: openings

When you have a long opening, readers realize that they are taking in a lot of information and have not yet reached the main clause.

Get to the subject

If there is a long clause at the beginning, try moving it to the end of the sentence or making it a sentence of its own. Clauses that begin with these words usually convey known information, so keep them short when you use them:

• If
• Since
• When
• Although

Get to the verb and object

Avoid long, abstract subjects

First, underline the whole subject, then look at the first seven or eight words for these:

Nominalizations

Make it into a verb and use a character as its subject.

The school’s policing of the underclassman was a cause for concern.

The school caused concern because it policed its underclassmen.

Relative clauses

These can make a subject too long. Turn them into an introductory subordinate clause with “when” or “if”. A person that focuses on the wrong things wastes time.

When a person focuses on the wrong things, they waste time.

Long intro clause

Try moving it to the end: A person that focuses on the wrong things wastes time.

When a person focuses on the wrong things, they waste time.

A person wastes time when they focus on the wrong things.

Avoid interrupting the subject-verb connection

Move any interruption to the beginning or end of the sentence, depending on which part of the sentence it connects with best:

• Some baseball players, particularly the younger ones with little experience, do not handle the media well.

  Since some baseball players are young and inexperienced, they do not handle the media well.

  Some baseball players do not handle the media well because they are young and inexperienced.

Avoid interrupting the verb-object connection

Move any interruption to the beginning or the end, depending on where it fits best

Baseball players must, if they want to have a successful career, train in the offseason.

Baseball players must train in the offseason if they want to have a successful career.

Short prepositional phrases

If the prepositional phrase is shorter than a long object, you can place it between the verb and object:

When you revise your writing, spend the most and most efficient amount of time on drafting at the start.

When you revise your writing, spend at the start the most and most efficient amount of time on drafting.

How to revise: endings

If your sentence has endings with multiple relative clauses, try these methods.

Cut

Delete “who/that/which” + “is/was”, etc, to reduce the number of relative clauses. This sometimes requires that you turn verbs into the present participle by adding “-ing”:

Turn subordinate clauses into independent sentences

Just cut the long sentence into multiple sentences.

Change clauses to modifying phrases

There are three kinds of modifiers:

• Resumptive: A grammatical construction that repeats a key word at the end of a clause and then uses that repetition to introduce a new, elaborating phrase or clause.

  To create resumptive modifier:

  1. Find the noun that the tacked-on clause modifies
  2. Pause with a comma
  3. Repeat the noun
  4. Continue with a restrictive relative clause beginning with that.

  He should have apologized after his last mistake, a mistake that made everyone leave the dinner early.

• Summative: A construction that adds a term that sums up the sentence to that point.

  To create a summative modifier:

  1. End a grammatically complete segment of a sentence with a comma
  2. Add a term that sums up the substance of the sentence so far.
  3. Continue with a restrictive relative clause beginning with that.

  He should have apologized after his last mistake, a missed opportunity that he will regret for some time.

• Free: This comments on the subject of the closest verb. It is “free” because it can begin or end a sentence.

  To create a free modifier:

  1. End a grammatically complete segment of a sentence with a comma
  2. Add a present or past participle, or an adjective.
  3. Continue with a restrictive relative clause.

  He should have apologized after his last mistake, begging for forgiveness from his wife.

Dangling modifiers

A dangling modifier occurs when a modifier’s implied subject is different from the subject in the main clause. Fix it with one of these methods:

• If the modifier has an implied subject, name the subject to make it explicit.
• Make the implict subject of the modifier the explicit subject of the clause.

Common patterns

“After…” phrases

After reading the book, the movie was disappointing. → After reading the book, I found the movie disappointing.

“Having…” phrases

Having finished dinner, the dishes were washed. → Having finished dinner, we washed the dishes.

“To…” infinitive phrases

To improve performance, the code was rewritten. → To improve performance, the developer rewrote the code.

Revising